Honest question: How much is really known about long Covid and have there been studies investigating whether similar symptoms could be caused by the vaccines as well?
(This is not a political statement. I am honestly interested in what the state of empirical evidence on the issue is and I found it hard to find out anything definite about it as a layman.)
How much do we know? Probably not as much as we might think we know.
Could it be caused by vaccinations? Probably not. There seem to be plenty of unvaccinated people with long covid. The politicization of things might make it hard to study in general. Many of the people who were not vaccinated will insist they just had the flu, or a bad cold and would have avoided any sort of official diagnosis.
Could vaccines have made it worse? This is probably even harder to answer definitivel
The symptoms remain untestable and therefore can be mixed with a host of other issues and diseases that are untestable. They will not be able to differentiate between a person with long covid, a person with long covid plus another untestable similar disease, or a person with an untestable similar disease for a long time, if ever.
We don't know what systemic effects the vaccines have because the companies lied and said the vaccines stay at the injection site (aka, therefor they don't need to do more expensive testing).
We also now know that the manufacturing process for some brands was different from the trial groups to general availability, the latter of which contained much more varied biological material.
So, what could a bunch of unpure mRNA, RNA, and DNA strands coated in an immune system-evading 'nano-coating' do to your body? God only knows at this point, we didn't do the science to find out.
There were a huge number of people who had long covid symptoms before vaccines were available.
I have not heard of people saying they contracted long covid is response to the vaccine (without getting covid) - though I will admit I've tried to stay away from long covid news these days.
I've seen people claim that the vaccines ultimately cured their long covid. My suspicion is that a significant portion of long covid cases (and I'd be willing to bet a majority) are better described as anxiety disorders. I say that as someone with a large amount of personal knowledge on the subject of anxiety gained over a lifetime. Including lots of bowel issues.
I have IBS - diagnosed long before COVID. I've had COVID a few times now and I experience very mild cold symptoms, but I have an IBS flare up each time.
I would say my flare ups have increased over the past three years, I assume now that I must be fighting off a repeat variant occasionally.
I would not at all be surprised if this just exposes existing IBS in people, maybe experiencing their first noticible flare up
To any new sufferers of IBS, I would highly recommend Metamucil or any psyllium husk product. I regret not trying it sooner.
IBS is complicated. Psyllium tore me apart inside. In fact the thing that worked best was cutting out as much nuts and vegetables as possible. For other people it's pork or coffee or certain sugars.
It's definitely a disease we need to learn more about.
It is so interesting the affects covid can have - when I most recently got covid I had a really bad joint pain flare up in my right hand and right ankle - like arthritis - it took about 6 weeks to pass, but to me it felt very linked to the covid infection.
I may not have been, but it is the first time I've had symptoms like this.
IBS is a illness that many people legitimately suffer, but also many hypochondriacs claim to have without evidence.
The symptom profile of long covid is very close to lyme disease, another disease people actually get but also many more people claim to have without evidence.
I'd like to see the overlap between long covid sufferers, IBS, lyme disease, people with a gluten allergy, PCOS etc and the level of evidence that they actually have those diseases.
Maybe part of the problem is that IBS(-like) symptoms, and many "fuzzy" / hard-to-diagnose ones (fatigue, etc) are also caused or exacerbated by anxiety and frustration and emotional distress.
So if I'm not hyperchondriac, but am frustrated and stressed by (x) random symptom or covid related (y), or being off sick w/ "normal" Covid & struggling to regain energy, then if I'm emotionally distressed by it, then may develop IBS and fatigue symptoms on top of that - which then feeds into the loop...
(Said as someone for the last several months currently struggling with a whole bunch of symptoms and not managing to get any helpful diagnosis or area I can work on to improve things...)
PCOS is a strange one for you to throw in there considering it has a physical manifestation that can be very reliably tested for via an ultrasound. The others are things that are quite often diagnosed via process of elimination and don’t have definitive tests.
