It sure seems like a lot of people in the medical community are taking it pretty seriously. Given the quantity of medical journal articles discussing long covid, I'm going to go with YES
It is in articles, and you will not have difficulties in finding anecdotal evidence. Of course, it will depend on the definition. It should be normal to believe that some can suffer semipermanent damages; it is more urging to assess and define the more subtle ones, for mild cases.
It is not clear (to some who follow the matter reasonably in their time) how permanent the damage will be, but for example the first article that results to a search, the "famous" recent "similar in magnitude to the effects of ageing between 50 and 70 years of age",
mentions 10 IQ points lost in a number of patients months after hospitalization... They note: «it is very possible that some of these individuals will never fully recover».
No and yes. Long covid is nothing special. All virus infections can cause the same symptoms. The Epstein-Barr virus for example can make people tired for months.
People definitely report it and genuinely believe they have it.. but similar problems occur in a small subset of all people who recover from infectious diseases.
So it may not be covid specific but it does seem to exist and with a wide ranging illness such as covid then obviously more overall people have it than from say pneumonia.
> People definitely report it and genuinely believe they have it..
This alone is not convincing, since hypochondriacs have never been rare in the first place and for the past few years have been encouraged and doubtlessly felt very vindicated.
If you understood how the brain creates pain and retains memory of the molecules that it interacts with you would understand that hyperchondria is a worse than useless diagnosis for anybody.
Certain people are going to recover faster from illness than other people. It isn’t because they have better mental hygiene.
They are fortunate. If you had long-covid you wouldn’t be able to type that because you would be mentally fatigued. Like Mike Tyson says, everyone’s got a plan until they get punched in the face. If your mitochondia locks up on you one day and your energy starts collapsing within 72hours of mild exertion I’d love seeing you blaming your own thinking to fix the situation while everyone else does.
I don’t feel vindicated. I am beating chronic fatigue syndrome anyway, I have to do spinal strenthening exercises, I have to get plenty of sleep, I have eat healthily, I have to not do too much physical exercise in a day, I can’t sit for too long or I end up with post-exertional malaise.
I think the people diagnosing other people with mental-disorders to explain what they couldn’t are going to get progressively more and more exposed as people find non-obvious ways to overcome their chronic multi-systemic health conditions. People are figuring it out.
There is a psycho-somatic component. There is a physical component. It is brought on by viral illnesses.
People with anxiety are prone to it but they are also prone to hypermobility(joint dislocation).
One of us is right. I’d hope I’m not a delusional hyperchondriac. When my fibula pops out of my knee joint and I pop it back in and carry on with my day is that hyperchondria? Or could that be in some way related to managing chronic fatigue syndrome of which long-covid appears to be a sub-set.
60% of people with hyper-mobility have anxiety disorders.
It doesn’t matter to me whether I’m right or you are right. All that matters to me is that I can sustain employment to rise up maslow’s hierarchy. I know that your approach would not have allowed me to do this because I tried it. Believe me I tried it.