> It is common — affecting anywhere from 5% to 50% of people who contract COVID-19
Studies that claim these prevalences either suffer from massive selection bias (e.g. only use COVID cases that were severe enough to end up in health records [0]) or consider even minor symptoms lasting more than a few weeks (like a persistent cough) as “long COVID.”
Upwards of 80% of the US had been infected with COVID as of June 2022 [1]. If serious long-COVID symptoms indeed occurred in 5-50% of COVID cases, that would mean 4-40% of Americans are currently suffering from debilitating long-term illness, which would be obvious on a societal level. We simply do not see this [2].
Do severe long term COVID cases exist? Absolutely, as is the case with other infections, like influenza [3]. But they are nowhere near as prevalent as otherwise reputable publications claim.
The CDC has routinely published junk science concerning Covid, yes. Is it all junk science? No. But they've proven themselves to be willing to advance "science" that is little more than propaganda.
Here's just one example so egregious that even the Atlantic had to call them out on it:
This particular study certainly is. The Pulse Survey cited was not a rigorous longitudinal case/control study, but rather a voluntary online poll with a dismal response rate of only 4-6% [0]. This could easily result in selection bias: people suffering from (or who just believe they’re suffering from) long COVID are much more likely to respond than healthy people.
Indeed, the CDC admits that it only attempted to adjust for nonresponse bias based on geographical area [1], and not anything related to actually having (long) COVID. The results of this study are totally meaningless at best, and disinformation at worst.
Covid reactivated my cold sores. I usually get one every year or two, can feel it when it's about to happen, and Abreva (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Docosanol) kills it before it even breaks the skin.
During covid I got a vicious one on my lip like I've never had before and that Abreva had no effect on, and another awful one in my nose which has never happened before. Almost the only bad effect of covid that lasted longer than the first day.
Can covid damage some immune subsystem that usually suppresses herpes?
As a long-time cold sore host, I have figured out several things that are true (for me):
1) Generally any viral infection that runs down my immune system can create a cold sore. A flu, a bad cold or covid.
2) Sometimes just stress and/or being sleep deprived will do it, but there usually needs to be at least 3-4 months since the last outbreak for that to happen.
3) You're lucky if Abreva works for you. For me, the creams do almost nothing. The only thing that seems to help is Valaciclovir oral tablets. If taken early enough, they can prevent the outbreak or make it a very small cold sore.
So, in summary, I don't think there's anything special about covid with regard to cold sores. It breaks me out about the same as any other virus that runs me down / gives me a few days of fever.
You should also probably check out Valaciclovir, as it sounds like your immune system does quite well against cold sores, so the extra boost from a more powerful antiviral might completely stop your outbreaks.
Valaciclovir is magic. I use the 1G tablet whenever I feel the tingles.
Between that, routine vitamins, and habitual chapstick use I haven’t had a bad outbreak for almost a decade. Before that I’d get one like every other month it seemed.
My cold sores are rare and rarely break the skin; I would never take something systemic rather than topical (and weak, Abreva is also a food additive) to control them. The only time they've ever been this bad was covid. I've had 1000 colds and flus over the past half-century, so I do have a basis for comparison.
You should try using hydrocortisone.
There are some studies on it in combination with antivirals and it works quite surprisingly and very cost effective....
I'm pretty sure that's why they're called cold sores, and I've had them happen during flus before, although not during the vast majority of them. Nevertheless, I haven't ever had a situation like I got with covid, and the actual covid symptoms were minor (after the first day, which was a weird intense generalized weakness that eventually went away.)
Aren't most variants of cold and flu members of the corona-family of virus? If so, it would seem logical that COVID also being a coronavirus would have the same (or at least extremely similar) effect on cold sores as other members of the same viral "family" would cause.
Just to add anecdata: both myself and partner got our booster in early december 2021. Right before christmas, my partner came down with covid. I didn't bother to isolate from her because it would have been ineffective given our living space.
I never came down with symptoms myself - but 3 weeks later, I developed shingles, aka herpes zoster. Do not recommend the experience.
Shingles outbreaks are increasingly common for those of us too old to have gotten the chickenpox vaccine but still too young to receive the shingles vaccine.
