- Vaccinated for COVID once
- Infected with COVID 3 times
- Infected with RSV once
- Infected with unknown ?? upper respiratory, two times.
I am absolutely less "sharp". It feels like both my cognitive and physical ability have taken a serious blow. I'm far less creative, less excited about work, less interested in challenging topics, and less capable of solving complex problems.
I will sometimes stare at my IDE and find myself unable to write a single line. It takes minutes of reorienting my mind to find context again and beginning to put some stuff down.
And that's for languages and projects that I already know.
I'm trying to learn a new programming language now in a new domain, and finding it very challenging. I'm not sure if this is the direct result of COVID, or if it's just part of getting older... maybe it's both. All I can say is that it came on quickly and definitely feels like something changed in how my brain works. Sucks.
So, just to point this out: none of those symptoms are remotely unique to Long Covid, or any other disorder. They correlate with real/known/unsurprising conditions like depression, alcoholism, aging and even stuff like poor diet even more strongly than with covid; and of course they're the kind of thing we all deal with as we go through life. No one works at peak performance through their whole career. Everyone has rough patches.
Does that invalidate your covid experience? No. I'm just saying this is the kind of thing you (and I, and all of us) were going to deal with at some point anyway.
I honestly do not know if its related to COVID or if I'm just getting older and my body / mind are finally starting the inevitable downward spiral that takes place over the next 30-40 years.
It's hard to say for sure. All I can say is, relative to who I was in 2019 I feel like I'm easily 50% of that person both physically and mentally. Maybe that's "natural" for someone in their mid-30s, but to me it feels a little accelerated.
I was there with you in terms of brain fog, general mental slowdown, what is called cognitive decline, and mind you, I presume we are healthy, without cognitive degeneration or serius injuries or conditions.
Running 3 times per week should get you on track in about a month. Try it and notice the difference. We are made for movement. If you're healthy and don't feel like running, in my case, i immediately know i should be doing the thing I don't feel like doing. Running. 1x interval training, 1x hill repeats, 1, long run in cardio zone 2. If you can, get s Garmin watch. Stats will help you maintain focus on the big picture. Streaks can help reframe for consistency.
I started training when corona hit, this is the best I've felt ever. Slowly progressed to cycling on off days for better recovery. Bought smart watches for friends, now we keep each other in check, we sometimes even meet at the pool at 6 am for a quick swim session. I now do some kind of activity 6 times per week. If i ever stop working on software, I'll help others train and get better to feel good and feel healthy - that's how much it gave me and i absolutely love it.
hint: optimize for training the next 20-30 years (I'm 39) which means injury prevention, recovery activities, everything else as nutrition and rest follows as you observe your own body and get in tune with what it needs. Honest good luck to you, I'm excited for you!
I've always been a runner of sorts, but not super consistent. On average I would say I run 2-3 miles a week. But that could mean 15 miles in 1 week, followed by 2-3 weeks of low, or even zero running.
My main problem is consistency and I can only hazard a guess that its consistency that produces the really beneficial effects? Because on those weeks where I do run a lot, I generally don't feel much better. In fact, in the last 2 years I've started feeling worse. Beat down, tired, and not energized by the run.
I've recently tried going from distance running (5 miles) to speed running. I'll run two miles, in a 6:30 pace, rather than 5 miles in a 8:00 pace.
The result is actually a much more brutal feeling, with much heavier breathing, and much more soreness. But surprisingly, I actually feel a little bit of that positive feeling. I've only JUST started doing this so its too early to tell, but the really high cardio and heavy breathing seems like it may have some potential to reverse some of the negatives I've accrued.
To sum it up - I've actually always been active and I'm in good/ok shape, but I generally am not really pushing it. I run distance, not speed. I rest a lot. Maybe I'm just not active ENOUGH.
Side note: the normal range for T is so wide that it’s meaningless.
I got sick the other night, the first time I've felt sick in about 4 years... I was achey all over, I got the shiver and shakes and I was sweating non stop. I went to bed and had a very very rough nights sleep. but when i woke up I was fine.
Yet, I definitely feel like in the last 2 years my cognitive abilities have dropped. Also If I dont get at least 7 hours of sleep I'm just a zombie.
My typing accuracy and spelling has taken a massive nosedive.
physical activity is very hard... I used to cycle and do push ups etc all the time, but I'm really struggling to do a bare minimum now. It just feels harder, and I'm not getting the "buzz" or benefits I used to get.
I turn 50 this year, Its got me really concerned about my next 20 years of employability. I've given up drinking, I try very hard to get the sleep i need... but i'm just not seeing improvements.
