It wasn't that well known until the people that have been trying to minimize Covid from day 1 for political reasons started talking about it.

Why is it such an issue that people deny it?

Viruses can cause organ tissue damages, that's enough for me to believe a virus can cause all sort of "syndromes"

I'm not on the denier side but harass me with fear, threats, and free movement mandates and I will deny that syndromes even exist.

* fatigue is something everyone feels sometimes and the answer is to push through it for most people

* it’s impossible to observe fatigue objectively, it just appears people are lazy or low energy

* there’s no known (or at least there wasn’t last time I researched it) bio markers for CFS

* there’s no known evidence of viruses causes CFS, just speculation

Etc

Things have changed a lot over the last 30 years. I think most people including doctors accept CFS is real whereas that wasn’t the case in the past.

The case for the cause of CFS is still very much open, and I think it’s probably naive to say CFS is caused by viral infections. It’s probably the case that some CFS is caused by viral infections, but again, it’s hard to differentiate, it’s hard to prove, and even if you did, so what? CFS probably also has autoimmune causes, which themselves are diffuse in their root causes and mechanisms, and even psychosomatic roots in burnout and other extreme stress syndrome. Finally, when the causes are psychosomatic, that isn’t code for “fake,” it is literally a real issue it’s just not caused by an extrinsic agent. The health impact of extreme prolonged stress is not a joke, and it’s not the persons “fault.” There seems to be a real need for people to pin their CFS and other health issues on some external factor and not the abuse they’ve (or others have) subjected their psychology and by proxy their body to.

> I think most people including doctors accept CFS is real whereas that wasn’t the case in the past.

I think most doctors accept that CFS is real, but I also think most doctors would not call a somatic illness fake. See for instance these researchers [0] who are research somatic causes yet all agree there is a physical/hereditary component. Anxiety disorders also have a hereditary component and they aren't fake.

[0]: https://theguardian.com/society/2011/aug/21/chronic-fatigue-...

Because of long covid and the millions suffering with it, we are revealing many new findings of a category that has largely been ignored for centuries. Darwin for example was thought to had CFS through his health journals, but nobody knew or cared about it.

When those new findings challenge our current understanding, we get smarter as a species and work to alleviate the suffering by investing more money and time into these matters.

Points aside, your third point is largely concerning.

It's an issue when doctors deny it. For many years, for many doctors, that was the case with CFS.

There is still no identified viral mechanism for CFS. So yes, you will continue to find many doctors that deny that there is convincing evidence for viral causes of CFS because that is the reality of the current situation.

Fair. I was talking about doctors denying the existence of CFS, but that wasn't the topic, was it?

If I had to make guesses, my take is a viral+immune system interaction. You get the virus which causes your own immune system to respond. In that response we get a 'partial match' to something inside of our own system. This leads to a low level inflammatory attack against your own system.

In type 1 diabetics there is some evidence of a post viral auto-immune cause in some cases.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2570378/

And COVID infections increase you risk of developing type 2 diabetes:

https://www.cedars-sinai.org/newsroom/verified-covid-19-infe...

But: absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence. The fact that we still haven't found convincing evidence (with the caveat that 'millions of people complain about certain symptoms in my book counts as overwhelming evidence') doesn't mean that such a mechanism doesn't exist. It may merely mean that we are looking in the wrong places, my not be looking in the right way and in general still have a poor understanding of how our bodies really work.

GBS for instance:

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/guillain-ba...

Is linked to post viral or post bacterial infections, and even though here too there is a lack of complete understanding at least the symptoms are so clear (up to complete paralysis) that denying it seems pointless. It's also super rare, so there is no incentive to deny it.

But if COVID ends up putting a sizeable percentage of the workforce out of action that may well have serious implications for how we deal with chronic disease and post viral infections. Incidentally: this is one of the possible futures that various experts warned about during the early days of the pandemic, that it would be a decade or more before we would fully understand the impact and that by assuming the post infection consequences would be mild that we may have made a grave mistake.

Fortunately some of the more outrageous possibilities have so far not surfaced, this is one that we can deal with.

Doctors are not medical forensics. It shouldn't matter that the mechanism behind CFS isn't known, there's ample evidence that the condition is real. So I reject that casual dismissal.

However, there is no known way to treat CFS. That problem is a much more valid excuse for a doctor to do nothing. But a doctor that refuses to acknowledge a patient's troubles because they don't know how to treat it is a bad doctor.

Then agreed it is a problem.

Some investigation revealed though that is has become more difficult for GPs to ignore the pressure put on them by insurers to send patients back to work.

My girlfriend's sister suffers from Long Covid for going on 2yrs now.

