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This is quite scary! That you could get COVID-19 and never fully recover and become a 'long-hauler'.
Here's some of the juicy quotes:
It’s not clear why this happens. Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale, offers three possibilities. Long-haulers might still harbor infectious virus in some reservoir organ, which is missed by tests that use nasal swabs. Or persistent fragments of viral genes, though not infectious, may still be triggering a violent immune overreaction, as if “you’re reacting to a ghost of a virus,” Iwasaki says. More likely, the virus is gone but the immune system, having been provoked by it, is stuck in a lingering overactive state. “I’m acutely aware of my body at all times of the day,” LeClerc told me. “It shrinks your entire world to an almost reptilian response to your surroundings.”
Modified by eDrek at Sat, Jun 06, 2020, 18:53:55
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thanks, edrek, that was a fascinating read. It's interesting isn't it - allergic responses were considered hypochondriac not that long ago but now they are understood to be all too real. And I have to admit that while sympathetic I have not really understood what this chronic fatigue thing is - why can't they get better with a bit of bed rest. But now I am getting the picture. What a good article. Very helpful.
Yesterday I watched a very good tv show - Australian Story did a special on the Spanish flu. (They don't know for sure but believe it likely started in Kansas, it was the Spanish who first admitted to having it because they weren't actually at war in the first world war and could admit to being sick) and yes it certainly puts the corona virus into perspective and all that but I do believe that we are into a new realm of difficulties with our immune systems, my personal belief being this is due to the chemical disaster train we have going in our food production.
When I was a child and got stung by a wasp or a bee I remember I got bigger localised swellings than my brothers but you know basically I was fine. Nowadays it is anaphylactic shock and probably curtains for me if I get stung again.
What went wrong? In my 30's I ate a ready made spring roll from China. I collapsed hours later. It turned out to be anaphylactic shock and since then any time I ate anything with msg in it that was anaphylaxis for me. It had a knock on effect. Like the 'Long Haulers' I am in the business of trying to understand and learn how to help my immune system settle back down.
Though I must admit I think it's a losing battle - the first paper wasp sting had me sitting in a chair for half an hour, a bit short on oxygen but basically fine, no anaphylactic shock but the second sting nearly killed me. And I am allergic to more things not less.
In the thirty years I have survived with anaphylaxis it has gone from people thinking allergic reactions are a bit dodgy to schools where they ban peanuts. Did anyone in our parents generation have allergies to peanuts? never heard of it.
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well yes, venom is venom and it is pretty strange stuff. The paper wasp affects lots of people badly, there's something about it which made my lungs feel semi-paralysed, but anaphylaxis is the immune system going over the top. Having experienced it so many times now I can tell when it's about to happen, I can feel it in my head, it's like a saucepan of milk boiling over on the stove and after I survived that I still could not raise my head off the floor because I couldn't get enough oxygen and that was the venom of the wasp. It lasted about another 2 hours and slowly faded off.
Though there are distinct differences between being shocked by different substances there are some things that are the same, the collapse is the same, the length of time it takes to ride that boil over is the same, unless the medical profession gets involved, then all bets are off and I would never call for an ambulance even if I had the phone in my hand - it fixes itself in around one and three quarter hours. It takes about three years to recover fully, I can feel it. If I can go that long without a shock, as now, then whatever stores it is that aid my system in surviving are back up to full supply.
It's just so fascinating so complex, I feel like all the science we have is nowhere close to understanding what is happening.
One little tidbit from the Spanish flu tv show was the story of a man which had been recorded so we heard him telling it, how this nurse saved his life, his lungs were failing, she got the doctor to come and he said to him I am going to give you an injection and it's going to make you jump and it certainly did, he said - it saved him. It was strychnine!
Approximate death toll from the Spanish flu - 15 million. 15,000 in Australia, though we were the last country to get it.
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I've seen someone get swellings the size of half an orange from mosquito bites.
It's an odd business. I have a few sensitivities myself, but none immediately fatal. Can't eat this, can't eat that, can't breathe this, can't take that medicine... just makes me into a reluctant fusspot, and there's no sympathy for such boring inadequacies.
There does seem to be an increase world-wide in allergies. As a kid, I knew a couple of kids had hay fever, and that was about it. (Now I react to several types of pollen and the hairs off the back of lime tree leaves.) Someone somewhere must be researching this. If sensitivities are increasing in severity and scope, how will it be in another generation or two? Needs sorting, along with all the other things.
