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Comment by avgDev | Hacker News Reader

Pretty interesting.

I have been suffering from symptoms of long covid(not after exposure to covid obviously) for 10 years after exposure to flouroquinolone antibiotics. You could say I am a hipster who was suffering from fatigue before it was cool. All joking aside, there are some studies on these drugs which found mtDNA issues. An individual recently had his muscle biopsied by a researcher at mayo and he found mitochondrial depletion. The research has also looked at another individuals muscle tissue who suffered from flouroquinolone toxicity with same results. The researcher is planning on sharing his findings at some point but I believe his focus has been shifted to long covid.

Symptoms are quite similar fatigue, dysuatonomia, joint paint, post exercise fatigue, therefore, I am quite excited about long covid.

Many individuals recover over weeks...or years supplementing mito cocktail and antioxidants.

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That's very interesting.

I posted the above because I'm researching what's happening to me along with what a long covid specialist told me. I don't know if I have the mitochondrial issue yet, but my doctor said I was at risk for Dysautonomia that could progress to POTS if I didn't a, do diaphragmatic breathing exercises, b, avoid weight training, c, do small amounts of cardio. He described anaerobic exercises causing dysautonomia due to the mitochondrial issues I later found the above.

And reading what you wrote, I had a very strong reaction to Levofloxacin I was taking for an asymptomatic infection. For 12 hours I had fever, joint pain, nausea, anxiety, headache, chills fever, and it went away, til I took another dose (for the last time ever).

My covid experience reposted:

Two months ago I caught it, had two weeks of being reasonably sick, the last 10 days being a mean dry cough. Then the shortness of breath began, and the night sweats with the inability to sleep. Also a lot of very deep seated anxiety/ fight or flight feelings.

The doctor said Dysautonomia was a very high risk and to avoid any real exercise, especially weight training. I started to feel better and caught a cold which brought back the cough.

I don't know what this all means, but it seems likely that: covid affected the nervous system, that it may have caused neurological damage, that it caused long term inflammation...and finally, I'm sorry, but three vaccine shots doesn't prevent this (surely didn't for me).

I've learned a lot these past months, and I'm meeting people regularly with dysautonomia symptoms after covid (dizziness, racing heart, shortness of breath). Some of them thought it was the vaccine. Nope, this can start months after infection.

I started to have the most minor of flight-or-fight symptoms April 2020. I'm guessing I was exposed to covid then but was asymptomatic. Fast forward to August 2021 and I suddenly couldn't lift weights anymore without feeling like my head lost all oxygen. Like, my body can DO the thing but it will be severely punished for having done so.

I've been lucky that I've never had any of the breathing issues, even after I for sure had covid in December of 2021. But the post-anaerobic activity suffering is the worst. The general neurological damage (brain fog, nerve pain, untriggered anxiety) is the most frustrating bit as no one can seem to find the cause of it using any conventional scanning, at least not with me.

how long after the exposure did the anaerobic intolerance begin? it takes that long to manifest? had you been lifting the whole time and found it suddenly started happening?

and how soon after lifting weights do the symptoms begin?

Have you tried re conditioning your cardiovascular system with aerobic exercise?

If I'm honest reading your message makes me nervous the same will happen to me. I've been able to do some simple calisthenics without obvious fallout so far.

I recommend: a) go to a Long Covid specialist / center b) get tested for POTS

Monitor your heart rate, especially the delta from lying down to standing up for 10 minutes.

The metabolic issue discussed in an article is a possibility but Dysautonomia / POTS are worth exploring.

What you describe is what the long covid specialist warned me about.

I'm a bit shocked that it took a year to manifest.

>without feeling like my head lost all oxygen

>brain fog, nerve pain, untriggered anxiety

that all reminded me the time when i had anemia (for different than covid reason though), and reading symptoms described by others it all very similar to low oxygenation. I wonder if covid screws with oxygenation machinery - either lung function or in some anemic like way.

>The most common reported symptom of long COVID is fatigue and the overall symptom picture resembles that of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), which is often triggered by a viral infection.

There have been studies connecting the chronic fatigue syndrome to the post-viral infection rage of B-cells which may go for months https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/are-b-cells-to-blame... - in this and other similar studies they've used cancer (like methotrexate) and/or immune suppressing drugs to kill the B-cells.

>I wonder if covid screws with oxygenation machinery - either lung function or in some anemic like way.

Covid messes around with the oxygenation machinery in multiple possible ways including botching up the lung ability to restrict blood flow to damaged vessels in the lungs, formation of micro-clots in the blood vessels and severely disrupting the normal air-blood flow ratios.

Why can't the body repair these things?

Same. Started in early 2004 and never let up. I had been in Toronto quite a bit in 2003 and coincidentally there was a SARs event that broke out in Toronto that year. I was sick several times but at some point a switch flicked and I never got better. Totally anecdotal, but a genuine account of my last 20 years. There was a longitudinal study done over 10 years that showed chronic fatigue (n=32 i think... so a small study)

I was hoping the long haul covid research would provide some insight but the truth is that anyone with post-viral long haul symptoms gets left behind.

> I have been suffering from symptoms of long covid(not after exposure to covid obviously) for 10 years after exposure to flouroquinolone antibiotics.

I strongly suspect the month long course of Levaquin I took 10 years ago has something to do with my screwed up shoulders.

mitochondrial dna depletion doesnt really go away

i have diastolic dysfunction and severe exercise intolerance still 7 years after fluoroquinolones

the mtdna destruction from fluoroquinolones has been in research since the 90s idk why the drugs are even legal

How many doses of fluoroquinolones are needed for that to happen?

I only had two 12-hour doses and it was a horrible 24 hours.

You may not believe this.....but 1. A single dose can have lasting affects for years to come. It is quite unbelievable, and I would not believe if it didn't happen to me.

I think in research it was shown to take a few days because the mitochondria have to double few times

Yeah there's toxicity immediately but I think the lasting damage comes from mitos reproducing while their being damaged directly

Wasn't it called ME/CFS before Covid?

Have you tried CoQ-10?

These supplements don’t really solve the problem after the fact. The damage was already done. Your cells only have so many copies of mtdna. The bad mitochondria will reproduce more bad and at that point it is considered permanent- or the cells will die off. either way not all of your tissues regenerate the same way

fluoroquinolones are poison and should not be used at all unless nothing else works

if you develop heart failure or dysfunction after chemotherapy it doesn't just reverse itself overtime. it's permanent. it's a similar mechanism downstream just different upstream

there's studies showing yeah if you take extra magnesium or antioxidants etc during fluoroquinolone therapy then the likelihood of damaging side effects decreases but after the fact nothing is shown to actually reverse it conclusively

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