Some of the problems she had early on is that most doctors wrote her off as either lying or anxiety. More than one ER doc said there's no way that Covid could ever cause lasting symptoms other than lung damage, which she didn't have, so it's likely just anxiety. There was one DO she saw, during an admit for tachycardia, who said that he believed that she has a post-viral syndrome and knew of others with other post-Covid issues. The problem would be trying to convince his colleagues to believe it would be an uphill battle, so he hoped it was temporary for her. I know things have changed now but some doctors can be extremely arrogant and dismissive of patients (female patients more than male).

> but trying to get his colleagues to believe it would be an uphill battle

You have to go through a lot of education to become a doctor, so people naturally expect doctor's to be wise, but the truth is they are just good a memorizing things. They aren't necessarily smarter than any other person and have just as many blindspots.

* Source: My dad and uncle are doctors. My brother in law is a doctor. I have a friend who is a doctor. And I've known a lot of other doctors through them.

I dated a med school student for all of medschool and some rotations. Thus I have countless doctor friends now from those years. Everytime I bring up the reality of what most doctors are like, I get downvoted on HN for some reason.

The doctor I dated for years never drank water. She loved diet coke. She ate mcdonalds constantly but avoided the bun. She was skinny though. I had to teach her how to pump gas because her dad did it for her until she was 22. She loved cocaine and moly. Currently cycles Adderall and Ritalin (or something very similar) so she doesnt get too used to one or the other. I could list 20 other 'wtf?' type of things about her. Most others are similarly weird, careless, unhealthy, confused and logicless.

> She ate mcdonalds constantly but avoided the bun

If she also skipped the fries (and had salad instead) that wouldn't be the worst imaginable diet.

She must not have been that bad if you dated her for years.

She was an ok girlfriend. She's not the intellectual caring doctor people imagine when discussing advice from doctors.

> Everytime I bring up the reality of what most doctors are like

Is your insight that doctors are regular educated humans suffering from the same flaws and vices as other regular educated humans?

> She loved cocaine and moly. Currently cycles Adderall and Ritalin (or something very similar) so she doesn’t get too used to one or the other.

Not sure what this is supposed to imply. I expect the same can also be said for at least 20% of SV, Big Law, Wall Street and Main Street in the 20-29 age range.

Drug abuse, alcohol abuse, no knowledge of anything real world other than your job, are not qualities of "regular educated people".

They are modern qualities of the loud morality failed majority these days. Just because it's common for celebrities and kids of rich people to do drugs and screw around, doesn't mean that's what my parents expect from their doctors.

> Drug abuse, alcohol abuse, no knowledge of anything real world other than your job, are not qualities of "regular educated people".

Actually they are, your statement applies to any one of the examples I gave you of what society considers successful/prestigious careers. Silicon Valley is the poster child for stimulant and hallucinogen use/abuse, are they not similarly regular educated people?

> Just because it's common for celebrities and kids of rich people to do drugs and screw around

Where are you getting the idea that it's only common amongst celebrities and kids of rich people?

> They are modern qualities of the loud morality failed majority these days.

I don't even know what "loud morality failed majority" means but morality (particularly your personal definition of it) =/= professional competency.

The disconnect here seems to be your expectations. Once again, physicians as a group are no different than any other similar white-collar profession. Sorry to disappoint but we're not special.

Jesus man. I understand that degenerate behavior is common in today's doctors. That was my entire point of the original post. Otherwise what would I really be saying? That I knew ONE almost drug addict doctor that looks forward to her next festival? Obviously one of everything exists.

My point about celebrities and rich famous people was that they normalized it, to the point that you aren't even surprised doctors are druggies in their free time.

No one cars that some Uber programmer is on speed. More people would care to know that their doctor that recommends heart pressure medication is a druggy, because they'd know this personal doesn't really care about potential kidney damage in themselves, so of course they'll recommend you take kidney damaging heart medication without really explaining that that's what is happening.

If you left the SV and internet bubble, you'd learn that drug use and alcohol use is not liked by most in their higher level professionals.

This sounds more like you are bitter about an ex than anything else.

I see doctors a bit like car mechanics. While car engineers would probably more be something like biologists.

Women in particular get a lot of 'mental' diagnoses for actual physical ailments. Endometriosis seems to be one of those terrible things that women are told to suffer with, then later if they have exploratory surgery they find terrible lesions inside their body.

Is she vaccinated with mRNA?

She is now, but was infected with the virus before she got the vaccine. The vaccine was available but unfortunately she was hesitant about getting it due to all of the noise online and in the news. She was vaccinated about 4mo after being infected and had already been experiencing Long Covid symptoms.

