"Even if you're not concerned about others, you should still care about protecting yourself from multiple infections.. news has not done a great job talking about #LongCovid. As people get infected 2, 3, 4, & more times, they are playing against the odds" lifehacker.com/where-to-find-…
"You can only get the intervention Paxlovid within 5 days of symptoms... one of the things we think helps prevent #LongCovid. Second, no one knows who will get LC, and you might need proof of that positive test in the future for insurance or benefits or even to justify sick days"
"While a RAT is unreliable for safe socializing with people for the reasons explained above, a molecular test can pretty reliably clear someone to come in your house that day, or be in close proximity."
"To explain how much it’s not 'just the flu,' COVID is now considered to be a vascular illness. That means it affects the blood vessels in your body, which go everywhere."
"Thinking of COVID as a vascular illness helps explain why #LongCovid is everything from extreme fatigue to migraines to numbness in your extremities, loss of smell and taste, extreme fatigue, and neurological and cardiovascular conditions."
“We agreed he would take a COVID test using one of my rapid home PCR tests. It was a courtesy—he felt perfectly fine— but he tested positive. By the next day, he was sick as a dog. And, by the way, the rapid antigen test he took when he got home that night was negative.”
“Cases of #LongCovid are crushing our medical system, too. The two best tools to avoid getting COVID continue to be masking and testing.. This is why home [PCR] testing kits are so important.”
“A PCR can detect even small amounts of the virus. This is why it has always been considered the ‘gold standard’ of COVID testing. These tests are generally considered accurate starting one to three days before you experience symptoms.”
“Until last year, you needed to get a PCR from a testing center, but home tests have evolved and there are now four rapid, at-home molecular COVID tests, meaning you test and get a result within 30 minutes.”
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Reminder that some of the biggest issues Americans are currently concerned about are greatly impacted by #LongCovid — & we’ve still done absolutely nothing about it.
“The bottom line is that LC is.. why wage inflation remains so high” — Apollo Global Management
“#LongCovid is why the labor force participation rate has not recovered to pre-pandemic levels, even in a situation with solid wage growth”
This continues to be a challenge for the Fed.. to get inflation quickly back to the Fed’s 2% inflation target.” cnn.com/2023/02/03/inv…
Massively impacting adolescent health and school absenteeism 👇
“When we compare the rates observed in this study to the national population, it could mean as many as 2 million people may be out of work because #LongCovid
"This is especially startling.. since the participants in this study were fairly young; the average age was roughly 40.
This has big economic impacts.. on those people individually in terms of their own income security & their ability to care for themselves and their families.”
"At the beginning of the pandemic policymakers enacted key measures to offer economic relief and support to Americans, including federal legislation..But the economic and personal costs of #LongCovid have not yet received the same level of attention"
“I was initially diagnosed with #MECFS 10 years ago..
I was unresponsive to everything until beginning rapamycin treatment, 6 mg once weekly in December 2021. I noticed an improvement in 3 weeks and by 6 weeks I was in remission.” healthrising.org/blog/2022/07/0…
“Why was I interested in this drug? In 2009, Rapamycin was found to significantly extend the lifespan of a mammal, a mouse. Only severe calorie restriction (30-40%) had previously been shown to increase lifespan and health span.”
“In the end, I turned to rapamycin because it’s an FDA-approved drug that studies suggest can help to make you younger, improve your immune functioning, and can work in the ‘elderly’.”
It’s been almost 5 years since me & millions had our lives destroyed by #LongCovid — & still no approved treatments.
Many of us are fighting for our lives to get access to off-label meds for some relief.
Where is the help? 🧵
The burden of researching & trialing potential treatments for #LongCovid has been left almost entirely on patients.
This is a disastrous public health crisis & we need medical providers to step up — & US Gov to provide guidance on the evidence to date. 2/ statnews.com/2024/10/24/lon…
I’m not convinced any meds on market will be a cure, or everyone will benefit from something — but we know there are many treatments #LongCovid pts have benefited from, sometimes significantly — but more often than not, these are pts paying exuberant private fees for access. 3/
“The American Medical Association’s top journal, JAMA, in August published a key new study and editorial about pediatric #LongCovid. The editorial cites several robust analyses and concludes that.. LC symptoms appear to occur after about 10-20% of pediatric infections.”
“The mistaken idea that children have nothing to worry about has had some help from scientists. In 2023 AMA’s pediatrics journal published a study reporting #LongCovid in kids was ‘strikingly low’..
“The results were widely publicized as feel-good news, and helped rationalize the status quo, where kids are repeatedly exposed to SARS-COV-2 in underventilated schoolsand parents believe they will suffer no serious harm.” #LongCovidKids
“Matthew Fitzgerald, a 28-year-old former engineer at Tesla, described his #LongCovid impairment during a clinic visit: ‘I’m a shell of myself. My physical issues aren’t half as bad as my brain problems. You can say brain fog, but that doesn’t come close to doing it justice.’”
"There is now ample evidence that both older and younger people with #LongCovid and other infection-associated chronic conditions are at risk of developing #Alzheimers disease and related dementias (ADRD)." nature.com/articles/d4158…
"Over the past 30 years, US$42.5 billion have been spent on Alzheimer’s research, with limited progress."