- When our body is infected by a virus, our immune system responds by triggering inflammation to try and kill it. A certain level of inflammation is needed for the body to protect itself. But for some reason, in some COVID-19 patients the inflammation doesn’t go away. Smith says that the nature of the inflammation persisting in these patients appears to change over time, and may be related to the long-term features of the disease. Unravelling these details may shed light on why the virus affects people in such different ways.
There's a similar concept with Lyme Disease. A lot of people who had Lyme claim continuing symptoms, but there's absolutely no evidence for it and there is a lot of contention about the whole thing. With Lyme, it's "Chronic Lyme". Ebola also has post-disease syndrome. I'm sure there are more, but my High School Biology final paper was on whatever we wanted, and I went with Post-Ebola Syndrome, and my college capstone was on Lyme, which you can't write a long ass paper on Lyme without mentioning chronic Lyme, so those are the two I'm somewhat well-versed on. Also, fuck every physician who prescribes basically unlimited antibiotics for shit like chronic Lyme and just the generic over-prescription of antibiotics.
I've known three people with chronic lyme. It's a pigfuck. Has been lo these many decades. One of them responded best to like transfusions and ketamine at which point you are so on beyond zebra with the medical establishment that you might as well try crystals'n'shit for all the assistance you're gonna get.
Here's what that looks like from a patient perspective: "Since we don't have any test results from March it's abundantly clear that you never had COVID. But then we let you take an antibody test so clearly you had COVID. Except it came back negative so obviously you never had COVID. Except the only test we'd let you take has lost FDA approval in the interim so obviously you had COVID. Except all your blood tests have come back mostly okay so obviously you never had COVID. Except your pulse ox is really troubling so obviously you had COVID. Except this chest X-Ray shows that you have no ground-glass occlusions so you obviously never had COVID. Except this EKG shows you have borderline pathological Q-waves so you obviously had COVID. So go get a pulmonary function test so we can play another round of Schroedinger's COVID, and then let's do a cardiac stress test so we can play another round of Schroedinger's COVID." You literally ricochet between "martyr" and "liar" about seven times a minute. You can watch it in their eyes. They are, as a community and as individuals, figuring out their attitude on post-COVID symptoms and they will absolutely, positively do it in real-time with you as their exemplar.“Many patients who suspect they have long COVID say they feel dismissed by their GPs – some are even being told it’s psychosomatic,” says Sithole, “but from my experience, a good number of them really did have COVID.”