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Comment by beebmam | Hacker News Reader

Paxlovid is one of the most incredible antiviral medications ever created. I can't wait to see COVID-19 become a virtual non-issue (for mortality) when this medication is available everywhere.

As for COVID-19 morbidity, I am still quite concerned. We still don't know much about Long COVID-19, but a significant percent of people seem to be experiencing it with the Omicron variant. Not to mention other possible morbidities that may come from COVID-19: Diabetes, DVTs, kidney damage, and others

edit: Please keep in mind that the animals which were bred for and tested upon in the studies that led to this medication being discovered had no choice in the matter, and I personally have a hard time justifying this practice ethically. Animal testing may lead to better discoveries, but the same exact argument could be made for forced human testing.

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Got COVID around Christmas. I don't know which variant. It went as a regular flu for 3-4 days, then 2 days feeling better and thinking I am recovering. 6-th day getting fever again, lots of sweating, heart rate up to 90 from 65, feeling bad for 3-5 days. Apart from aspirin and vitamins I started taking Cefuroxime for 5 days (not sure if the latter was 100% necessary, some doctors prescribe it, some not). At day 9 got another examination. Chest x-ray and cardiogram normal, body temperature still high (38C / 100F), heart rate still high, blood pressure normal. Starting to feel much better around day 14, but still not feeling recovered and heart rate was around 80. At day 20 most symptoms were gone, but still got a bit higher heart rate than usual, and some residual coughing, esp when doing some light to moderate physical activity.

Now that more than a month has passed since initial symptoms, I still feel that my heart and blood circulation is not back to normal and I am a bit afraid to exercise. I only do some walks on a moderately steep trail and some stretching.

I don't know if this counts as a long covid, but definitely it feels a lot different than a regular flu. It looks like most of the damage is first done to your blood circulation system and then that harms some other organs. I hope that circulation system will fully recover, but I don't know how much time it would take. Other people told me that it took them 2-3 months to feel back to normal.

> Now that more than a month has passed since initial symptoms, I still feel that my heart and blood circulation is not back to normal and I am a bit afraid to exercise. I only do some walks on a moderately steep trail and some stretching. > Other people told me that it took them 2-3 months to feel back to normal.

If you're lucky. I have similar symptoms, and I'm 18 months in and still not back to normal (I have improved, but intense exercise seems to cause a regression).

> It looks like most of the damage is first done to your blood circulation system and then that harms some other organs.

It seems to vary between people and infections, but that's certainly one of the ways it can go.

EDIT: Not sure why this is being downvoted?

> EDIT: Not sure why this is being downvoted?

There's a strong vibe of long covid denial on HN and some people are quick to point to a study that stated long covid is mostly a psychological issue.

I don't think it's taken seriously from a scientific perspective. There's not too many papers on it compared to Covid as a whole.

Were you vaccinated?

I'm 40, I got Covid-19 in Christmas, I got the second shot of Pfizer last July. I did not have a fever, I was just very tired for a few days. Then cough came. One month later I still feel something in my chest, I cough a little when I talk, and I collapse on Friday morning, instead of Friday evening, after a week of work (so I have a little less energy than before).

I'm doing push-ups, pull-ups and one leg squats as before. No problem there.

Yes, I had the single dose Jansen vaccine in May. I also had some residual coughing when exercising or talking emotionally (positive emotions, not shouting). Same thing with strength as with you. No problem with push and pull ups, squats or jumping. It is just that my heart rate goes up faster than usual. E.g. I had to carry a 50 lbs box upstairs and after the second floor I already felt my heart beating. Wouldn't have been an issue before, even if running upstairs with 50 lbs.

It is Friday morning and I'm dead tired. Before Covid-19 I was dead tired on Friday afternoon. :'(

Different virus, but after a rough infection it took almost three years for my intermittent tachycardia to stop and to have the ability to exercise like I used to again. Weirdly it seemed to be the first shot of covid vaccine that put a final stop to it for me, that or a crazy coincidence.

Not denying that it could be long COVID but those are also the exact symptoms of chronic anxiety, which your COVID infection could have created or aggravated. You should check a doctor because chronic anxiety can be a real long term issue and it's possible to heal completely if treated seriously and rapidly.

A lot of people are developing anxiety symptoms due to the epidemic crisis. I think it's worth checking.

Is this possible even if you don't actually feel anxious? There's lots of evidence that covid attacks the heart. I don't think heart symptoms should be written off as anxiety.

