Study sheds light on coronavirus ‘long-haulers,’ but experts still lack clear picture

[Abrin]

https://globalnews.ca/news/7335744/coronavirus-long-hauler-study/

The part of this article that really jumped out at me was this:

"The bottom line is this — COVID-19 is not simply a disease of the respiratory tract. It is not another flu virus. This virus has the potential to infect every organ system in the body, and this may account for these long-term symptoms. When they looked at objective data, like blood tests and other medical testing, they found very little in the way of abnormalities. "

Does this mean that we are actually and finally at a culture shift where Western medicine now is willing to admit that our current medical testing may not be able show if someone is suffering from a real and long-term illness? And that you can't just claim it is all in someone's head just because something doesn't show up during testing?

I mean, because if that does happen that would be freaking amazing!

 

[Rufous McKinney]

Does this mean that we are actually and finally at a culture shift where Western medicine now is willing to admit that our current medical testing may not be able show if someone is suffering from a real and long-term illness

You would sure think the opportunity for recognizing post viral syndromes...at the moment should- lead to improved recognition of what we have faced.

 

[Rufous McKinney]

When they looked at objective data, like blood tests and other medical testing, they found very little in the way of abnormalities.

Time and time again: medicine does not measure or document or quantify: what is actually wrong.

Standard tests- we've seen for years that those types of tests often fail to find anything wrong (yet, our mitochondria are fragmenting, our blood contains "something", our red blood cells don't deform, our brains are inflamed) Anybody care to examine my lower brain stem:? Nah.

Current medical testing is extremely limited and does not look at complex neurological and immunological problems. The immunologist here locally: refused to see me. How nice.

 

[Shen]

I did had a covid infection back in june. alongside a round of antibiotics I started with every problem I have now.

If it wasn't because of this, I would have never found such a wonderful community here and never learned about how truly complex and serious ME can be, keep in mind I study medicine and the only thing I knew about ME/CFS was that TED talk from jen. (wich back in the day terrified me so I avoided reading further, which is ironic now considering my position)

So in one way I truly despise Covid for my case, and for another I´m just glad that covid existed. so people here can finally being taken seriously, so medicine can finally catch up to chronic illness and stop dodge the problem with the psychological-and-emotional-issues card.

 

[Abrin]

So in one way I truly despise Covid for my case, and for another I´m just glad that covid existed. so people here can finally being taken seriously, so medicine can finally catch up to chronic illness and stop dodge the problem with the psychological-and-emotional-issues card.

The saddest thing about this whole pandemic for me has been the fact that if the medical profession would of took people with ME/CFS seriously decades ago then the researched needed to help other people with post-viral syndrome would always exist for the long-haulers now.

I can't lie that I am feeling hopeful for the first time in forever about the future of funding for ME/CFS research but I am also feeling incredibly guilty that it will end up coming on the backs of wonderful people like you.

 

[Pyrrhus]

For those who want to read the details of the study, here it is:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.12.20173526v1

Note that it has not yet been peer-reviewed. (But it probably will be.)