Long Covid has the same symptoms as stress, anxiety and depression, which are to be expected after contracting a pandemic level virus and being forced to isolate. Is there any proof yet that it is any more than that?
I've had heart problems to the point that I can't do any exercise more vigorous than walking without getting heart pain severe enough to make me stop immediately, and often suffering from extreme fatigue in the days afterwards. I was previously a reasonably fit 28 year old who regularly danced, occasionally went to the gym etc.
It's nothing like depression. The symptoms are very much physical.
What are the stats on that, especially vs. other severe respiratory diseases?
Asking because I've had "long covid" since long before there was a COVID, so either everyone's making a bigger deal out of it than necessary, or I'm actually much worse off relative to normal than I thought and I should really be questioning my doctors.
> Asking because I've had "long covid" since long before there was a COVID
Well that isn’t “Long Covid” then. Symptoms can come from a variety of causes, and just because you suffered some of the same symptoms unrelated to a Covid infection doesn’t mean that others won’t experience similar symptoms after Covid.
So what are the percentages of people who will have long-term symptoms from Covid, how does that compare in severity and frequency to other respiratory diseases, and if it wasn't something people cared about before Covid, why do they care now?
> how does that compare in severity and frequency to other respiratory diseases
I’m not sure and that’s a very wide question, but the main difference is we have never had such a large amount of the population get a respiratory disease so quickly because of the transmissability.
> if it wasn't something people cared about before Covid, why do they care now?
Some people cared about it before Covid, and now more people care about it because it’s becoming more prevalent with the spread of Covid.
I mean to ask the same question - why didn’t people really care about respiratory viruses until about 2 years ago?
^ It's worth underscoring here that nocebo symptoms are absolutely real symptoms, they just aren't caused by the thing you think they're caused by!
It's not unreasonable to suspect that the nocebo effect is responsible for at least a very large portion of "long COVID" cases, particularly as many associated symptoms, such as brain fog, are very hard to test for!
The social isolation, stress, lack of sun and exercise, bad diets, and other side effects of the hypochondriac society we now live in are largely responsible for what is called long-covid.
I think lung damage found in some cases is likely fairly typical post-covid, but my theory is that this is common after any harsh illness involving the respiratory system whether it’s cold/flu/covid, we just weren’t looking for it nearly as often before.
