The exact nature of long COVID is still coming to light, but we just got some of the best evidence yet that this debilitating condition stems from a brain injury.

Using high-resolution scanners, researchers at the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford have shown microscopic, structural abnormalities in the brainstems of those recovering from COVID-19.

Signs of brain inflammation were present up to 18 months after first contracting the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

"We show that the brainstem is a site of vulnerability to long-term effects of COVID-19, with persistent changes evident in the months after hospitalization," the authors of the study conclude.

https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awae215

#health #science #biology #news @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected]

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[–] MooseTheDog 13 points 3 hours ago

I knew a conservotard type. He never ventured out from his rural area so he never had to change his mind. He didn't believe in COVID of course, until he lost all taste of food. I genuinely feel bad for the guy. He said everything smelled or tasted like shit. It was 3 months before he started tasting again. After that I laughed at every anti-COVID nut in my life pretty openly.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

I think it’s important for people to realize:

A very bad cold or flu can totally damage your body and is how lots of older folks go unfortunately.

Covid without a vaccine would have been a terrible sickness.

What bugs me the most is so many people who don’t understand logical fallacies kept saying just wait a year or two and you’ll see mass deaths and weakened immunity… and they are conveniently silent now, probably blaming fires on DEI or something stupid like that.

[–] scarabic 13 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

These people are addicted to this feeling that they have discovered some secret that destroys conventional wisdom and sheds a whole new light on everything. They are addicted to this feeling that they’ve found a big lie everyone’s swallowed and they’re going to spit it out.

Every part of their worldview has to have that quality or they can’t hold onto it with their brains. There’s a great deal of straightforward, plain-as-day information that’s totally missing from their worldview because it doesn’t contain the drug their brain is addicted to.

[–] MooseTheDog 3 points 3 hours ago

The kind of person that latches onto one detail in an argument and doesn't let go. Especially when it has nothing to do with the disagreement. You know the type.

[–] Zero22xx 7 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

conveniently silent

Always. When the previous conspiracy theory / rapture date / return of JFK / illuminati plot doesn't turn out to be true, there's no talking about it or self reflection, it's just right onto the next conspiracy theory / rapture date / return of JFK / illuminati plot.

[–] [email protected] 63 points 7 hours ago (3 children)

Look, I know this isn't exactly the most appropriate community to post a comment like this. I do however need to say as someone that has had debilitating brain fog for a couple of years thanks to covid: "...fuck."

[–] [email protected] 17 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

It sucks but the recovery is still possible. I imagine gaslighting and not taking it seriously by people is debilitating.

When you suffer a brain injury from a stroke everyone will be supportive and offer help but when it is long covid people will be like “what? you are probably imagining things” both aliments are recoverable but it must suck to be constantly denied and not treated seriously

[–] [email protected] 19 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

You're fine, it's anecdotal but perspectives are still nice to see sometimes. Quite a few people around me had the same issue, a few died. (Yes, they had refused the vaccine)

[–] NotMyOldRedditName 7 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

I just found out recently that a friend i kinda stopped talking to as much that went down the right wing rabbit hole and went from Obama supporter to MAGA supporter(and still is today) was antivax and got covid after his father was hospitalized with it, and was also hospitalized with it, and brushed it off as not that bad. And yes the vaccine was available by the time they got it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

hospitalized

not that bad"

You do not get hospitalized for something that's not that bad. The doctors obviously thought it was bad.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 hours ago (4 children)

That makes 2 of us. Been living with brain fog, memory loss, inability to pick out words when speaking, and now I set something down on a countertop, turn around, turn back and look and I literally can't see the item I set there. I see everything else, even the countertop where the item is sitting. Generally I either panic or I get pissed at myself for being so stupid. And then all of a sudden, the item magically returns to view as a stare at it.