Other folks like me have more syndromic Long COVID where it affects many more organs and it is a bit more obvious that it was a direct result of a COVID infection or vaccination(post vaccination syndrome is absolutely a thing).
did you eliminate depression as a possible cause? I don't know how. there is no "expert help" in my country. I believe everyone around me is faking whatever they are doing, including therapy.
another thing to note: isolation. i think my isolation level just kept increasing. i entered a hole with the lockdown and i never got out, contrary. isolation could be a cause of cognitive impairment, yes? we are social animals?
can you make any sense of what i'm saying?
p.s. also my short term memory is broken.
p.s. I am also becoming increasingly paranoid because of this apparent cognitive impairment.
I forced myself to do workout classes like it was important non negotiable work
Since we are slowly understanding more things about COVID and other diseases you can also try new things and no believe 100% in what is published. Trial and error is a good problem solving skill. For example, engaging in new activities that "play" with one or more of our senses (e.g. music).
Wasn't a problem at work, for now.
Physically, well, I am low on stamina. Did hit the gym since, I don't feel like 2 hours of boxing are a particularly good idea at the moment.
Sucks, you are right. My significant other so told me it goes away, and sometimes I feel close to break through whatever that shit is. Still better of than a friends son: 10 years old, unable to follow school since October, unable to do more than 2 hours worth learning per day, unable to excercise. All this despite being fully vacinated three times, the second time Covid hit him, it hit hard. I can only imagine how it would be without vaccination...
After the third time, that's when I felt for SURE I was struggling relative to before. Granted, I've had other infections over the last 3 years so it's hard to say it was all COVID.
To put it simply, we all got in contact with covid at some point. Some were asymptomatic, some mistook it for a cold, and some were confirmed cases. Plus there are vaccines, that are said not to be as effective at preventing long covid than they are at preventing severe (accute) covid. Some even say the vaccine itself can cause long covid-like symptoms.
So how many of these case really "long covid" and not just a condition no one really took into account before a global pandemic affected us all in a relatively short amount of time. There are some conditions that are known to get triggered with any kind of infection (ex: EBV), or other kind of disturbances. Covid is one of them, but so is the flu, or anything else really.
And then, there were the lockdowns, raise of remote work and all the resulting social changes. People took some weight, others lost some, sleep patterns, eating habits, etc... have changed for many people. All these could be potential triggers for some condition that while not caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, is a result of the pandemic.
I say all that because of a personal experience. In late 2020, I got unwell, very unspecific symptoms which felt mostly psychosomatic, and it lingered for months, with ups and down, and a global trend towards improvement. When I talk about it, "long covid" is usually the first suggestion, and I would believe it, except I didn't get covid at the time. No contact, no symptom, PCR and IG tests negative, etc... it was before I got vaccinated. I finally ended up getting covid for (I think) the first time last year, and it was a typical, milder than average case, with none of the "unwell" symptoms resurfacing. I still don't know what happened to me, and why, though the lifestyle changes caused by the pandemic may have something to do with it. But had it happened after a covid infection, I am sure it would have been attributed to it.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10278546/
But about half of Long Covid is other things, like heart attacks, strokes and cancer all of which are significantly up since the pandemic started across most of the world and showing up in excess deaths.
Its also worth keeping in mind the post Polio diseases only impacted about 1% of people who contracted the disease. Just because it only impacts a small number of infections over the world it can be a very large number of people especially when people are catching Covid so often.
I’ve been dealing with extreme fatigue, brain fog, headaches, migraines, dizziness, shaking, and more. It feels like I’ve had a concussion for 8 months.
But at no point did I have any issues with my lungs, heart, or anything below my neck.
Medically the condition is called PASC. Post SARS-Covid 19 sequelae. Sequelae is the key term. It is a term for “injury after an infection”. “Long Covid” isn’t a diagnosis, it is just the common name people are using.
And Long Covid SUCKS.
There are so many studies that help answer all the questions you have on this topic. Peer reviewed and from reputable journals. LitCovid is very helpful here.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41590-023-01724-6
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.27.23293177v...
There are a lot of exciting trials going on for many different antivirals, monoclonal antibodies, immunomodulators/immunotherapy, and even novel molecules to help clear out viral persistence.
I am starting to collect these budding treatments & patient stories as they come on a website here:
I often caught myself saying "that thing" many times because I couldn't recall the names of even basic objects or street names, etc after getting hit with Omicron.
Just curious if others have experienced this as well.
My context window was so narrow felt like I was operating at 2 percent capacity. It’s normal for depression to cause fatigue but literally cleaning my apartment once a month would drain me for week and a half. I love to journal I’d sit down and somehow words weren’t flowing. The entire system was haywire.
I ate well, started even going to the gym but only at the end of summer 2023 did my energy slowly come back. I was also mistakenly attributing this to getting older.
My mind is now alpha zero and depression is gone. Crazy times pandemic plus depression plus bad SWE market. It was basically hell and I thought Id never recover. Health is the most important thing in this life.
And boy, did it work. Low dose amitriptyline changed my life.
PS: I was feeling like shit before covid. Covid only made it so much worse that it became impossible to ignore. For me and the multiple doctors I've seen at the time.
