For those of us with any long-covid issues, also know as covid long haulers. (1 Viewer)

[DaveXA]

About 16 million working-age Americans have long-term Covid and 2-4 million are out of work because of its ill effects, according to a new reportfrom the Brookings Institution.

Employers have complained of labor shortages throughout the pandemic, and the analysis of data from the US Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey, which collects data from Americans through a survey on education, employment, health and housing, suggests one possible reason for the lack of workers.

The report found that about 16 million Americans between 18 and 65 have long Covid. Of these people, who are considered of working age, they estimate that 2 to 4 million are out of work because of their symptoms……

Long Covid keeping 2-4 million Americans out of workforce, report says

About 16 million working-age Americans have long-term Covid, according to a Brookings Institution report

www.theguardian.com

That's a whole lot of people. Geez.

 

[dtc]

That's a whole lot of people. Geez.

Yep. It's a ton of people and with more than 1m dead it's a shock how we handled it.

 

[Optimus Prime]

I feel like this should be a bigger story

2-4 million Americans who could and should be working but aren’t because of covid after effects?

And doctors still aren’t sure exactly what it is, or how to treat it

 

[Optimus Prime]

Sad article (but they all are)
============

The young man pulled something from behind both ears. “I can’t hear anything without my new hearing aids,” said the 32-year-old husband and father. “My body is broken, Doc.”

Once a fireman and emergency medical technician, he’d had covid more than 18 months before and was nearly deaf. He was also newly suffering from incapacitating anxiety, cognitive impairment and depression.

Likewise, a 51-year-old woman told me through tears: “It’s almost two years. My old self is gone. I can’t even think clearly enough to keep my finances straight.”

These are real people immersed in the global public health catastrophe of long covid, which the medical world is struggling to grasp and society is failing to confront.


As such stories clearly indicate, covid is biologically dangerous long after the initial viral infection. One of the leading hypotheses behind long covid is that the coronavirus is somehow able to establish a reservoir in tissues such as the gastrointestinal tract. I believe the explanation for long covid is more sinister.


The science makes it increasingly clear that covid-19 turns on inflammation and alters the nervous system even when the virus itself seems to be long gone. The virus starts by infecting nasal and respiratory lining cells, and the resulting inflammation sends molecules through the blood that trigger the release of cytokines in the brain. This can happen even in mild covid cases.

Through these cell-to-cell conversations, cells in the nervous system called microglia and astrocytes are revved up in ways that continue for months — maybe years. It’s like a rock weighing down on the accelerator of a car, spinning its engine out of control.

All of this causes injury to many cells, including neurons. It is past time we recognized this fact and began incorporating it into the ways we care for those who have survived covid.

For too long, the mysteries of long covid led many health-care professionals to dismiss it as an untreatable malady or a psychosomatic illness without a scientific basis. Some of this confusion comes down to the stuttering cadence of scientific progress.

Early in the pandemic, autopsy findings from patients who died of covid “did not show encephalitis or other specific brain changes referable to the virus” as one report noted. Patients with profound neurological illnesses resulting from covid-19 had no trace of the virus in the cerebrospinal fluid encasing their brains.

These studies left most medical professionals mistakenly convinced that the virus was not damaging the brain. Accordingly, we narrowed our focus to the lungs and heart and then scratched our heads in wonder at the coma and delirium found in more than 80 percent of covid ICU patients.

A robust study from the Netherlands showed that at least 12.5 percent of covid patients end up with long covid three months afterward, yet because “brain fog” wasn’t identified until later in the pandemic, these investigators didn’t include cognitive problems or mental health disorders in the data they collected.

Thus, this otherwise beautifully executed study almost certainly underestimated the rate of long covid……

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/08/25/long-covid-brain-science-fog-recovery/

 

[Optimus Prime]

In many countries around the world, the hope is that the worst of the coronavirus pandemic is over. People have stripped off their masks. Quarantine rules are vanishing.


But three years in, there is still no standard test or treatment for post-covid conditions.

