I’m looking for data on the odds of developing long covid. Preferably something by age and sex. But really, I’d appreciate any sense of how common (or uncommon) it is.
Have you tried an internet search engine? Last time I looked, an article from The Mayo Clinic was the most interesting.
Maybe you mean this one:
I only read it briefly, but I didn’t see odds there. By the way, to copy a link, highlight the URL (that’s the internet address that typically has .com, .org., or .edu in it (in a Windows computer, you can use ctrl-C), then in your reply post, paste the link in (again, on Windows, you can use ctrl-V).
ETA: This article, which I cannot vouch for, says 1 in 20:
Everything I’ve seen averages 20% chance of long covid for all cases and 70% for cases which required hospitalization.
If you are going to google the article, at least give the link.
Lengthy article in the most recent Atlantic. And today’s Chicago Trib referenced a study by Northwestern U. The Atlantic article said it was more common in non-aged women.
I’ll avoid expressing my personal opinions in this forum.
I’m seeing long covid symptoms in folks 4+ months out, some of whom had minimal or no symptoms during the original infection, and were only identified as having covid due to routine testing. Fatigue, shortness of breath, muscle and joint aches, mental fog, headaches, and diarrhea are common complaints. Ages range from mid 20’s to late 60’s. All are male, but then so is my patient population. Some of my most stoic patients complain of it while some of my ‘more sensitive to their symptoms’ patients do not.
The ones who were sick as hell with the acute illness all seem to have some lingering symptoms 6+ months later.
Exams are pretty normal, but some show low white blood counts, elevated liver transaminases, and mildly elevated muscle enzymes. Chest x-rays are normal.
Sadly, it’s hard to tease out the various percentages of folks who are complaining of problems due to covid from our EMR data.
Thanks for the report.
In your opinion, does anything other than the fact of having had a mild case of COVID distinguish folk complaining of “long COVID” from folk complaining of chronic fatigue, Epstein Barre, long Lyme, fibromyalgia, dysautonomia, somatoform disorder, and /or any number of other hard to diagnose symptom complexes.
I’m not a doc, but I read medical records regularly in my job. I’ve found it interesting that some number of people - generally more commonly women - complain of various symptoms including aches, fatigue, memory problems…, for which the etiology is not entirely clear. Over time, the medical community seems to vacillate between viewing these as psychological vs physiological. Hysteria or vapours anyone? In my nonmedical experience, I often fail to see in the exam and treatment records how a doctor lands upon one specific dx as opposed to another.
I’m not denying that long COVID is a thing. I don’t know enough to take a position. But I haven’t dived into the studies. Has it been clearly established that long COVID is not one of the previousy known and treated autoimmune or emotional disorders that was exacerbated by COVID?
I guess some of my confusion sorta gets to the challenge of even identifying AND diagnosis in such cases. But, at least in the US healthcare system, if you don’t diagnose it, ya don’t get paid to treat it! 
They look like shit. They have neutropenia, elevated transaminases, abnormal cpk levels, ESRs and c-reactive peptide levels that are abnormal.
I’ve dealt with folks with fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, IBS, dysautonomia. Post covid ain’t them.
And calling this stuff hysteria or vapors does a great disservice to folks whose diagnoses we still don’t understand, whether it’s long covid, fibromyalgia, CFS, IBS, etc.
Thanks for the clarification. You are the doc!
Thank you!
I have a good friend who had chronic fatigue syndrome. She had been a highly energetic women, and rather suddenly she felt like shit and couldn’t do anything. She saw a number of doctors who couldn’t find anything wrong, and suggested she was crazy, or oughts to get pregnant. (Yes, seriously.) She saw a psychologist who assured her that her mental health seemed fine, and told her she shouldn’t believe the people who claimed it was all in her head.
Then, rather suddenly, after more than a year of being quite sick, she got better. And she again was a highly energetic person. She has no idea what the problem was. But whatever it was, it was a real problem that prevented her from doing ordinary things, like keeping up with her personal grooming, holding down a job, etc.
Just because a problem isn’t well-understood by doctors doesn’t mean it’s not real.
I saw a recent report that some sufferers of Long COVID are helped by getting a vaccination. Not all of them, unfortunately, but a substantial percentage. It’s not really understood. It could be that there’s a residual infection somewhere in the body that’s causing Long COVID and the vaccine helps get rid of that. Or it could be a placebo effect.
I kind of doubt this, most long covid patients have no trace of the virus on even the most sensitive PCR testing. But I have no better explanation.
This ^
Don’t stop posting, Qadgop. You are consistently one of the most interesting posters and your info is always worth a read.
Ditto!
Thanks, Qadgop, for really interesting responses.
I exist only to serve . . .
Wait, that’s the Bene Gesserit. Never mind.
I realize the OP is a Mod, but re-doing the research would have too much of a “doing someone’s homework for them” vibe for me to be comfortable with it.
Then there was no need to reply.
Thanks for the info!
For those who are interested, I came across two articles that talk about … at least a certain subgroup of “long-COVID” patients:
Findings In this cohort study including 100 patients recently recovered from COVID-19 identified from a COVID-19 test center, cardiac magnetic resonance imaging revealed cardiac involvement in 78 patients (78%) and ongoing myocardial inflammation in 60 patients (60%), which was independent of preexisting conditions, severity and overall course of the acute illness, and the time from the original diagnosis.
Cardiac inflammation in COVID-19: Lessons from heart failure
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the most common co-morbidity associated with COVID-19 and the fatality rate in COVID-19 patients with CVD is higher compared to other comorbidities, such as hypertension and diabetes. Preliminary data suggest that COVID-19 may also cause or worsen cardiac injury in infected patients through multiple mechanisms such as ‘cytokine storm’, endotheliosis, thrombosis, lymphocytopenia etc. Autopsies of COVID-19 patients reveal an infiltration of inflammatory mononuclear cells in the myocardium, confirming the role of the immune system in mediating cardiovascular damage in response to COVID-19 infection and also suggesting potential causal mechanisms for the development of new cardiac pathologies and/or exacerbation of underlying CVDs in infected patients. In this review, we discuss the potential underlying molecular mechanisms that drive COVID-19-mediated cardiac damage, as well as the short term and expected long-term cardiovascular ramifications of COVID-19 infection in patients.
Some of these people may well have ended up with a form of restrictive cardiomyopathy – possibly as yet undiagnosed and very difficult to diagnose absent a high index of suspicion.
In short, the overwhelming inflammation can resolve – improperly – into fibrosis (ie, scarring). The heart can literally shrink and stiffen, compromising its ability to relax and fill (with blood to be pumped out).
Think of a 12 volt car running on … let’s say … 5 or 6 volts. Pretty much every single system can be adversely affected.
I’m only a tiny bit out ahead of my proverbial skis on this one. The research I pointed to, and other research, supports this – again: at least in a subgroup of post-COVID ‘long haulers.’