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Comment by kgarten | Hacker News Reader

I have friends who have long COVID (brain fog) since they got the disease ... yes it's probably overhyped and there might be a lot of misdiagnosis out there, but it is a real sickness.

it makes me sad to read on hackernews how it's probably just depression, anxiety and we should not believe what "the media is telling us."

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It is certainly highly correlated with pre-existing psychological distress. That doesn't mean people aren't suffering, but the 'HN response' isn't coming from nowhere either.

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/980527

“ In an analysis of almost 55,000 adult participants in three ongoing studies, having depression, anxiety, worry, perceived stress, or loneliness early in the pandemic, before SARS-CoV-2 infection, was associated with a 50% increased risk for developing long COVID”

People with a cortisol hypersensitivity are more likely to develop dysautonomia which is one of the underpinnings of LongCovid. So people with existing psychological conditions being ‘over represented’ in getting LongCovid is of absolutely no surprise.

> People with a cortisol hypersensitivity are more likely to develop dysautonomia

So are people with HIV, Parkinson’s etc… I’m not sure how that is at all relevant here

Your statement confuses me. The relevance is stated in my second sentence. In case it’s not obvious, cortisol hypersensitivity will present as psychological problems.

Cortisol hypersensitivity is not a medical term or diagnosis - I assumed you meant hypercortisolism? That has nothing to do with psychological problems.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=gluc...

You literally linked to glucocorticoid hypersensitivity (not Cortisol hypersensitivity) which is an underpinning of Cushing syndrome (hypercortisolism) - again nothing to do with psychological problems

“Cortisol is a glucocorticoid hormone that your adrenal glands produce and release.”

It’s the underpinnings of many different problems. And think about it for a sec, if you found yourself hypersensitive to cortisol how do you think your brain would react?

> And think about it for a sec, if you found yourself hypersensitive to cortisol

Medicine isn't 'think about it for a sec' - you made direct claims using unscientific terms - Cushings is a very specific and relatively rare disease that has no realm of relevance here. Not sure where you are trying to go with this but it is obvious you have no medical background or standing.

You know there is a difference between producing too much cortisol and being hypersensitive to it? They are logically two different things.

And please enlighten me on your medical background / standing. I used to teach stats to doctors to help them understand medical tooling.

Data point of 1: Try quitting caffeine. Worked wonders for my brain fog and anxiety. Again, data point of 1

data point of 1: one of the friends who has brain fog now does not drink caffeine, alcohol, is a health nut (eats healht, cares about sleeping enough and does regular e exercise... more than me). again data point of 1.

thanks for the "very helpful" suggestion.

You're very welcome! Hopefully it helps!

Our knowledge of the brain and mental illness is shaky. Our health professionals consistently prescribed antidepressants which did more bad than good to people.

People with chronic fatigue syndrome have problem getting a diagnosis.

There is not enough meat to trust the experts, but you do you.

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