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wow, that is a large swelling. when I first came here I would get swellings from mosquito bites that were the size of half a small egg. After some years they got less and less and now pretty similar to anyone else. It was the 70's when I arrived here and there was this thing Australians had going which was if you are going on a picnic invite a Pom to keep the mozzies busy.
I can't handle breathing the synthetic perfumes these days, deodorants and the 'orange' smell in cleaning products etc etc. It doesn't make me go into shock it's just uncomfortable but if I don't get away from it I feel increasingly sick and get a headache. No problem with the smell of petrol, positively like the smell of Domestos.
The only science I know of into the causality is a woman in Sydney who established that red meat allergy (that gives me shock too now) has come about from tick bites - their saliva contains antibodies to help them digest the blood. We react to that. When I saw that on the news I wrote to her and said that I thought it might have come about from the cattle dipping in insecticides. Her reply to me was that I would be pleased to know her research was on cattle ticks not paralysis ticks! I didn't reply to that - as if - as if paralysis ticks don't drink cattle blood, or cattle ticks drink human blood.
The knock on effect described by the long haulers, the ME and CFS from tick bites etc - that interests me, it also brings into question my belief that it is caused by all the chemical cocktails in modern agriculture. There seems to have been similar responses to the Spanish flu and I think from various stories I have heard that it goes back a fair way in time. I am fortunate to be in pretty good shape but still I think I tire more quickly than average for my age.
We really do seem to be on the brink of collapse. From climate change (it is odd weather today, very cold and then the sun comes out and it feels too hot for this time of year) and poisons to the very stuff of us. How many kids had adhd when we were at school? Now they are legion. One woman I knew would bring her adhd son for swimming lessons, and it seems a bit counter intuitive but she had been advised by her doctor to give him a can of coke before lessons to help him concentrate and she swore by it.
I haven't been good for the last little while to the extent that I took the risk of listening to my intuition and going to a neighbour and asking her for a cigarette. It only took the one but it was enough, I felt better.
All this insistence that love peace and happiness doesn't matter. Ridiculous. Why didn't people ask themselves what the alternative is? I think it is too late now.
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Hi Lesley,I have met others who are allergic to MSG. I think the allergy does usually hit badly the second exposure ( For a logical but complicated reason that I can't remember ). My allergy is Oysters. Not the first time, just the second time onwards. In France they eat them at Christmas ( bizarrely ) and while staying with my brother in France, one xmas , his friendly neighbour offered me one. I thought the allergy may have gone away, or been a figment of my imagination ...and anyway ONE wouldn't do me any harm. So I ate one and it took just a few minutes to provoke a violent and unpleasant reaction....in my case just explosive vomit. Won't eat them again.
Best wishes to all after that delightful story 
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Sailing on a friend's boat in Ireland 3 years ago, we came into a port that had a huge fish market along the quay. There was a great choice of fish available, and my friend went shopping and I was disappointed to see him come back with a big bag of mussels.
He saw the disappointment in my face. He said, you're not allergic to them? I said, I don't think so. I think I just don't like them. Well, he said, if you don't know you're not allergic to them, you can't have tried them, or you'd know. Thinking he had a point, I overcame my reluctance and we ate half the bag each. 15 minutes later I was on the deck, heaving over the side.
In a quiet spell, I heard him talking to his wife on the phone. I heard her shout, of course he's allergic to them. He asked how she knew, and she told him that when they had sailed to Portugal 2-3 year previously and anchored alongside me, he had given me a tin of mussels then. Same reluctance to try them, same reaction.
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For me the food allergies don't hit immediately it is hours later when it hits a specific spot in my digestive system, must be out of the stomach, I can feel it happening, maybe as soon as it gets to the colon - it is explosive out the other end too!!!
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Anyway, my friend is very allergic to Marijuana edibles.
He has experienced being very, very stoned while sitting in his/her recliner chair listening to music and then he/she gets this funny feeling in his/her stomach and starts puking in a wastebasket.
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I turned down a family BBQ Sunday with my brother and his kids and grandkids. I really miss them, but I don't feel like I can take that risk.
"SHOCKING": NEARLY ALL WHO RECOVERED FROM COVID-19 HAVE HEALTH ISSUES MONTHS LATER
"These recovered patients told researchers that they still suffer from symptoms like tightness in the chest, fatigue, headaches, or shortness of breath almost three months after recovering. 85 percent of participants said they were in good health before getting the coronavirus. Only six percent said that their health is back to what it was before their infection. The average age of those surveyed was 53."
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Yep, COVID-19 is not just the flu as so many idiots were saying. Ok, maybe for some people, but if you are unlucky it could be very bad.
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