Oh, and just for fun, breathing is still hard. And all medical testing shows my lungs are just fine and there should be problem. My pulmonologist tells me I'm one of the lucky few to be so chosen-- in jest. (I had to search "lung doctor" because I couldn't remember the word pulmonologist just now)

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

The inability to see something I've literally just dealt with after a short time has been happening to me for 45 years... since I suffered a TBI as a kid. I've never heard someone else talk about not just losing things but the madness of being unable to process the sensory input of something I WAS JUST HOLDING.

Thank you for highlighting this!

I've had covid twice now, despite original vaccinations, yearly boosters and wearing a mask constantly when around others. The firsf was likely from a careless dentist and second from an anti-vaxx family member. Thankfully no long covid to make my previously smushed brain even worse.

[–] Soggy 1 points 46 minutes ago

Man, I wish I had a brain injury or something to explain why I can lose something I set down without moving from my chair. I learned long ago to just ask someone else and it's often right in the open.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

not a doctor: mild doses of magic mushrooms. anything that helps promote neurological connections/growth would be worth looking into. you'll still need to retrain your brain as well but you need the cells to do their thing and you to give them the right stims.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Oh, and just for fun, breathing is still hard. And all medical testing shows my lungs are just fine and there should be problem.

autonomic issue?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago

Not the one you responded to but it's a couple things, generally just lungs feeling inflamed, difficulty taking a full breath, way more sensitive to air quality / air temperature, and a bit of autonomic (I have to use a cpap to fall asleep now because sometimes I just stop breathing as I'm falling asleep)

[–] BJHanssen 18 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I believe the signs have always pointed to it being a one-two punch of lingering inflammation and actual lasting physical damage to the blood vessels, including in the brain. The fatigue symptoms dissipated for me after about a year, but the inability to focus and the shite memory has not and likely will not go away. Also my muscles got fucked by the rhabdo and my EDS got much worse, but hey…

Every new piece of scholarly evidence is good to have.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 hour ago

my EDS

Omg a wild zebra.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

I need to get my booster

[–] ComicalMayhem 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Are they still free in the US?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

Soon they'll be illegal!

[–] [email protected] 114 points 13 hours ago (4 children)

Better not get vaccinated, because the vaccine kills you and covid is just another harmless flu anyway… oh wait.

Seriously though, antivaxxers already have some sort of psychological issues going on, so adding a literal brain injury to the list might not even make a big difference at that point.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 7 hours ago (4 children)

COVID makes you dumber, but what happens if you start out dumb?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

You get an overflow error and become a genius.

[–] ZeffSyde 19 points 6 hours ago

The current administration awards you a place in office.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Even lower intelligence score? As far as D&D rules are concerned, you would get knocked unconscious if your intelligence drops to zero.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Should probably also limit new max intelligence after you regain consciousness. That seems to be the case IRL.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

Sounds like a fun (and terrifying) idea for homebrew rules. I asked Mistral to write suitable rules, and here's what what I ended up with.

When a character contracts COVID-19, they must make a Constitution saving throw (DC 15). On a failed save, the character develops Long COVID. The effects of Long COVID are varied and can include fatigue, shortness of breath, and other physical ailments. However, the most feared complication is brain injury.

Brain Injury

Brain injury from Long COVID reduces a character's Intelligence score. To determine the extent of the damage, the character must make a roll based on their current Intelligence score:

Roll a d20: The result of this roll will determine the severity of the brain injury. Modify the Roll: Subtract the character's Intelligence modifier from the roll. For example, if the character has an Intelligence score of 14 (modifier +2), subtract 2 from the d20 roll. Determine Intelligence Loss:

1-5: Minor brain injury. The character loses 1 point of Intelligence.
6-10: Moderate brain injury. The character loses 2 points of Intelligence.
11-15: Severe brain injury. The character loses 3 points of Intelligence.
16-20: Critical brain injury. The character loses 4 points of Intelligence.

New Hard Maximum

Once the Intelligence loss is determined, the character's new Intelligence score becomes their hard maximum for the rest of the game. This means that even with magical healing, potions, or other means of restoring Intelligence, the character cannot exceed this new maximum.