It’s miserable, and maybe your case was indeed triggered by some immune system modulation at the time, but plenty of us were having it sneak up on us in the years before too. I wouldn’t think too much of it as covid-related, per se.
They have been asking the same question about ME/CFS for decades. Either Herpes or Epstein Barr Virus, both of which often get reactivated after certain infections. So far anti virals that work against Herpes and EBV haven't done much to aid sufferers so if they are responsible no known treatments help most people.
Take this paper with a huge grain of salt. They went on a fishing expedition, then pointed an ML model at the data and reported some clusters. This is...questionable methodology. ML models will find a way to draw a discriminatory boundary for almost any classification problem.
On the other hand, there was this paper [1][2] from the NIH, which was a well-controlled, pre-registered cohort study, did pretty much every clinical test imaginable (about 150 different measurements per person), and found no measurable differences between "long covid" people and controls. This is a much better study, and rebuts the claim.
>It seems pretty serious and real when the real money and power institutions in the country are getting concerned.
or it's a convenient scapegoat to cover for their mismanagement of the economy as we deal with massive inflation and, by most common definitions, a recession
If someone lives an unhealthy life and is regularly sick. Then they get covid and they recover. Yet symptoms continue mainly because they got sick with something else. Then it's long covid?
Long covid should be trivial to prove by analyzing the antivaxxer crowd.
What percentage of the antivaxxer crowd have long covid? Is it 0%?
No. Anecdotally, a lot of the people I know with long COVID were robustly healthy pre-COVID. One dude swam a mile every day, no drugs, no drink, no smoking, normal blood pressure. Now has continuous brain fog and can’t walk up stairs without wheezing.
Speculating about the antivax crowd is unhelpful. Many of them died. Some of them are lying and did get vaxxed.
I'm pretty convinced it's not a thing, or at least it's not COVID-specific.
People are attributing every ache, pain, sniffle, fatigue, and other symptom to "long covid" when they are more likely the random things we all experience from time to time, or they are among the people who have long recoveries from severe respiratory virus infections.
Long covid, like ME/CFS and fibromyalgia, is not well understood - that does not mean that it does not exist, and suggesting that it does not is hurtful to the millions of people currently suffering with the condition.
That's what people say about my mental illness as well.
Also, In March I went into a bad psychosis, came out of it with Klonopin. The next day I did not feel well, took my temp that night; 99. Next day test COVID positive. Today my previous poor fatigue is even worse and my mood has been more unstable than ever.
I do not thing that me wanting to kill myself after walking a mile is something you all experience from time to time so shhhhhhhh.....
Any infection you have will deplete one nutrient or another, and if you have a genetic susceptibility, this depletion might be much greater than someone else. To correct these nutrition depletion to keep these viruses in check, you will need to take mega doses of the supplement for a short period.
If you are still one of these people that think zinc does not play a role in COVID outcomes I have nothing left to say but: By destroying the ACE2 receptor, SARS2 causes a depletion of zinc since zinc makes up the structure of ACE2 and prevents the recycling of zinc in the cell.
Why? Because the same thing happens with herpes but with NECTIN1 receptor and ADAM10. Low zinc means less ADAM10 activity and more NECTIN1 on the cell and therefor more herepes virus replication.
Now, many of you will come back as show me all the studies that reveal that zinc actually reduces cortisol. And I agree, but do you know why? When someone is not zinc deficiency, adding more zinc will trigger ADAM17 to cleave ACE2 off the cell and create Soluble ACE2. Zinc the ACE2 is not on the adrenal gland anymore cortisol will not be released.
But in a zinc deficient state there is not enough ACE2 to start with and ADAM17 activity is also low. By taking zinc and correcting the deficiency you will increase activity for both ACE2 and ADAM17.
If you know someone or if you have long covid, I highly suggest that you at least get your serum zinc levels tested.
How many people do you know have tried it? How many clinical studies have there been on this? How many people have tried it And it worked?
How many people know that it might take up to 240 mg of zinc sulfate for a week to correct this? How many people are taking way too small doses of any of the supplements to make a difference?
The fact that it is the simple is what is causing people to overlook it as a possibility. If you can come up with a better sourced reason why this is happening to people I’d be interested to hear it.
There’s nothing in the material I presented that is false. But yet you can’t believe it.
