Comment by duncancarroll | Hacker News Reader

Comment by duncancarroll | Hacker News Reader

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I'm sorry.

I got Omicron in January '22 despite being double vaxx'd, and I felt totally fine until 3-4 mo. later when I started to get recurrent dizzy spells, major fatigue, and bouts of anxiety, which are all very unusual for me. Checkup / bloodwork showed nothing. I am 41 y.o. who exercise regularly, does not smoke, rarely drinks, etc.

So far I can still function and maintain a job, but it makes me wonder what's going on inside of me that 11 months later it's still causing these issues regularly. Our 4 y.o. son got it as well and although he was asymptomatic I am still very concerned about what the long-term effects on him may be.

I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice, but I read a paper saying that hyperbaric oxygen therapy helped some people, so I've been using Wim Hoff breathing as a poor man's version. It does seems to help with the fatigue but not the vertigo. Best of luck.

Wim Hoff Breathing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tybOi4hjZFQ

Viruses can persist in tissues after infection even if they aren't circulating throughout the body. One weird example of this is when Ebola was going around. Some patients who survived it had antibodies that fought the infection to the point where it was undetectable, but the virus had retreated to the patients' eyes[1], where it continued to replicate in cells and cause eye disease[2].

Same thing can happen with EBV, where it is responsible for some flare up of symptoms post-infection, and chicken pox becoming symptomatic years after infection as shingles.

I wouldn't be surprised if long COVID symptoms are caused by latent COVID infections.

[1] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170717091954.h...

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5988239/

There is no reliable evidence that coronaviruses can remain dormant in the body of a recovered patient. They don't work like herpesviruses.

Very true, but we know almost nothing about what it's doing in the body in the short or long term other than some very dramatic lethal pathologies. If you aren't experiencing something like this in your life than it's easy to wait to know what evidence is there, but if you are... Well, just because scientists that I don't know haven't published a paper doesn't mean that exploration of an idea or possibility can't have a positive effect on my outcome. Sometimes that effect might be because I've looked at that possibility so much over time that it just isn't relevant to me, even though later it might come out that the effect or subsequent compounding effect were relevant. Anyway, while what you said could be true, it presents as an absolute that is only relevant to people who aren't studying this or are afflicted with it.

But there are clues that for some the virus stays for month after the infection

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/persistin...

This statement is misleading. There are dozens of papers that show the corona virus alive and well in a large variety of tissues months and even years beyond the initial acute infection.

Here is but one such paper - https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11695-022-06338-9

> Gastric specimens from 26 (32.5%) patients and 4 (100%) cholecystectomy [gallbladder removal] specimens showed positive cytoplasmic staining for the anti-SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid protein in surface mucosal epithelial cells.

> The median time between initial COVID-19 infection and surgery was 274 and 380 days in the positive and negative staining groups, respectively (p = 0.371). It's not clear whether these had any long lasting symptoms since infection.

> The inclusion criteria were a history of COVID-19 with one or more gastrointestinal symptoms [during the acute phase] and a negative PCR test result at the time of bariatric surgery.

There are literally dozens of these.

The problem is that most people don't get tissues resected from inside their body when their alive and most such tissues are not tested for the virus.

With regards to the general question of persistent corona viruses, just look at FIP in cats for another such example.

The linked paper does not support your claim. The presence of those nucleocapsid proteins doesn't necessarily mean that there was live virus. They didn't attempt to culture it.

The only confirmed cases of SARS-CoV-2 infections in humans lasting beyond a few weeks have been in immunocompromised patients. Their immune systems were able to somewhat suppress the virus, but not clear the infection. (There is a hypothesis that such patients were the sources for some of the variants because the extended infections gave the virus more time to evolve but that can't be conclusively proven.)

I knew about that feature of viruses, but hadn't consider it in this context. Not that even regular COVID tests are worth a shit. Better now than 2020, but still... About as useful as tests for gonorrhea/chlamydia. If you think you need the test, then the test is a formality. Dose for the potential risk... not that we have a treatment/dose in this situation.

Thinking about this now though gives me some ideas that could even be testable that could help. Thank you for sharing this.

My sister recommended Wim Hoff. I'll scope it out. I had been considering buying an o2 concentrator since 2020 and I do have some voice/breath training and have found some exercises related to that that aren't dissimilar from Wim Hoff show some reduction in symptoms.