Anxiety feels just feels like whatever you think your imagined problem feels like. Anxiety could feel like this, or it could be real heart problems. Should get evaluated for both.

FWIW, not Covid related, but I had shortness of breath, chest pain, fatigue- dealt with it for a while, eventually went to a Dr. Full battery of heart and lung tests, turns out heart and lungs are almost flawless for my age and general health.

At Dr’s recommendation, see a psychiatrist, dr gives me some anti-anxiety medication to try, and I feel better almost immediately. Spend a few months working on behavioral response to stress, breathing exercises, etc., then go off the medicine. Total game changer.

The mind and human body are funny things.

Thanks for pointing that out and great to hear that you are OK now. I will definitely do more tests to find the root cause. I also heard of a test where you are up on a thread mill, gradually varying load and they are measuring you heart parameters at the same time. Have you done this test as well?

Similar for me, thought I was dying because of the intensity of physical symptoms. Got a lot of blood tests, turned out it was anxiety related - I was surprised at the intensity of physical symptoms that can happen from it.

While I’d guess some “long Covid” is related to serious cases that caused underlying organ damage, my suspicion is in the more general cases where vague symptoms are described it’s probably anxiety.

I had a similar situation, and definitely had anxiety, but I absolutely do not believe that explains everything. I had a temperature of 99.5-100.5 for several months after having "recovered" from covid, and none of my doctors believed "psychogenic fever" was a valid thing.

In my case, I'd been dealing with anxiety my whole life, but it never caused physical symptoms. Then I had covid, felt better for 2 weeks, then suddenly started experiencing low-grade fever, night sweats, fatigue, no appetite inability to sleep for days on end (this was the worst. would feel like I stopped breathing whenever I started drifting off, and it felt like my body would then jump-start itself and violently kick me back awake). None of my doctors knew anything about long covid, and I started to wonder if I was dying of cancer or something. The symptoms were distressing enough to make anxiety a logical response. So, yeah, at some point, anxiety probably created additional symptoms, or made me more distressed by my symptoms, but neither I nor any doctors I've met believe anxiety can cause a fever, at the very least.

> I stopped breathing whenever I started drifting off, and it felt like my body would then jump-start itself and violently kick me back awake

That sounds a lot like sleep apnea, and will kill prematurely if left untreated. You should get a sleep study to check that.

I did an overnight oximetry test for that a few months ago, it was apparently fine.

There could very well be a non-anxiety effect and I'm not trying to dismiss that.

For me, I've experienced the difficulty sleeping, early morning wakefulness, heart rate, nausea, stomach issues, and sweats as physical symptoms of anxiety. A big/scary event (getting covid, death of family) can make the physical symptoms more apparent.

Not sure about low grade fever, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Again, doesn't mean it's not something else but I think people tend to dismiss anxiety as someone not taking the claims seriously - when to me anxiety symptoms are serious and miserable, they just require different treatment (unfortunately Hypervigilance makes things worse when anxious about symptoms and thinking they're not anxiety related).

I still have a hard time telling the difference between actual infection/physical illness and anxiety personally even knowing all this about myself - it's hard.

Anxiety can be hard to tell from normal once you've had it long enough.

It could be partially related to anxiety as well. However, I am a very calm person, I live in an emotionally positive environment and I am for the most part happy of my life.

You are posting your symptoms on an online forum expressing concern for a medical issue you’ve either heard about from the media or anecdotal evidence from other people that have heard about it from the media.

It would seem to me, based on the above, that you are experiencing anxiety about the long COVID issue and thereby exasperating the “symptoms”.

Beware of psychologization of disease that isn't fully understood yet. There were also times when scurvy was considered another form of laziness and cholera an indication of moral failing.

I did that hoping that the information I provide (even though somewhat personal) could help others and form an interesting discussion. At least to me, discussions on HN where people share personal experiences provide a lot more value than reading articles on the topic.

Anxiety is not depression and it can struck you even if everything is fine. Even the happiest people can be anxious about something (health, career, children …), it’s just normal behavior as long as it doesn’t abnormally lasts.

Medication really helps to get over it and stop the circle when symptoms are moderate.

Any idea if it's possible that you got a secondary infection?

Iirc two of the most effective prevention of death in clinical settings around here before vaccines and this new type of meds has been the introduction of antibiotics soon after admittance (for older patients) since it prevented bacterial pneumonias to occur opportunistically (many older early Covid victims died of this even if Covid was the initial infection). The second one was to put anti-clotting agents early on after admittance to prevent secondary issues due to clots.

