Help me out here comrades!

I’m the Doctor now.
You’re the patient.

You’re fulfilling most if not all criteria for a #MECFS diagnoses. Now it’s time for me to order tests, bloodwork & radiology.

I have no issues with budget restraints here.
First I order… …A tissue biopsy to analyze the presence of several viruses - EBV, other herpes viruses, parvoB19, and SARS-CoV-2.

Then…

When I got #LongCovid, it felt like I began to fall apart. But that was not only figuratively, I really was, literally.
Now I know the status of my neck- and spine. And it’s very seriously damaged…1/
#EDS #MEspine #MECFS #hypermobility Following imaging & evaluation at @Clinica_Teknon I have been diagnosed with -

1) CCI (Cranio-Cervical Instability) and Cranial Settling.
This means that my skull, C0, is sinking down, pressing on my spine and compressing my brainstem.

Attention all healthy Swedes.
Do you trust Sweden’s social safety net?

If you get chronically ill in Sweden, what will happen?
Is this something you think about, or do you assume that there’s an adequate safety net, that will be deployed, should you need it? Once renowned for its system of free healthcare and social security, Sweden has been slipping. Today, the number of hospital beds are among the lowest within the EU, the waiting time for treatment and surgeries longer than ever…

#Swedish #Covid study confirming the detrimental long-term effects of the coronavirus on the immunesystem akin to #HIV
Can this finally persuade #Sweden to take this virus seriously? 😭🙏🏼 liu.se/en/news-item/s… ”The effects on the T cells of the immune system are interesting and mixed. Some of them are still activated long after the disease episode, while others are ‘fatigued’ and cannot function normally. We see similar effects on patients with a chronic HIV infection.”

Autoantibodies & #LongCovid - It’s complicated 😓
⁦@C_Scheibenbogen⁩

”Several AABs correlated with symptom severity in Post Covid Syndrome groups.
Remarkably, severity of fatigue and vasomotor symptoms were associated with….” frontiersin.org/articles/10.33… ”ADRB2 AAB
levels in PCS/ME/CFS patients. Our study identified dysregulation of AAB against various receptors involved in the autonomous nervous system (ANS), vaso-, and immunoregulation & their correlation with symptom severity, pointing to their role in the pathogenesis of PCS”

This is why people with #LongCovid experience brain damage 🧠

”Our data support the model in which SARS-CoV-2 reaches the brain, infects astrocytes, and consequently, leads to neuronal death or dysfunction.” pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pn… ”Our study demonstrates structural and functional alterations in the brain tissue of COVID-19 patients, which parallel in vivo findings of cortical atrophy, neuropsychiatric symptoms, and cognitive dysfunctions.”

Yet another study that shows microvascular damage & dysfunction in #LongCovid link.springer.com/article/10.100… ”COVID-19 leaves a persistent capillary rarefication even 18 months after infection. Whether, to what extent, and when the observed damage might be reversible remains unclear.”

AGAIN - 🦠🦠🦠
“When comparing patients with post-COVID symptoms and patients without, we found that Spike protein and viral RNA were more likely to be present in patients with PASC and in some cases at higher levels compared to acute COVID-19 patients.” papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf… #viralpersistence

“The levels of SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein in the plasma and EV samples were determined using the SAR-CoV-2 (2019-nCoV) Spike protein ELISA Kit according to the manufacturer instructions (SinoBiological).”

New paper from Ron Davis et.al shows major dysfunction of immune cells in #MECFS patients.

”Accelerated exacerbated cell death in antigen-stimulated T cells in ME patients could lead to chronic persistent infection…” journals.plos.org/plosone/articl… ”significantly higher levels of both necrotic and apoptotic cell death in stimulated T cells from ME/CFS patients”

”the proportion of apoptosis & necrosis increase in stimulated T cells in patients with ME and the rate of mitochondrial swelling correlates with disease severity”

Finally out! ⁦@ArditiMd⁩
”…continuous & prolonged exposure to the viral SAg-like & neurotoxin-like motifs in SARS-CoV-2 spike may promote autoimmunity leading to the development of post-acute COVID-19 syndromes, including MIS-C and #LongCovid…” frontiersin.org/articles/10.33… In 2020, many of us #LongCovid patients begged the medical/research community to look into the connections bw MIS-C and LC. The gap (weeks) bw acute illness and LC onset was similar, as well as many symptoms - acute neuro, persistent fevers, GI, rashes, conjunctivitis etc etc.

Further evidence of persisting SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in #PASC #LongCovid patients, now if we can just #TreatLongCovid !
@harvardmed

medrxiv.org/content/10.110… ”In conclusion,
the presence of circulating spike in PASC patients up to 12 months post-diagnosis strongly suggests that SARS-CoV-2 viral reservoirs persist in the body…”

7% of participants displayed a previously unidentified set of symptoms that included cognitive deficits, tremor and difficulty balancing. The authors labeled the phenotype (with) Tremor, Ataxia and Cognitive deficit -- PASC-TAC for short. #PASC nbcsandiego.com/news/local/hal… ”At the 6-month follow-up, predominant symptoms shifted from headache and fatigue to memory impairment and decreased concentration. This trend has not been previously reported longitudinally in neuro-PASC.”

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ac…

Dogs to the rescue! 🦮 @Em23397 Emilie Seyrat et.al’s amazing SARS-CoV-2 sniffer dogs study, now covered by ⁦@TIME⁩ highlighting the enormous potential for fast & accurate screening, of both acute- and #LongCovid.
#viralpersistence time.com/6187403/covid-… Almost any dog can be trained to do this type of detection in a matter of weeks, @dgrandjean says. “We could have hundreds or thousands of dogs doing this for almost [no money], and they would be as efficient as PCR”

#LongCovid report from my backyard. It’s been an intense summer day and a packed pool. This is how I want it, being super-social at the core. Now left with some thoughts and reflections… 1st- a shoutout to the friends of #LongCovid #mecfs ppl, the ones who stick with you, even though you’re a gloomy zombie-version of your former self. The ones that says; ”We’ll bring food & dessert, so you don’t have to do anything” There’a a special place in heaven for you guys.

Long COVID is associated with extensive in vivo neuroinflammation on [18F]DPA-714 PET

1st results of a Dutch study (Amsterdam UMC and UMC Utrecht) shows extensive inflammation in the brain in two patients with #LongCovid 1/5 The images show 1 male patient who was hospitalized in the ICU, and 1 woman who went through a relatively mild Covid-19 at home. 2/5

SARS-CoV-2 persistence in the gut in #LongCovid - new study confirms it, once again.
- SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein found in 35% (up to 18 mo)
- Abnormalites in both innate and adaptive immune cells
- May signify a non-effective immune response

https://twitter.com/FreitasABR/status/1532136117134295048

New findings presented at conference -
30 #LongCovid patients and 40 controls, LC patients had: higher CD14+ monocytes in the bowel and small colon, higher dendritic cells and certain NK subsets. Also CD8+ T cells elevated in colon. CD3-CD19+ B cells lower in the terminal ileum.

SARS-CoV-2 in the eyes 👁👁 New research from Switzerland confirming earlier results from Erlangen Uni - damage to the retina…a 🧵#LongCovid

https://twitter.com/hopitaux_unige/status/1518937752015933442

1) the research team thinks that three different mechanisms could explain the retinal lesions -