From prior research, the hormonal interactions around the thyroid and immune system are complex. You've boiled it down fairly well here as related to zinc.
Wasn't there some discussion about hydroxychloroquine being effectively only in conjunction with zinc as the hydroxychloroquine encourages cellular uptake of zinc. Ergo, zinc is the key ingredient.
Further, I seem to recall the book "The end of alzheimer's" (high recommend) talked alot about zinc wrt neurological health.
Lol. You think people suffering from chronic illnesses aren't trying every supplement cocktail in existence? "Just take zinc to cure long covid" is just as bad as thinking that fruit juice will cure your cancer.
Readit News
Studies that claim these prevalences either suffer from massive selection bias (e.g. only use COVID cases that were severe enough to end up in health records [0]) or consider even minor symptoms lasting more than a few weeks (like a persistent cough) as “long COVID.”
Upwards of 80% of the US had been infected with COVID as of June 2022 [1]. If serious long-COVID symptoms indeed occurred in 5-50% of COVID cases, that would mean 4-40% of Americans are currently suffering from debilitating long-term illness, which would be obvious on a societal level. We simply do not see this [2].
Do severe long term COVID cases exist? Absolutely, as is the case with other infections, like influenza [3]. But they are nowhere near as prevalent as otherwise reputable publications claim.
[0] https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/05/more-than-1-in-5-cov...
[1] https://www.healthdata.org/sites/default/files/files/Project...
[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/06/long-covi...
[3] https://www.bbc.com/news/health-58726775.amp
So the CDC is just junk science?
Nearly One in Five American Adults Who Have Had COVID-19 Still Have “Long COVID”
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2022/...
Here's just one example so egregious that even the Atlantic had to call them out on it:
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/12/mask-gui...
There have been a few others this year, alone. Here's one on long covid in kids that was abysmal:
https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/another-bad-cdc-stud...
The study you've cited as also terrible, but the other commenter on this subthread tackles it, so I won't bother.
This particular study certainly is. The Pulse Survey cited was not a rigorous longitudinal case/control study, but rather a voluntary online poll with a dismal response rate of only 4-6% [0]. This could easily result in selection bias: people suffering from (or who just believe they’re suffering from) long COVID are much more likely to respond than healthy people.
Indeed, the CDC admits that it only attempted to adjust for nonresponse bias based on geographical area [1], and not anything related to actually having (long) COVID. The results of this study are totally meaningless at best, and disinformation at worst.
[0] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/covid19/pulse/long-covid.htm
[1] https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/demo/technical-docu...
I'm not being facetious at all. I thought everyone was made aware of what seems to be the case
During covid I got a vicious one on my lip like I've never had before and that Abreva had no effect on, and another awful one in my nose which has never happened before. Almost the only bad effect of covid that lasted longer than the first day.
Can covid damage some immune subsystem that usually suppresses herpes?
1) Generally any viral infection that runs down my immune system can create a cold sore. A flu, a bad cold or covid.
2) Sometimes just stress and/or being sleep deprived will do it, but there usually needs to be at least 3-4 months since the last outbreak for that to happen.
3) You're lucky if Abreva works for you. For me, the creams do almost nothing. The only thing that seems to help is Valaciclovir oral tablets. If taken early enough, they can prevent the outbreak or make it a very small cold sore.
So, in summary, I don't think there's anything special about covid with regard to cold sores. It breaks me out about the same as any other virus that runs me down / gives me a few days of fever.
You should also probably check out Valaciclovir, as it sounds like your immune system does quite well against cold sores, so the extra boost from a more powerful antiviral might completely stop your outbreaks.
Between that, routine vitamins, and habitual chapstick use I haven’t had a bad outbreak for almost a decade. Before that I’d get one like every other month it seemed.
virus knows you have crawled out from under your rock and it is time to party.
I know there is literature to suggest that Cold Sore outbreaks in an individual generally occur during cold and flu outbreaks.
Covid is a cold, anyway. A strong, strange cold.
I never came down with symptoms myself - but 3 weeks later, I developed shingles, aka herpes zoster. Do not recommend the experience.
It’s miserable, and maybe your case was indeed triggered by some immune system modulation at the time, but plenty of us were having it sneak up on us in the years before too. I wouldn’t think too much of it as covid-related, per se.