Millions suffer from unexplained symptoms that many fear will far outlast the pandemic: unrelenting fatigue, memory loss, chest pain, diarrhea and boomeranging heart rates.

Data collected in June by the U.S. Census Bureau and analyzed by the National Center for Health Statistics showed that nearly one in five Americans who developed covid-19 still have long covid symptoms.

“Globally, no one understands what’s going on,” said Laurent Uzan, a French sports cardiologist who treats younger people with long covid. “We don’t give people a miracle cure. It’s a real war for them, daily.”


To understand how people around the world are coping, we invited readers to share their experiences with long covid, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines as a chronic condition in which symptoms appear for at least four weeks after the initial infection……

Here are five stories from survivors with whom we spoke over several months. These interviews have been condensed and edited for clarity, and in some cases translated into English.

Sherene Magana Cruz, Melbourne, Australia


The 51-year-old nursing home worker contracted the coronavirus in July 2020 and spent weeks in intensive care. She is one of 200 critically ill patients being studied for long covid. Australian clinicians say she’s unlikely to ever recover fully.

She’s back at work, but only one day a week, and she’s struggling to pay her bills. Her medical treatments, including weekly physiotherapy sessions funded by workplace insurance, are about to run out…….

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/26/long-covid-chronic-symptoms-fatigue/

 

[Optimus Prime]

Women account for almost two-thirds of long Covid cases, according to a new study of the illness in multiple countries.

Extreme tiredness, loss of smell, shortness of breath, and muscle aches are some of the most widely-reported symptoms of long Covid, which affects about six percent of Covid-19 patients.

The NHS says most long people with long Covid fully recover after 12 weeks but that some experience symptoms for longer.

The latest report, carried out by the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found women constituted 63 per cent of those with long Covid…….

Almost two-thirds of long Covid patients are women, study finds

Researchers believe differences in immune responses could explain gender gap

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Optimus Prime]

The story of long Covid is just beginning, and no one – not even the experts – knows how it will play out.

The “known knowns” are that few, if any, health systems around the world are equipped to cope with the parallel pandemic of long Covid. It will have profound social and economic impacts above and beyond the already devastating effects of acute Sars-CoV-2 infection.

The “known unknowns” are the major gaps in our understanding of long Covid’s physiology – who it affects, why and how – and how these gaps are hampering attempts to treat those with the syndrome.

Experts say some solutions are obvious: better diagnostic criteria, better testing, better clinical trials and individualised treatments, alongside support systems for those affected. And most important of all, not getting sick in the first place. But will those solutions be deployed in time to mitigate the effects of the “mass disabling event” that has already begun?

Eight experts from around the world share their insights, questions and fears about the future of – and with – long Covid……

How will long Covid play out over the coming years? Eight experts weigh in

The story of long Covid is just beginning, and no one knows how it will play out. Experts from around the world share their insights, questions and fears

www.theguardian.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

I was an athlete – now I’m 30 and in a wheelchair thanks to long Covid

I know a runner, a fighter, a coach are still in me. But I don’t feel like her any more

www.theguardian.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

From overwhelming fatigue to brain fog that makes it impossible to complete daily tasks, long Covid is having a devastating impact on people’s lives around the world.

But with no test for the chronic condition, it has proven difficult to measure how many people are living with the syndrome weeks, months and even years after contracting the virus. It is an umbrella term describing an array of physical and neurological symptoms, including ones like memory issues.


A recent callout asking Guardian readers for their experience with long Covid received nearly 2,000 responses from people in the Americas, Asia, Africa, Europe and Oceania.

Many respondents described their struggle to have their condition taken seriously by doctors, family and friends; others spoke of difficulties getting an official diagnosis and being recognized as disabled by their workplace or government. Some also said they had been financially affected after having to take significant time off work, reduce their hours or stop working entirely, reflecting a survey that found one in five workers were not working as a result of illness, while almost half of those had reduced their hours.

Here, seven people from around the world share their experiences of living with long Covid, and the impact it has had on their physical and mental health, ability to work and relationships.