Oh, wait. That means that if you do drop to zero, you'll be in permanent coma for the rest of the game without any hope of recovery. I guess I should add some exception, that allows to you recover back to 1 point, but no higher than that.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

There is no floor except the for the artificial one built out of privilege.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

I went looking for data, because my knee-jerk was to assume people who get vaccinated are more likely to live, and thus more likely to get long covid.

But here's what I found. The researchers found that the rate of new Long COVID cases declined with each variant, and that the numbers of cases were significantly lower in the vaccinated cohorts.

I'm just adding to the discourse.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

na, vaccines cause the immune response to be better overall. which also lowers the chances of extreme damage from occurring. you can think of death as the most extreme form of damage. but if it reduces death by 60% you'll see similar reductions for things like brain injury.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 hours ago

Indeed! Too bad facts don’t work when talking to conspiracy theorists. Regardless, that’s an interesting observation to the rest of us.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 hours ago

Things can always be worse.

[+] [email protected] -31 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (4 children)

The majority of people with Long COVID were vaccinated. (Because the majority of people were vaccinated and vaccination only slightly reduces chances of long COVID).

Also, many long COVID cases happened before the vaccines even came out.

So I don’t think your attitude of victim blaming really works here.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 hours ago

I guess I should have been more specific. People who actively choose not to get vaccinated, and get terribly ill as a direct result of their delusional thinking, can blame themselves.

If you took all the sensible precautions, like getting vaccinated, but ended up with long covid regardless, that’s not your fault. You did what you could, but some times even that isn’t enough.

[–] RememberTheApollo_ 24 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

What’s your point? Don’t get vaccinated because it doesn’t prevent long covid anyway? Vaccination saves lives. Period. Even your own statistic pointed out a 2% difference between vax/non-vax in getting long covid, and with hundreds of millions of covid infections every year, that 2% is a significant number of people spared long covid by vaccination.

[–] Jamablaya -3 points 2 hours ago

I can't believe, after all this time and everything we've seen, and the medical authorities themselves admitting what the "conspiracy theorists" were saying, you fucking nutbars are still claiming the vaccine worked. It fucking didn't, you're the conspiracy theorists, anti science fuck heads now.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 hours ago

vaccination only slightly reduces chances of long COVID

Uh huh.

Got some data to back that?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

How do you know that the majority of people with Long COVID were vaccinated. This 2023 study says

Current studies suggest that covid-19 vaccines might have protective and therapeutic effects on long covid. More robust comparative observational studies and trials are needed, however, to clearly determine the effectiveness of vaccines in preventing and treating long covid.

[+] [email protected] -18 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (2 children)

The majority of the NIH’s Recover Cohort (the largest studied cohort of people with Long COVID) was vaccinated.

Recent literature reviews put the risk of getting long COVID at about 10% for vaccinated people and 12% for unvaccinated. So definitely it helps, but it really isn’t a miracle. And the studies showing vaccines had a therapeutic effect on long COVID itself failed replication.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

10%/12% compared to what? those are just noise without the reference point. are we talking hospitalized cases? etc? those are already significantly reduced once you get the vaccine vs not vaxed.

if the reference point is after you already have an extremely severe case of covid then no shit it doesnt help by then your body is flooded with the virus. by the time that happens your immune system is already overwhelmed and of course being vaxxed isnt going to help in that scenario the payload in the environment is too high its going to do what its going to do.

Vaccines reduce the chance of a virus from reaching overwhelming loads within the body, if the virus manages to do it anyways then all vaccines do is help speed up the recovery at the point. they don't prevent the damage that can be caused once you hit high loads. they can reduce the severity of the damage by having the loads drop faster but not prevent, at the point you hit high viral loads your stuck with dumb luck for your outcome.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 10 hours ago

Great. Send the link. Why it’s important, now more than ever, to fact check on the internet

[–] [email protected] 52 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Well yeah, that's where the chip goes

[–] [email protected] 29 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

I prefer consuming chips orally. Potato or paint, I'm easy.

[–] WhatYouNeed 4 points 6 hours ago

Hmmmm lead based paint....