If she was vaccinated after infection, she probably has enough level of antibodies. (1,2) I hope she consult that with her doctor rather than online noise as you think.

(1) https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.04.21267114v... (2) https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.12.21263461v...

I think it's simply because no normal human wants to know that they're permanently damaged. It's a real tough pill to swallow. You have to be very comfortable with your own mortality.

Because I've been running from doctor to doctor for years without results - because they won't test for anything other than the regular stuff, like blood tests, heart issues, etc. My boss doesn't believe me since CFS or burnout couldn't possibly exist, you just need to focus on your work more. Everytime I say I can't go out since I'm too tired I get made fun of or have eyes rolled at me.

It's like denying someone has a broken arm and gets ridiculed for not wanting to play tennis.

You should read Howard Bloom's advice on CFS. He basically says you have to become your own doctor and use medical professionals as your council.

https://forums.phoenixrising.me/attachments/howard-bloom-cfs...

There was once a term in more popular use, at least by doctors, that seems to have fallen out of fashion:

Post viral sequela

sequela

noun MEDICINE plural noun: sequelae

a condition which is the consequence of a previous disease or injury. "the long-term sequelae of infection"

I listen to a podcast called This Week in Virology that's run by some prominent virologists and I hear this term used often, so I don't think that it's fallen out of fashion. Laypersons probably never much used the term to begin with.

That is the medical term for it. PASC is another name for long covid.

There is evidence that at least some incidence of obesity are tied to adenovirus 36

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41366-021-00805-6

>It is beyond me how people can deny post viral syndromes.

I feel part of the problem is we don't really have any good treatments for it. I know my doctor put it down as post viral tiredness but when I asked how long it might last or what I could do about it he just shrugged his shoulders.

For anyone that cares, I recommend trying a 90 day fresh vegetable juice diet. Not pasteurized store bought junk. Juice 10 lbs of vegetables a day and drink them in one or two sittings (will make a gallon). Drink it for 90 days. If you're not overweight, pay attention to calories and adjust to maintain weight. If you're overweight, just drink a gallon a day you'll survive.

Carrots, cucumber, celery, beets. 90 days.

I think this is an experiment everyone should do at least once in their life.

Tldr; I think fresh vegetable juice and cooked ground beef is the ideal diet long term.

Isn’t this the diet that killed Steve Jobs?

I think that was the cancer.

It's been widely speculated that his extreme diet is likely what caused or contributed to his pancreatic cancer. Supposedly he was also ignoring his doctor's medical advice and had some irrational belief that his fruit diet would cure his cancer.

It's also been speculated that the cancer was from his early days at HP soldering.

But that was only a doctors opinion based on the doubling rate of the cancer.

100% vegetable diet should be significantly better that only eating fruits/sugar and a few nuts.

Why ground beef?

Because I have tried it many times and my body has some intense urge for beef, and ground beef IMO is the easiest to make, digest, and cheapest and has fats that are good for you IMO.

Some people think poorly of ground beef because "you don't know what's in it!" But moments later will tell you it's important to eat all parts of the animal because they have different nutrients. Ok then, sounds like ground beef is a good way to get different portions a butcher doesn't think sells well. Give me some foot meat, bring it on.

There's also the fact that beef is basically the one food you could eat alone 365 days a year your whole life and get everything you need. That doesn't apply to vegetables or chicken or anything else really.

Tldr; many people would say someone that eats a HUGE salad and some meat everyday, no breads or processed garbage would be healthy. Well, drinking 10 lbs of vegetables and having some ground beef is basically that except you're drinking more vegetables even that most people could ever eat in a day.

> There's also the fact that beef is basically the one food you could eat alone 365 days a year your whole life and get everything you need. That doesn't apply to vegetables or chicken or anything else really.

Do you have some sources to back this up? I was under the impression that you should really eat red meat in moderation, but this might be outdated info.

> There's also the fact that beef is basically the one food you could eat alone 365 days a year your whole life and get everything you need

Once your teeth fall out from scurvy you'll be glad the beef is ground so you don't have to chew as much.

It's sad that you get your info from government labels that round down and then extrapolate.. but there is vitamin c in beef.

Beyond that, I said to drink a gallon of fresh vegetable juice daily... I think they'll be alright.

Why 90 days ? Why juice ? And what's supposed to happen ?

Because 90 days is long enough to see results for most people, but not so long that it's an impossible time frame.

Because drinking 10 lbs of vegetables is doable, but eating them is almost impossible raw. If you cook them, it's still hard to eat 10 lbs of vegetables and you've killed a lot of nutrients. Because it gives your body a break from digestion.

