[daenney]

Unless you're an actual physician with expertise in this area and have access to their medical records, please stop trying to invalidate their pain and experiences and explain things away.

This behaviour is the reason people stop talking about it and part of why we still know so little about the long-term consequences of it all.

[capableweb]

We've come a long way where just discussing alternative ways of looking at things are assumed to be "invalidating someones pain". bouncycastle never said the pain is not real or that Itsdijital is wrong in any way. They simply stated that there are other common sources that causes similar pain as well.

> This behaviour is the reason people stop talking about it

If you bring something up in order to discuss it, and someone talks about it in a way you don't prefer and therefore you stop talking about it, a healthy response would be to not bring it up in the first place or reply to it in a friendly manner. We cannot decide how others treat us but we can decide how we respond to how others treat us. It's your choice to either keep quiet or be fine talking about it, you can't have both at the same time.

[Itsdijital]

It's definitely why I don't discuss this with people, and goes back to the general hostility towards long covid. It's not worth the energy trying to convince them otherwise.

I have had anxiety my whole life. I've gone through times so stressful I was hallucinating. It's not that.

I hope people can see from reading this thread why it's easier to just say "I fully recovered".

[kritiko]

I had a bout of "health anxiety" that I suspect had a strong biological component - maybe post viral syndrome, maybe some gut dysbiosis, autoimmune component, I don't really know.

Anyways I kept going to the doctor and all of my tests were normal / not bad enough to raise any major red flags so it got diagnosed as anxiety / psychosomatic.

In cases like this it seems like you can either find an online community that's dealing with a set of symptoms or accept that "it's all in your head." For the former, if you have the money, their set of friendly doctors who may be willing to pursue off label treatments. For me, I ended up sort of falling into the latter camp (though as I said, I do think something biological was happening). Diet, exercise, CBT, and time ended up helping the most.

[bouncycastle]

Exactly. I have no doubt that the pain and symptoms are very real, not dismissing them.

Also, I understand that there is some stigma with mental health too.. so I am not surprised that I'm getting strong reactions as soon as it's mentioned.

Well, I'm sorry if I ruffled up some feathers. But I think all angles of the issue need to be considered, and probably the best way to deal with this is to be open to the possibility.