But as two new studies published in the past week show, severe COVID isn’t the only risk faced by those with the disease. New findings in JAMA Psychiatry find that levels of mental illness such as depression, anxiety and self-harm are elevated after a COVID-19 diagnosis. Additionally, a new study published in Scientific Reports found that patients who lost their sense of smell after a COVID infection saw long-term structural changes to their brains as well as a tendency to more impulsive behaviors.
What! Wow. I didn’t know that, you’re telling me now for the first time.
Oh hey it’s the exact reason that I, someone already suffering severe ADHD and bipolar, did not want to contract covid ever no matter what, which few if any people have ever taken seriously or acknowledged as a rational and well founded extrapolation of potential consquences from known circumstances.
Seriously since the long covid symptoms and brain damage became clear I’ve been saying “I am taking serious precautions because covid causes symptoms similar to the ones that are already wrecking my quality of life and I do not want to compound those symptoms with further damage” and people just absolutely do not understand this and think I’m overreacting and it’s like what the entire fuck what the fuck what the fuck everyone knows how fucked my life is due to bipolar i never shut up about it why don’t they understand that even a “mild infection” from “it’s just a flu” is a huge fucking threat to my wellbeing why don’t they understand why don’t they care AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Either way, on my last day of paxlovid, last dose is tomorrow morning. Gonna start testing and see if I test clear so I can get the three days iwth no positives started.
If you can get Paxlovid do it. Medicaid still covers it. As soon as you get a positive test call your doctor or a clinic or your pharmacist, tell them you have thirty comorbidities, and get it. It shut down my symptoms within 18 hours. It stops viral replication, and idk for sure but in my amateur opinion less replication means less damage means better outcomes long term.
Man, I just started testing negative yesterday after having it for almost two weeks. Thought I was in the clear so I tried to do some downed tree cutting and moving, I was gassed immediately. Even after I quit and went inside it took me at least an hour to fully catch my breath, hands were tingly, felt light headed.
First COVID infection, thought it was pretty mild.
That is “mild” i’m afraid. Everything about how covid is normalized in our culture now is fucked. If you told someone in 2018 “oh i had a mild cold, it was fine, btw i can’t walk up a flight of stairs without being winded and i can’t taste or smell anything” they’d freak out and tell you to go to a specialist and berate you for not taking your health seriously. Now it’s like “oh yeah no big deal mild case i just have pre-heart-attack symptoms five times a weak lol”
Yeh. Get one of those pulse oximeter things, it can give you actual hard numbers about how your cardiovascular system is doing and how much oxygen you’re getting.
The fallen trees that mock me in the night will remain for at least another week or two
Seconding paxlovid, I had awful side effects worse than the disease but it got me better in a week.
Get well soon.
Seconding paxlovid, I had awful side effects worse than the disease but it got me better in a week.
what side-effects did you get?
Everything tasted like iron/copper, heavy nausea, and a seemingly random alternation between diarrhea and constipation. Would not recommend the experience, but it did get rid of the COVID so it’s worth
Two weeks of actual quarantining could have prevented this. But we needed to keep Chili’s open. Hope it was worth it, America.
as well as a tendency to more impulsive behaviors.
COVID is genuinely doing to humans what toxoplasmosis does to cats mice. Love that for us.
Edit: I was sleepy and wrote cats instead of mice
To mice, it rewires their brains so they spend more time in dangerous places and are more likely to get eaten. It’s a good strategy that unironically will make covid spread more. Not that it’s had long enough to develop that as a specific “strategy” insofar as evolution “strategizes”, it just stumbled upon it.
Actually I just read an article today talking about toxoplasmosis and it seems, according to more recent research, that it can also cause infected people to act more impulsively
Cw: weapons grade bazinga.
After it was discovered that Toxoplasmosis makes people more impulsive there was a slew of articles about how it’s actually great that humans are so ubiquitously infected with a brain-altering parasite! See, it makes them more likely to *make risky investments and cause the line to go up!
what toxoplasmosis does to cats
Not to be pedantic but it doesn’t really effect cats. Cats are the primary host and a major part of its lifecyle, but it really only effects the intermediate hosts like mice and people as far as behavioral changes and pathology.
there was an article a little while ago that looked at driving behavior and how covid may be a cause of bad driving
Anecdotally this completely tracks in my area, drivers overall are noticeably more aggressive and impulsive since covid started and more cars are clearly poorly maintained leaking oil or backfiring or have really noisy exhausts
If it is Covid or the social fabric fraying, either way people have become super assholes in everyday life
Just saw some asshole driving by in a residential neighborhood that has a 25mph speed limit trying to do 40 laying on his horn at the car in front of him in traffic for no goddamn reason
I’m kind of surprised road rage shootings aren’t more common in the US given how many angry fucking morons and guns there are in a place where going everywhere by car is nearly required in 99% of the country
Ugh, covid ruining it for everyone who was mentally ill before it was cool Guess I actually have to work on myself now