You'll feel a lot better.

Edit: even those that think the idea of vegetable juice curing anything is goofy basically have to admit that it forces you to avoid process junk for 90 days, and 'eat' tons of vegetables only. Which in itself is bound to fix a decent amount of things bothering people. You could argue that someone could just eat the vegetables, but it's very hard to get 1000-1500 calories just eating (chewing) raw vegetables. So juice them for 90 days. You won't feel too weak, and you'll give your body a break from digestion and from processed garbage.

> You'll feel a lot better.

But you don't say why and how it's relevant to the topic at hand.

Anybody can come up with "eat vegetables". "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

Almost every human on earth has come up with 'eat vegetables', correct.

1, most people don't enough of it anyway.

2, I didn't say I came up with. I said I think a massive dose of vegetables for 90 days, that are ultra easy to digest because most fiber has been removed, is beneficial.

3, I didn't say mostly plants. I said all plants. If you try to do that, you'll have a LOT of trouble getting 1000+ calories doing it. Juicing them makes it possible.

But to your first point.. this thread was about people feeling terrible for months after an infection. We don't even know how or why they feel terrible. My advice was to try juicing vegetables, and not eating anything else, for 90 days. Because it has made MANY people that have tried it into believers.

Out of people that have tried it, I'd say 40% think it's a miracle process, 50% think it's very good for you, and 10% think they didn't feel any different.

Out of people that haven't tried it, 10% believe it would be great for them but they dont have the willpower to try it. The other 90% are usually negative about it without really having any good explanation.

I usually process a bunch of vegetables in a Vitamix because I think it's better to have it with the fiber. Would this be less of a good thing than just a straight juice? I've heard the juice loan isn't great without the fiber, but I don't know.

Blending a nice way to eat some vegetables for sure.

The idea of this temporary diet is to give your body time to live off only vegetables, with limited digestion effort. Even if you don't care about digestion, it is hard to eat, even blended, enough vegetables to maintain energy/calories/body weight. Even blended, I don't think you could eat 10 lbs a day for 90 days. That's the main benefit.

Unless you have an actual major sugar problem, I wouldn't worry too much about the sugar spike from juicing. We do much worse things than that to our body. Heck, some people even drink alcohol.

Why do you think taking the fiber out of vegetables is good?

Because without doing so I can't eat 1000-1500 calories of vegetables.

I think this is worth doing once every few years at least for 90 days.

By juice do you mean do you mean you just blend those vegetables more or less whole or actual (pressed/etc.) juice?

Because if second that sounds like a terrible idea. If first you might have a good point as long you make sure to get the necessary nutrients etc.

No, not blending. Even blended I don't think you could consume 10 lbs of vegetables a day.

Have you assessed the nutritional content in the final juice? Carrots and celery are known to be harmful in excess (as most things are).

90 days is a very long time, please talk to a doctor or nutritionist before attempting anything like this.

You may also look into the fact you’re eating a zero-fiber diet. I’ve read something about that actually helping with IBS symptoms, it could explain any improvement you see vs the content of the diet which honestly doesn’t sound great.

I've spent countless hours reading and experimenting with this. I cant regurgitate all of it here.

What do you even need all this fiber for, especially for 90 days? You're not eating heavy grains or meat that you need help pushing through.

Lol to the idea of eating tons of vegetables not sounding great.

No worries. “Eating” is not even the right word since you’re removing all solids. Without seeing any evidence or scientific argument, yes, drinking juice of the same four vegetables for a full three months sounds very problematic on multiple fronts… this is very different from “eating a lot of vegetables”.

I'm not forcing anyone to do it. I've done it, and had great results. I've had a few friends and family do it, and all have been impressed.

People think nothing of going on vacation and eating poorly and drinking for 7+ days straight.

But tell people you should try atleast 7 days of vegetable juice only and they start looking at your sideways. Say 30+ days and they'll warn you it's dangerous. Say 90 and they'll think you're going to die.

I promise you more people are dying from pizza and beer than vegetable juice for 90 days.

> Lol to the idea of eating tons of vegetables

It's not just "tons", it's exclusively vegetables which is probably fine as long as you make sure your diet is balanced.

However only drinking "juices" certainly for 3 months seems a bit wacky (of course it still depends on the specific fruits/vegetables). Chances are you'll consume significantly more sugar and significantly less protein and fat (of course fiber deosen't seem to matter..) compared to actually eating those vegetables/fruits directly. Which seems like a horrible idea..

I think it’s because we live in a world where you can’t recover. It’s all about being productive. Your doctor is saying , just get back to it.

