3/ Data from 223 unvaxxed Mild/Mod COVID survivors
✔️ Show abnormal MRI 🧠 white matter inflammation at 9 mo vs matched controls
✔️Prolonged cellular changes occur & we don’t yet know the significance
✔️Clinical outcomes vary strikingly across studies
4/ Brain inflammation in other types of #Dementia…
🔸Is often present YEARS before memory & executive dysfunction deficits appear
🔸Don’t be complacent or assume #LongCOVID is safe for peoples’ brains
🔸It’s precarious!
🔸 I covered this haunting brain science in 🧵👇
6/ COVID survivors who died of non-covid causes (N=20)
📌 In autopsies, 60% had “enormous amounts of Spike Protein” in skull, meninges & brain - ✍🏻 author @erturklab
📌Not seen in controls
📌Similar findings in skull & brain of mice
📌 Vaxx not studied
7/ It is highly curious how these problems occurred in “neck-up” skull-meninges-brain structures 🤔
📎 Think again of long-term implications of this virus
📎 When >200 symptoms/signs occur in #LongCOVID after even mild infection
📎 Direct + indirect viral causes are at play
8/ We are sorting out risk factors for Long COVID
✔️ Eg: Obesity dampens the initial immune response to COVID
✔️ Pts w high BMI have less expression of IFN & TNF
✔️ “Leptin Resistance”👇
✔️ Could this allow ongoing viral replication & worse #LongCOVID?
🔹Using narrow and broad definitions of Long COVID
🔹Risk factors found = hypertension, chronic lung disease, obesity, diabetes & depression
🔹Time between initial COVID & LC was ~8 mos
☑️ Swedish study found 85% of people w LC at 4 mos still had cognitive, muscle & fatigue problems at 2 yrs😔
☑️ Of those unable to work at 4 mo due to LC, ~50% unable to work at 2 yrs
☑️ Massive implications if plays out 🌎
⚠️ Study of N=536 Long COVID Wave 1 or 2 pts (87% never hospitalized)
⚠️ Found single & multiple organ impairment at 6 mo in 69% & 23% ⚠️ At 1-year it was basically the same w 59% & 27%
15/ NIH-sponsored study of 825 pts in 44 centers @JAMA_current
📍Found 56% of previously hospitalized COVID survivors struggled
📍To pay bills at 6 mos due to ongoing health problems
📍Even bathing & preparing meals was hard
📍Quality of Life deficits👇
16/ Ongoing Brain problems are a plague in Pts with Long COVID
▪️Brain🔬reveals loss of supportive cells called glial cells & death of neurons
▪️Early dementia-like signs in too many #LongCOVID pts
▪️Even those who had mild symptoms during initial COVID
17/ Society just doesn’t seem to care about Long COVID
🚫 The $1B earmarked for LC research has yielded precious little
🚫 Mental & bureaucratic wranglings have stalled study teams
🚫 LC communities are beyond frustrated by delays
✔️ Importantly, there is an entity of vaccine-injury that looks very much like Long COVID
✔️ It’s real. It’s very rare compared to COVID-induced viral injury
✔️ And it’s heartbreaking
✔️ Still, the 20% in US who have a full series of shots… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
🎥 20/fin - My Hopes
🚩 Pts living w LC are the experts – LISTEN to them
🚩 Let’s find answers through hard-core science
🚩 New AHRQ network👇 is a start to make it easier for pts to get treatment, disability services, support groups
H/T @pamelarbishop
📍Here I use science to raise awareness of a growing public health nightmare hiding in plain sight
📍Matt & Barbara tell their stories
📍20 relevant medical articles
📍See 🧵unpacking science in Tweet #2
2/🧵👇Here’s the science I included in the above @statnews piece
…one medical article after another, with take home messages about neuro #LongCOVID you can digest to keep yourself safe, find hope & teach other people what we’ve learned…
3/ Matt Fitzgerald’s story shakes me - a young engineer now disabled by #LongCOVID
“I feel like I’m underwater. When you talk to me, I can hear you, but my 🧠 doesn’t understand words. I can’t comprehend what you’re saying. I have no intellectual capacity to digest data.”
“What is causing their agitation? How can you respond to it? Do they have contraindications to mobility? How do you start?”
She @DaytonICU gives complex scenarios & walks us through the process of asking, “What is their RASS? Why are we concerned about delirium? What are their risk factors for ICUAW? Why are we concerned about ICUAW? Do they have an indication for sedation?”
Let’s learn
🔹Re-infection is a worry
🔹⬆️ plasma Nucleocapsid (N) Antigen levels predict outcomes
🔹If you get COVID, the best predictor of ⬇️ N-Ag levels (ie, viral replication) is having Spike Ab
🔹You get S-Ab by Vaxx
Her excellent neurologist feels her negative work-up, young age, speed of demise, temporal onset in relation to COVID all fit LongCOVID-related brain dysfunction & not a pattern of Alzheimers.
They want to share
3/ Husband through tears: “I want my wife back.”
Her Description – “I walk down the hall & see pictures of family & trips. I feel like a ghost because I don’t remember. My husband cries because I seem gone to him.”
“I’m trying to figure out who Barbara 2.0 is going to be.”