"...another disease people actually get but also many more people claim to have without evidence."
Lyme disease can actually be detected. For IBS and long covid, you are making the "no true Scotsman" argument. Diagnosing those is basically filling a questionnaire asking in so many ways "do you feel like you have it?" The same is true for many mental illnesses, by the way. Not to discount people's experience of having these problems - they definitely are real - but since the "official" diagnose is very close to just people telling the doctor that they feel like they have it, self diagnosing is not as bad as you make it sound.
IBS is a syndrome (a grouping of symptoms), not a disease. It, by definition, has no clear cause or treatment. Also - it is pretty easy to prove you are experiencing these symptoms.
The body is a pretty complex thing, it can be difficult to determine the underlying cause of a symptom even if we do have an underlying understanding of what the body is doing (and sometimes we don't!).
> also many more people claim to have without evidence
I've long been curious what the ratio is in various situations like this. It seems the lynchpin for any argument for withholding support. I've only ever seen the equivalent of "well obviously" on both sides and never any data
I don't understand the mindset behind a comment like this. Where does the confidence behind this opinion come from, when the knowledge basis falls below "bothered to Google it"?
The idea of a hypochondriac making a spurious claim to IBS is pretty ludicrous. You know if you have the symptoms or not, and IBS is probably the best possible outcome for someone with chronic bowel symptoms.
Lumping PCOS in with gluten allergy is giving "shit men believe about women's health." Maybe try listening to some women before forming opinions on their reproductive health.
Or perhaps there are significant links demonstrated in murine models of the
multi-directional relationship of the gut-brain-immune axis, and that traditional models of disease are not sufficient to elucidate this?
Bit of a technical note. Patients claim is the evidence on its own. Patient may be undiagnosed, but there is an evidence for such claim.
IBS, lyme disease, all sorts of allergies are very hard (and expensive) to diagnose. Some people have no money for doctors, and may not be even registered with GP.
If customer at restaurant says they have a peanut allergy, you better to believe them. Saying "there is no evidence for such claim" may get you in troubles very fast...
I have already seen several studies with the same scope and I know microbiome companies like Biomesight have already been collecting mass data on it. What is needed is research into treatments.
My wife didn't have long COVID, but did get a mild COVID infection (vaccinated, boosted).
She didn't get IBS per se; however, we have noticed a few changes with respect to her digestive system: she seems to have developed a recent sensitivity to wheat gluten and dairy/lactose. Both now make her gassy and uncomfortable.
The timing of it seems to be coincidental with COVID. Whereas we used to get pizza once or twice a month, it's basically been removed from our diet because it causes digestive issues.
So it's possible that some folks might not be having severe IBS, but a spectrum of digestive issues related to lingering effects that trigger inflammation with certain proteins/sugars?
[+] [-] starbugs|2 years ago|reply
(This is not a political statement. I am honestly interested in what the state of empirical evidence on the issue is and I found it hard to find out anything definite about it as a layman.)
[+] [-] Tobani|2 years ago|reply
Could it be caused by vaccinations? Probably not. There seem to be plenty of unvaccinated people with long covid. The politicization of things might make it hard to study in general. Many of the people who were not vaccinated will insist they just had the flu, or a bad cold and would have avoided any sort of official diagnosis.
Could vaccines have made it worse? This is probably even harder to answer definitivel
[+] [-] psychlops|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] linuxftw|2 years ago|reply
We also now know that the manufacturing process for some brands was different from the trial groups to general availability, the latter of which contained much more varied biological material.
So, what could a bunch of unpure mRNA, RNA, and DNA strands coated in an immune system-evading 'nano-coating' do to your body? God only knows at this point, we didn't do the science to find out.
[+] [-] ljf|2 years ago|reply
I have not heard of people saying they contracted long covid is response to the vaccine (without getting covid) - though I will admit I've tried to stay away from long covid news these days.