If you got a virus and could take some time to rest then it probably wouldn’t be an issue. But I think we’re worried about viral recovery times because it affects GDP figures.

After I have a virus I like to go slow, but I’m not allowed because I have to keep up with my job.

It's bizarre how your comment is being downvoted when it's a very accurate description of many modern capitalistic societies.

Especially if we're talking about America, where companies literally try to fire you if you're sick or using up too much health care because of their bottom line. It doesn't even matter if it's illegal because unless they get caught there are no consequences and even if they do get caught, the consequences are often times so pathetic that it's worth taking the hit because the savings exceed the punishment.

it's being downvoted because it somehow implies that by taking a few days of rest one might treat CE/MFS, which is a very misguided and misinformed take

I didn't say it will treat it though? I said if you're sick, you need time to rest.

> by taking a few days of rest one might treat CE/MFS

Their comment in no way implies that

That's far from universal though. Plenty countries and employers do offer recovery time and space, but it's not sufficient.

I've had friends who suffered CFS (known as ME here in the UK for a time) while students or shortly after finishing high school, and they did literally nothing for years with thankfully parental safety nets without recovering. I don't even recall what eventually happened unfortunately - we're talking early 1990s.

> It is beyond me how people can deny post viral syndromes.

If there’s anything the mass death and injury of COVID have taught me, it’s that there is pretty much no level of harm that can’t be justified with appeals to “they deserve it because X”, with X being whatever quality or characteristic allows someone to rationalize away the fundamentally random and widespread harm as being limited to an out-group. This should’ve been obvious to everyone from the HIV/AIDS crisis, but it’s quite bluntly apparent now.

This is the scary thing about people. We're a pretty horrible species. This is how they justify genocides.

People denied Covid and often deny anything that forces them to confront uncomfortable truths. It’s a copying mechanism

> mentioned being sick in his documentary "Still"

I just saw this and he doesn't say that. He says that he was drinking with Woody Harrelson, had to be helped into his suite by a bodyguard and "I woke with a monster hangover" when he first noticed the auto-animated finger.

> where other crew members also have Parkinsons

Michael J. Fox himself throws some cold water over this to avoid over-extrapolating:

"Believe it or not, from a scientific point of view, that's not significant."[4] Donald Calne, a Vancouver neurologist, said the incidence of Parkinson's in society is about 1 in 300, but that four of the 125 people on the Vancouver set of Leo and Me developed the disease. Calne said, "It could be coincidence. But it's intriguing, it might be something they were exposed to."

It is briefly mentioned when he is talking about his “workaholism” when he was young and also part of many articles on this phenomena. See the wiki page for sources.

> So what about Fox and the suspected Leo and Me cluster? Did they all breathe in some environmental toxin in the studio? Or did they perhaps pass the disease to each other? One theory, that has been around for years, is that Parkinson's could be caused - or perhaps triggered - by a viral infection, maybe even influenza.

> Dr Donald Calne, of the University of British Columbia Hospital, is treating two of the cast of Leo and Me. He told the Chicago Sun-Times that studies have found there to be an increased risk of clusters among certain workers who operate closely together - principally teachers, medical workers, loggers and miners. They could, the theory goes, be exposed to more viruses than most people, and this might cause them to develop the disease.

> It is briefly mentioned when he is talking about his “workaholism”

You'll have to timestamp or quote it because I don't see it. I have searched the subtitles. No relevant mention of sick, ill, flu, work etc.

Sorry I don’t have time right now. Perhaps I misremembered, but thought he said he would often sleep off illness in the car when the driver would take him to and from gigs when he was a teen. I trust you looked.

He talks about working two jobs but this was during Family Ties & Back to the Future, 6 years before his symptoms. He describes sleeping in the car but no mention of illness. At best it's "can't be good can it?" and "confused about which set I was on" but no mention of sickness. Were this to be a cause, and I don't there is any evidence to suggest it is but I feel the doc wishes to insinuate so, it would be a stress/sleep/overwork type risk factor.

I would note the irony that you bemoan people for not believing something when the evidence you cite isn't there - it suggests more caution is required! From my own reading, that sums up the topic: people are open to viral theories but the proof just isn't there yet so believing it is premature. Parkinson's remains poorly understood in both mechanism and cause. It is said to be "a combination of genetic and environmental factors which might include pesticides and head injury". I imagine post-viral consequences could fit within head-injury type risk factors but we are not at a position to make statements of fact about such things.

Here's two studies. Thanks for the feedback. I choose to bemoan those who deny it completely and will continue to do so. Not those who keep an open mind.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22753266/

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/fullarticle/2...