bertiedog
Senior Member
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- South East England, UK
Whilst sitting on a bench in my local park I listened to a BBC Radio 4 programme this afternoon from the BBC Inside Health team. They spoke with 3 Long Covid sufferers who had been ill for nearly 2 years. It was a follow up to when they met one year ago and compared their symptoms and general health to then and now.
The similarities to ME/CFS was mentioned by the expert Dr David Strain many times and he suggested what might be happening to cause these symptoms in Long Covid patients stressing that many of them could be unique to the individuals but they always seemed to fall under 3 or 4 categories as to what could be going on,
(From memory) - persistent virus inside cells probably the gut, an autoimmune reaction - though he felt this had been discounted recently because some suffererers of Long Covid improve after vaccination which is contrary to what would happen if an autoimmune reaction was the culprit, micro-clots blocking detoxification of cells causing the fatigue, brain fog PEM and finally damage to the mitochondria from the original virus could be a cause because these damaged mitochondria would impact the brain and energy system and all the issues we know exist.
He mentioned research is being done in the UK and US on Long Covid patients and repurpose of certain drugs would be trialled. If successful in the Long Covid patients then he hoped they could also be trialled in ME patients.
Though it was sad to hear howthe lives of 2 out of the 3 people being interviewed had been devastated by the illness, the third person who had moved to Canada was now greatly improved but he still had to live within a certain energy envelope.
I found this programme gave some hope to ME patients and of course Long Covid patients plus I was very encouraged to hear a UK expert who is treating patients explaining how PEM was caused by doing too much and how this should be avoided. There was never any mention of CBT or pyscological techniques being helpful with Long Covid or ME. He did say that there was massive disagreement over these sort of issues in the UK but it was obvious he discounted them.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0015b0g
Pam
The similarities to ME/CFS was mentioned by the expert Dr David Strain many times and he suggested what might be happening to cause these symptoms in Long Covid patients stressing that many of them could be unique to the individuals but they always seemed to fall under 3 or 4 categories as to what could be going on,
(From memory) - persistent virus inside cells probably the gut, an autoimmune reaction - though he felt this had been discounted recently because some suffererers of Long Covid improve after vaccination which is contrary to what would happen if an autoimmune reaction was the culprit, micro-clots blocking detoxification of cells causing the fatigue, brain fog PEM and finally damage to the mitochondria from the original virus could be a cause because these damaged mitochondria would impact the brain and energy system and all the issues we know exist.
He mentioned research is being done in the UK and US on Long Covid patients and repurpose of certain drugs would be trialled. If successful in the Long Covid patients then he hoped they could also be trialled in ME patients.
Though it was sad to hear howthe lives of 2 out of the 3 people being interviewed had been devastated by the illness, the third person who had moved to Canada was now greatly improved but he still had to live within a certain energy envelope.
I found this programme gave some hope to ME patients and of course Long Covid patients plus I was very encouraged to hear a UK expert who is treating patients explaining how PEM was caused by doing too much and how this should be avoided. There was never any mention of CBT or pyscological techniques being helpful with Long Covid or ME. He did say that there was massive disagreement over these sort of issues in the UK but it was obvious he discounted them.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0015b0g
Pam