Long Covid isn’t as unique as we thought

[jmyrlefuller]

https://www.vox.com/22298751/long-term-side-effects-covid-19-hauler-symptoms

by Julia Belluz
March 11, 2021

The phenomenon, sometimes called “post-viral syndrome,” has been documented for more than a century, as far back as the 1918 Spanish flu, when there were Spanish flu long-haulers — scores of people who survived the deadly virus but had long-term symptoms, including depression, sleeplessness, “loss of muscular energy,” and “nervous complications.”

Even “Covid dementia” isn’t really new: According to a recent historical review, early reports of the “common symptom of altered cognition” surfaced during the Russian flu pandemics of 1889 and 1892.

“I can’t find a single thing that the SARS-CoV-2 virus can do, that other viruses cannot,” Proal said. “It’s well understood and it’s been understood for decades that every major pathogen capable of infecting people has a syndrome associated with it in which a certain number of patients who get that pathogen,” she continued, “will develop chronic symptoms that never go away.”

Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome is one of those persistently under-recognized, underfunded, chronic conditions. ME/CFS, as it’s known, afflicts up to 2.5 million Americans every year, mostly women, with persistent symptoms ranging from fatigue and dizziness to sore throat and muscle pain. Recently, ME/CFS patients and their doctors have been pointing to the overlap with long Covid, conditions that US health official Anthony Fauci has called “very strikingly similar.”

“A proportion — usually around 30 percent — of survivors of any medical condition report high rates of fatigue, sleep disturbance, brain fog, pain, depression, and anxiety that interfere with their ability to live fully,” she said. Diseases like cancer and Covid-19 may have different causes, but they share something in common when symptoms persist: If doctors can’t find a biological explanation for what’s troubling their patients, patients have trouble being believed. “I think a lot of patients [feel], ‘This physician doesn’t get it,’ or, ‘This physician thinks it’s all in my head.’”

The idea that long-Covid symptoms have a psychological basis came up at a recent research meeting Proal attended. A colleague noted the fact that more women than men present with the condition.

(excerpt)