Monthly Musings: September 2021

An overview of opinions and observations for the month.

Is it Long Covid?

After a short, mild course of illness thanks to the latest novel coronavirus, I had been very conscious of the prospect of developing "Long Covid". A lot of people constantly throw the term around loosely, but is Long Covid even real?

I am suspicious that a lot of diagnoses of Long Covid are in fact a myriad of other conditions including Post-Viral Fatigue, Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis and even simply Generalised Anxiety Disorder. Several of these can develop after having a viral infection. In the case of the latter, it's inevitable a lot more people will be experiencing anxiety after a relentless 18 month global fear campaign rolled out by the WHO and propagated by local Government patsies.

There is huge similarity and overlap in the symptoms of all of these conditions making diagnosis difficult. In much the same way that every death where someone has tested positive for Covid is awarded a big "Covid" sticker as the cause, I am inclined to believe similarly that anyone with any of these symptoms will simply get a big "Long Covid" sticker slapped on them. It's much easier for medical professionals who cannot be bothered to even see their patients face-to-face that way.

As you can see below, there is a large overlap in these conditions; the only symptoms seemingly unique to Long Covid are the bottom three which affect the hearing/smell/taste, and includes rashes. Again, these symptoms are not without other possible explanation, especially after overcoming a viral infection which also affects the circulatory system, rather than solely the respiratory system.

I believe a lot of "Long Covid" sufferers are actually experiencing GAD, a condition I've lived with for a while now. You become astutely aware over time to how anxiety manifests psychosomatic symptoms into actual physical experiences via your autonomic nervous system. When you are under stress, afraid or experiencing grief or emotional trauma, your autonomic nervous system floods your body with different hormones such as adrenaline which spikes your heart rate and blood pressure; another one of these is cortisol which is released by your adrenal glands. The result of these hormones flooding through your body are the physical symptoms you then experience.

The reality is, your body can be perfectly healthy, but your mental health will still cause physical symptoms to present.

Maybe Long Covid is a real thing? Maybe I'm oversimplifying things? Maybe I'm not? Who knows.

Before anybody gets combative, this was just food for thought based on my own observations.