If by secondary you mean bacterial infection around days 6, then that was one of the hypotheses and the reason for getting antibiotics (I have only taken antibiotics several times in the last 25 years). I also took a mild anti clotting agent (aspirin) as recommended by my doctor. Also I am 45 years old, so even though I am in a good physical shape (non obese, working out on a regular basis, not taking any medication apart from vitamins and herbs) and don't exactly qualify as young :).

Ah right that was the Cefuroxime, seems like you had a prudent doctor. Glad the main part is over and hopefully the residual parts will fade soon enough.

pjerem 1 hour ago | root | parent | prev | next [–]

If you have vaccine you increase the risk of cardiovascular issues.

Then if you get Covid you have risk of cv issues from Covid as well.

Synthesis of Paxlovid isn't easy, it uses a lot of reactants and we won't be producing it in volume necessary for the entire world anytime soon.

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/making-paxlovid

Covid might end up being kind of like WWII where a global emergency led to massive R&D spending that benefits humans in all sorts of other areas due to the tech being created. Would be nice if something good could be salvaged from the situation and these treatments can be generalized to treating other viruses

>but a significant percent of people seem to be experiencing it with the Omicron variant

How do we know if this is true? Omicron was only identified two months ago, the bulk the cases have been in the last 30 days. Not enough time has passed to qualify for long covid, so there is very little to even measure at this point. If you were sick two weeks ago and still feel bad, that's not unusual with a respiratory virus or flu.

> Animal testing may lead to better discoveries, but the same exact argument could be made for forced human testing.

Morality is a human construct and, as such, it's completely arbitrary. We humans decide where we draw the line at which time. At what point of the "from annoyance to existential threat" should we draw lines for animal testing, voluntary human testing and forced human testing? There are no absolute answers for these and I hope we never need to find it out.

I had covid in April of 2020 and I still can't do any strenuous exercise without getting out of breath. Shit sucks.

The vaccine carries risk of cardiovascular issues but then you increase that risk as well when you get covid.

How is a fact being downvoted.

The earliest omicron cases were ~2 months ago. How confident can we be about elevated long Covid from omicron at this point?

Long covid is just the existence of symptoms after the infection subsides. 2 months is plenty of time to monitor that.

> Paxlovid is one of the most incredible antiviral medications ever created. I can't wait to see COVID-19 become a virtual non-issue (for mortality) when this medication is available everywhere.

I hope we’re a little more judicious with it than we were with antibiotics.

In general, anti-virals kill viruses before they kill the patient (a bit like chemo kills everything, but it kills cancer faster than the really important body parts). Antibiotics are far safer.

I'm speaking more to the resistance end of things.

Antibiotics were similarly seen as a miracle drug; now we're struggling to keep them effective due to overuse.

Microorganisms have been using antibiotics against each other since life begun on Earth and have evolved ways to evolve around them and develop resistance. For a drug to become ineffective, its target needs a possible evolutionary path around its effect. Depending on what the drug effect, it's possible such path does not exist.

Of course, as Jeff Goldblum wisely said, life always finds a way. We can only hope it takes a long time for that to happen.

> Microorganisms have been using antibiotics against each other since life begun on Earth and have evolved ways to evolve around them and develop resistance.

The same is true with regards to viruses, is it not?

I certainly hope they've found a pathway viruses can't evolve around, but that seems pretty unlikely. We've seen antiviral resistance evolve just like antibiotic resistance does. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/professionals/antivirals/antiviral-d...

Long Covid is problematic because it's hard to determine what symptoms exactly are caused by covid. A large chunk of long covid cases seem to be anxiety caused psychosomatic responses. I remember when the first batch of vaccines entered the market, there were many stories of people's "long covid" disappearing minutes after getting the vaccine injection.

I think I had it back in the day when it was just appearing in Italy. I was on a skying trip and a week after we came back the first case was confirmed. I felt really bad for 2 weeks, breathless, tired, like bad flu but not much of a fever. For some time I felt off, tired, unfocused. And then it just slowly dissapeared I think... but I got the vaccine 1,5 year after the susspected infection so I didn't feel a difference much. If I had covid confirmed, I would think I had long covid.

> If I had covid confirmed, I would think I had long covid.

Worth noting the post-viral fatigue and other post-viral symptoms are well established phenomena following other viral infections including influenza.

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