Thread by @ahandvanish

I think a lot of people assume #LongCovid is a continuation of the acute COVID symptoms, that just take a long time to get over.

In reality it is an often delayed onset of *new* neurological, immunological, cardiovascular, and systemic symptoms.

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We know a lot about #LongCovid by now. We know it has complex, multi-systemic, interlinking causes, including microclots, deformed blood cells, immune system dysfunction, dysfunction of mitochondria (which are responsible for energy production - dysfunction is a big deal!)

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We know enough about #LongCovid to know it's not a simple illness, & is causing major systems of the body to become dysfunctional in ways that medicine is not yet advanced enough to fix.

We know for many manifestations, incl dysautonomia, microclots, ME/CFS, there is no cure. 3/

Too tired to continue this thread atm but if you are someone who thought #LongCovid was just "not getting better from Covid symptoms", please update your models. 4/

Will also just add: #LongCovid is not having one or two random symptoms. In our @patientled data we found patients experienced an *average* of 56 symptoms. It's really hard to mistake.

https://twitter.com/ahandvanish/status/1343293603569872896?s=20&t=PXphRXMI9ZC1xUUJ6M8khw

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If you are experiencing #LongCovid, I recommend joining @itsbodypolitic wearebodypolitic.com/covid19

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@itsbodypolitic Also adding a fact I wish everyone knew: #LongCovid is associated with fewer (or no!) COVID antibodies.

(medrxiv.org/content/10.110… & medrxiv.org/content/10.110…)

Also high levels of autoantibodies seen in LC anticorrelate with protective COVID antibodies!

https://twitter.com/ahandvanish/status/1490500135104700416

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