Honestly, I feel very lucky to be as functional as I am. I do worry about how medical and political systems are responding to COVID and long COVID, but largely I think good care is going to come from the bottom up and not top down. I'm comfortable(ish) with a reality that I might just suddenly drop dead tomorrow, but this experience has given me a new appreciation for the health I have that I could not have fathomed before. Because I can alleviate symptoms with diet and directed exercise and it does appear to have a cumulative effect on their reduction, I think recovery is possible without intense intervention. I don't even mind being more spacey and a bit dumber. It suits me a bit and has changed the pace of my life in a way that once I embraced has been good.

My biggest worry is that if I suddenly die and how devastating that would be for people that depend on me, but I think without an infection of a new virus or several viruses I might live a shorter, but alright life. My chance of suddenly dying because I got light headed in an elevator now being slightly higher than my chance of being crushed by a vending machine.

There is no proven health benefit to using an oxygen concentrator for patients without lung disease (such as emphysema). The limiting factor in delivering oxygen to tissues is hemoglobin, not inhaled PPO2. Extended exposure to elevated PPO2 can cause oxidative damage to lungs and nerves, especially above about 0.5 bar, so you don't necessarily want to use it unless you need it.

This is solid info constructed in a form that includes so much that I needed. I did not have any designs, really, to go into this and experiment on myself, but you know... the wikis do pile up.

Thank so so much for this. Very useful information.

I had a vertigo issue crop up recently and was able to get it diagnosed (working in military aviation they take this stuff pretty seriously); I don't know that it will help but it's one avenue to look down:

One of my inner ear canal output signals dropped by about 75%. There is a diagnostic test they can do; more basic tests showed nothing but this more sensitive one showed it clear as day. No-one can tall me WHY the nerves are outputting a weaker signal and I couldn't tell you if it's related but it's something that doesn't get checked much.

Very interesting. My homunculus is very ears forward. A lot of my work and fun revolves around my relationship with sound. I did a hearing test last year. It was fine. I have not directly noticed any issues with my hearing, but I recognize that the types of things I might be experiencing might not be so much perceived as hearing but more as orientation, balance, or even be queues to memory that could be altered.

If you had the information available, I'd be very interested to know the names of the diagnostic tests you took. Analysis of how I'm hearing is something I'm uniquely able to analyze over time and compare to medically conducted tests. While I think I know how the second test might have worked, I don't know what I'd call such a test to look for it.

I think analysis of hearing on newly infected to post care of people with COVID and Long COVID could provide useful hints that most other methods might not be able to detect.

The actual name of the test I had is Videonystagmography.

It identified not just the issue but the actual specific structure that was giving me issues.

This has no impact on hearing, so wouldn't be caught by those tests.

Hell yes. This is the exact info I wanted. Thank you.

You are very welcome! I hope it helps you figure it out.

Get an NAD+ booster like Niagen or liposomal NMN; Covid (even mild) seems to deplete a month worth of NAD+ reserves in a few days. You might want to combine it with megadoses of B1 that improve enzymatic affinity after major viral infections. NAC might be helpful as well.

I had an 8 week dizzy spell in fall of 2020. Never had anything like it before, didn’t have any other symptoms. Went to ENT and ears were completely fine.

I have no idea if it was anxiety or Covid, but the dizziness was disorienting, at the worst I couldn’t walk , it felt like I was on a boat. During this time I had anxiety attacks almost non stop-triggered by the vertigo. As soon as I started to notice the vertigo I would begin to spiral because it was so unprecedented and disorienting. It just cleared up on its own after 8 weeks.

Part of the vertigo was dizzy spells every time I stood up.

I had ~ptsd from it for a full year, every time I stood up I would brace for the vertigo ,

Hope you find some relief soon

NAD+ depletion might lead to problems with cerebellum which might cause dizziness unrelated to ENT.

Covid can do some strange stuff. FWIW, I've found the Epley maneuver helpful with BPPV.[0]

[0]http://sanfordhealth.staywellhealthlibrary.com/Search/134,51...

Low dose aspirin worked for me, YMMV.

There's a balance with that sort of thing though. Thinner blood to alleviate the constriction, if kept constant can cause other problems. Definitely not the worst band aid in the world though.

Definitely - it's mostly to clear out the cobwebs and get back to normal rather than a long-term thing.

How do you know it worked?

That seems like textbook PTSD.

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