Long Covid research

 Article in the Times about yet another long covid research path going on.

The long and short of it is, a covid infection can change the immune system and what genes it expresses, resulting in constant inflammation for at least a year after initial infection. In other words. After infection. Your immune system is then constantly triggering and spreading inflammation all around the body.

By analyzing those stem cells, “what’s clear is that the immune system is fundamentally changed after a severe infection like COVID-19,” he says. These cells contain genetic changes that alter which genes they express, skewing them toward generating more inflammatory factors. The change lasts for at least a year following a severe COVID-19 infection. Since these stem cells are responsible for producing more copies of innate immune cells, the changes in the genes they express are carried over to the new generations of cells they make. When he studied the cells in a dish, Josefowicz found that they're capable of producing higher levels of inflammatory factors and are more likely to migrate—which, in a human body, means they can spread their inflammatory effects to other tissues. In animal models, these hyper responsive cells preferentially gravitate toward the lungs, brain, and heart, some of the organs most heavily affected by Long Covid

This, if you ask me, is the smoking gun for post viral malaise. CFS. Long Covid. Call it what you like.

The next question becomes. Can you then do anything about it ?

Again for me, although this is all focusing around Covid, this applies to all post virals imho. They already know that stuff like West Nile virus and Epstein Barr can cause the same long term symptoms and worse as Covid does. I believe it's the same auto immune fuckery mechanic going on. Hopefully the huge amounts of good research being done on this will find some solutions to many post viral complications. Not just covid.

Have a read.

https://time.com/6306361/covid-19-immune-system/?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-gb

The other thing that floats in my mind about this. Is just how much time, money and brainpower is required to figure this all out. Something, in theory, so simple. And how poorly equipped someone like a GP is to actually have something sensible to say on the matter. It would be nice if that level of health professional were aware of what they don't know instead of just fobbing people off.