Dead Comment
Increases in exhausted immune T cells and lower levels of cortisol.
Also, patient reported outcomes alone are sufficient to identify Long COVID patients with ~90% accuracy.
https://twitter.com/VirusesImmunity/status/15573941922251571...
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.08.09.22278592v...
On the other hand, there was this paper [1][2] from the NIH, which was a well-controlled, pre-registered cohort study, did pretty much every clinical test imaginable (about 150 different measurements per person), and found no measurable differences between "long covid" people and controls. This is a much better study, and rebuts the claim.
[1] https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/98885...
[2] https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M21-4905
It seems pretty serious and real when the real money and power institutions in the country are getting concerned.
Beware this sort of reasoning, especially after Havana Syndrome.
or it's a convenient scapegoat to cover for their mismanagement of the economy as we deal with massive inflation and, by most common definitions, a recession
It’s been stable all my life and shot up in the span of a month.
Long covid should be trivial to prove by analyzing the antivaxxer crowd.
What percentage of the antivaxxer crowd have long covid? Is it 0%?
Speculating about the antivax crowd is unhelpful. Many of them died. Some of them are lying and did get vaxxed.
People are attributing every ache, pain, sniffle, fatigue, and other symptom to "long covid" when they are more likely the random things we all experience from time to time, or they are among the people who have long recoveries from severe respiratory virus infections.
Also, In March I went into a bad psychosis, came out of it with Klonopin. The next day I did not feel well, took my temp that night; 99. Next day test COVID positive. Today my previous poor fatigue is even worse and my mood has been more unstable than ever.
I do not thing that me wanting to kill myself after walking a mile is something you all experience from time to time so shhhhhhhh.....
If you are still one of these people that think zinc does not play a role in COVID outcomes I have nothing left to say but: By destroying the ACE2 receptor, SARS2 causes a depletion of zinc since zinc makes up the structure of ACE2 and prevents the recycling of zinc in the cell.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S120197122...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18880-0
And hey and guess what. They find that people with zinc deficiency have more herpes out breaks!
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3283972/
Why? Because the same thing happens with herpes but with NECTIN1 receptor and ADAM10. Low zinc means less ADAM10 activity and more NECTIN1 on the cell and therefor more herepes virus replication.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2906284/
So what might be happening with the low cortisol they speak of in the study?
ACE2 is all over the adrenal gland, and when ACE2 is destroyed the adrenal gland shuts down and cannot release as much cortisol.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fendo.2020.5931...
Now, many of you will come back as show me all the studies that reveal that zinc actually reduces cortisol. And I agree, but do you know why? When someone is not zinc deficiency, adding more zinc will trigger ADAM17 to cleave ACE2 off the cell and create Soluble ACE2. Zinc the ACE2 is not on the adrenal gland anymore cortisol will not be released.
https://www.mdpi.com/viruses/viruses-12-00491/article_deploy...
But in a zinc deficient state there is not enough ACE2 to start with and ADAM17 activity is also low. By taking zinc and correcting the deficiency you will increase activity for both ACE2 and ADAM17.
If you know someone or if you have long covid, I highly suggest that you at least get your serum zinc levels tested.
How many people know that it might take up to 240 mg of zinc sulfate for a week to correct this? How many people are taking way too small doses of any of the supplements to make a difference?
The fact that it is the simple is what is causing people to overlook it as a possibility. If you can come up with a better sourced reason why this is happening to people I’d be interested to hear it.
There’s nothing in the material I presented that is false. But yet you can’t believe it.
From prior research, the hormonal interactions around the thyroid and immune system are complex. You've boiled it down fairly well here as related to zinc.
Wasn't there some discussion about hydroxychloroquine being effectively only in conjunction with zinc as the hydroxychloroquine encourages cellular uptake of zinc. Ergo, zinc is the key ingredient.
Further, I seem to recall the book "The end of alzheimer's" (high recommend) talked alot about zinc wrt neurological health.
Dead Comment
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3897803/#:~:text=Zinc%20ions....
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22845574
Wouldn't that be known by now given that nutrient deficiencies should probably be part of a standard test for long-covid patients?
That's not remotely what I said.
Do you genuinely believe it is objectively true that each person is doing this?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32632583
The parts I understand make sense. I'm not familiar with some of the things you talk about.