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Comment by mjfl | Hacker News Reader

I had covid 8 months ago and have definitely experienced long term changes in taste and smell. Have a hard time experiencing sweetness. I don't enjoy apples or bananas anymore, they taste bitter, or like chemicals. I can't taste the richness of chocolate. Luckily savory has come back and I enjoy that relatively more now.

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Yep. I miss being able to enjoy French fries. I hope someday we have a treatment for it.

There was some news a while back that (mRNA?) vaccines seemed to treat or cure long COVID for some folks, but I don't know if it's accurate or still applicable: https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2021-03-09/...

Immunity acquired through vaccination or natural infection helps prevent severe illness, which is likely to reduce the risk of damage to areas of the brain responsible for smell and taste [1][2].

AFAIK, there is currently no scientific evidence supporting the idea that mRNA vaccines uniquely "treat or cure long COVID" through other mechanisms.

[1] Brain imaging before and after COVID-19 in UK Biobank https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.11.21258690v...

[2] Brain Imaging Use and Findings in COVID-19: A Single Academic Center Experience in the Epicenter of Disease in the United States http://www.ajnr.org/content/ajnr/41/7/1179.full.pdf

I don't know for certain if I had long covid but I experienced weird symptoms in my body beginning in January when there where >30,000 new cases per day in my country.

I was fatigued, had unexplainable chest pains some of the time, had problems concentrating, headaches, always a runny nose. I never did a antibody test because I self-isolated for most of the time and never met people without a mask, so I initially thought I was just developing an allergy. Multiple doctors tried to find out what was wrong but all tests where pointing to me being very healthy.

Then I got my second mRNA shot in July and all those symptoms went away, like magic. Very weird for me and maybe I had long covid and what you described happened.

Why throwaway?

Why does it matter?

Because I don't want my health history being part of my main account.

Also it's all a maybe. I don't know if I actually had long covid. It's all speculation on my part by correlating events.

While You’re the only one able to judge your personal experience and I can only go by what you have written, I have close Friends and relatives who had similar experiences. Runny nose in particular was not seen as a Covid Symptom in adults by health authorities at the time. Chest Pain is a common symptom of anxiety. All my Friends who had similar symptoms and got antibody tests prior to vaccination had no Covid antibodies. Let me suggest an alternative explanation that might or might not also apply in your case. Constant stress and anxiety about catching a horrific disease or loosing family members lowered the immune response as it is a well known effect of stress. Being fully vaccinated not only lifted that anxiety but also gave the immune system a boost. Thus no more infections with beta-coronaviruses and other viruses that caused the runny nose.

Can I ask if you've had any mRNA vaccine for COVID?

I have had one dose of moderna but got a severe fever from it so I held off from the second.

I see. The reason I asked is (and I'm not a doctor, obviously) you might've ended up avoiding the very cure you were looking for. Some people have had their long COVID symptoms heal (including smell) after a second dose. You can Google around (e.g. see [1]), it's still not Scientifically Proven™, but it seems to have helped some people. You might want to ask your doctor if the fever is a genuine, serious risk, and whether you should try to get a couple doses if not.

> She almost didn't get her second dose. But she did — and a few days later, she noticed her energy was back, breathing was easier and soon even her problems with smell were resolving.

> About 40% of the 577 long COVID patients contacted by the group Survivor Corps say they felt better after getting vaccinated.

[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/03/31/9827994...

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