‘A year on, I’m still bed bound in a dark quiet room’​

Kelly Meiners.
“Before Covid I ran five to 10 miles and lifted weights six days per week. When I tested positive in October 2021, it was mild, I was able to work remotely all week. A few days later, I noticed involuntary muscle twitching, confusion, aphasia, dizziness, poor balance, difficulty waking and fatigue. We went to the ER because my husband thought I was having a stroke.

“It became much more severe over the next few months, having seizures, migraines, hallucinations and severe cognitive issues. I received my long Covid diagnosis from a neurologist at Mayo [Clinic] in April 2022. Even with the visible seizures and inability to walk, my local hospital listed psychosomatic causes in my medical records.

“I’m still bed and sofa-bound in dark quiet rooms and I’m unable to perform any activity longer than 10 minutes. I only leave the house for medical appointments because the stimulation causes severe fatigue that lasts for days to weeks. When I leave I use a wheelchair and use a walker in the house. I shower just every four days because [exertion] knocks me down for a full day afterwards.

“My job terminated me in June and I’m a shadow of my former self. My cognition is slowly improving and over the past month I have more clear-minded moments. Unfortunately I’m now acutely aware of missing out on life. I’ve been told that I need to grieve my former self but I refuse to give up hope.”

Kelly Meiners, 46, Missouri, former associate professor and physical therapist…..

Over 2,000 Guardian readers told us about their long Covid fight. Here are their stories

The chronic condition has an array of physical and neurological symptoms, but most remain misunderstood

www.theguardian.com

 

[itztime]

GME halted. Just let this baby run. All on zero news. Let this be over. It’s gonna happen. Pay up.

Gamestop giving out the jab now?

 

[Turfie]

Gamestop giving out the jab now?

Oops! Wrong thread haha

 

[Optimus Prime]

For the burgeoning population of covid long-haulers, there is an abundance of new treatment options: Specially formulated nutraceuticals imported from India that promise to “get you life back from covid.”

Pure oxygen delivered in a pressurized chamber. And, if time and money are no obstacle, a process known as “blood washing” that’s available in Cyprus, or $25,000 stem cell treatments in the Cayman Islands.


Months-long waits at long-covid clinics combined with the sluggish pace of research have left vulnerable patients clamoring for immediate care as manufacturers bring novel remedies to market, often with little data behind them.


“I have tried, I would say, as many different things as anyone could do in my situation,” said Donna Davis-Doneghy, a 62-year-old accountant with Hearthside Food Solutions in London, Ky., who has been tormented by headaches since coming down with covid in November 2020.

“People will say to me, ‘Here’s a phone number,’ and off I go chasing something different,” said Davis-Doneghy, whose treatment regimen has ranged from acupuncture and Botox to nerve-block injections and vitamin infusions.


Long covid has taken to new heights a medical conflict that shows up with cancer and other dire diagnoses: the tension between the desire for evidence and the pressing needs of patients who are suffering.

In their rush for relief, patients are turning to unproven treatments, putting them at risk of potentially harmful health effects as well as having their hopes dashed and their wallets emptied.

Doctors often follow the practice of prescribing drugs off-label, not for the purpose the Food and Drug Administration originally approved them for……..

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/11/25/long-covid-treatments-unproven-brain-fog/

 

[Poppy]

The funny think about smell. I still have some smell issues but I dont mind them, I can no longer smell bad smells. So people who dont bathe, rotten anything or crop dusting has no impact on me.

same thing for me. I can't smell stinky things either.. glad to see someone else has this

 

[faceman]

same thing for me. I can't smell stinky things either.. glad to see someone else has this

A co worker of mine has the same issues. 2 years later and she still can't smell and her taste is off.

 

[CajunInVA]

same thing for me. I can't smell stinky things either.. glad to see someone else has this

My sense of smell is all over the place. I have olfactory hallucinations - especially smelling cigarette smoke when no one around is smoking - and peanut butter smells/tastes awful after being one of my favorite treats my entire life. The one positive now is that I’m no longer cilantro sensitive. Used to hate the stuff with a passion and could detect tiny amounts of it, but now it’s nothing to me.