[+] [-] badcppdev|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] hotpotamus|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] reedf1|2 years ago|reply
I would say my flare ups have increased over the past three years, I assume now that I must be fighting off a repeat variant occasionally.
I would not at all be surprised if this just exposes existing IBS in people, maybe experiencing their first noticible flare up
To any new sufferers of IBS, I would highly recommend Metamucil or any psyllium husk product. I regret not trying it sooner.
[+] [-] debacle|2 years ago|reply
It's definitely a disease we need to learn more about.
[+] [-] ljf|2 years ago|reply
I may not have been, but it is the first time I've had symptoms like this.
[+] [-] 4death4|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] willcipriano|2 years ago|reply
The symptom profile of long covid is very close to lyme disease, another disease people actually get but also many more people claim to have without evidence.
I'd like to see the overlap between long covid sufferers, IBS, lyme disease, people with a gluten allergy, PCOS etc and the level of evidence that they actually have those diseases.
[+] [-] deckiedan|2 years ago|reply
So if I'm not hyperchondriac, but am frustrated and stressed by (x) random symptom or covid related (y), or being off sick w/ "normal" Covid & struggling to regain energy, then if I'm emotionally distressed by it, then may develop IBS and fatigue symptoms on top of that - which then feeds into the loop...
(Said as someone for the last several months currently struggling with a whole bunch of symptoms and not managing to get any helpful diagnosis or area I can work on to improve things...)
[+] [-] Atsuii|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vjk800|2 years ago|reply
Lyme disease can actually be detected. For IBS and long covid, you are making the "no true Scotsman" argument. Diagnosing those is basically filling a questionnaire asking in so many ways "do you feel like you have it?" The same is true for many mental illnesses, by the way. Not to discount people's experience of having these problems - they definitely are real - but since the "official" diagnose is very close to just people telling the doctor that they feel like they have it, self diagnosing is not as bad as you make it sound.
[+] [-] reedf1|2 years ago|reply
The body is a pretty complex thing, it can be difficult to determine the underlying cause of a symptom even if we do have an underlying understanding of what the body is doing (and sometimes we don't!).
[+] [-] Bjartr|2 years ago|reply
I've long been curious what the ratio is in various situations like this. It seems the lynchpin for any argument for withholding support. I've only ever seen the equivalent of "well obviously" on both sides and never any data
[+] [-] CipherThrowaway|2 years ago|reply
The idea of a hypochondriac making a spurious claim to IBS is pretty ludicrous. You know if you have the symptoms or not, and IBS is probably the best possible outcome for someone with chronic bowel symptoms.
Lumping PCOS in with gluten allergy is giving "shit men believe about women's health." Maybe try listening to some women before forming opinions on their reproductive health.
[+] [-] jinder|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bigfryo|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zee38484|2 years ago|reply
> people claim to have without evidence.
Bit of a technical note. Patients claim is the evidence on its own. Patient may be undiagnosed, but there is an evidence for such claim.
IBS, lyme disease, all sorts of allergies are very hard (and expensive) to diagnose. Some people have no money for doctors, and may not be even registered with GP.
If customer at restaurant says they have a peanut allergy, you better to believe them. Saying "there is no evidence for such claim" may get you in troubles very fast...
[+] [-] PaulKeeble|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] user568439|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CharlieDigital|2 years ago|reply
She didn't get IBS per se; however, we have noticed a few changes with respect to her digestive system: she seems to have developed a recent sensitivity to wheat gluten and dairy/lactose. Both now make her gassy and uncomfortable.
The timing of it seems to be coincidental with COVID. Whereas we used to get pizza once or twice a month, it's basically been removed from our diet because it causes digestive issues.
So it's possible that some folks might not be having severe IBS, but a spectrum of digestive issues related to lingering effects that trigger inflammation with certain proteins/sugars?
[+] [-] PM_me_your_math|2 years ago|reply
[deleted]