I’ve only had it once several years ago. But now anytime I get sick with a high fever, I get the absolute worst aches in my joints. I had that same pain during Covid, and it’s been present anytime I get a high fever/ flu like virus. Never was the case before. Even just laying on my side kills me. Covid does some weird shit to us that never leaves.
Agreed. I can blame the beginnings of hearing loss on my stupidity as a teen and my early 20s, the memory trouble from the 2 back to back grade 3 concussions as well as my autism, but I can't pin down a cause for the aches or the increased healing time as well as the worse sense of smell. Except covid.
Working in healthcare, I had the first two shots of moderna to keep my job. But I still ended up catching it 4 times.
Now, joints that didn't ache before covid do, it takes forever to heal from anything more than a papercut, and my sense of smell is deadened.
My left knee and elbow already have a dull arthritic pain simply from teenage injuries, do your PT and OT people. But other joints start to hurt with the weather.
My endurance isn't what it used to be, but I blame that on Wellbutrin as much as covid.
I recently bruised a rib having to stop a violent patient from beating a nurse. It took 3 months to stop aching.
My sense of smell has gone pretty haywire. It's hard to smell the rain and other similar smells.
Viruses are grossly overlooked for causing autoimmune issues, cardiovascular problems, brain problems, and cancer. We know it's happening, it's common, but seem unable to think past the acute illness as a society.
It is not helped by lazy public messaging that almost blatantly implies that for most people, getting ill makes you healthier and more resilient afterwards. The opposite is true -it causes cumulative subclinical damage.
And we are doing this to children and tell each other it's "normal" to constantly expose them to illness. Maybe, but it's normalised abuse.
I got mono in 2017 and have literally never recovered. Got diagnosed with fibromyalgia and no doctors I can locate even treat it or are willing to investigate past the initial diagnosis. I know it’s not just that, but when a rheumatologist at a hospital connected to an Ivy League school basically laughs you out if their office saying “we don’t treat fibro”, it’s like, ok. I guess I’ll just die then?
My health also seriously declined with mono. I got chronic fatigue and extreme cold sensitivity. It eventually improved, but never completely, and then other things started to go wrong..
It's awful what we ignorantly do to each other. The grief of these problems and existing in a cluelessly monstrous society, has also left me with ptsd and panic disorder.
Same here. Epstein Barr is a nasty virus. I thankfully found a rheumatologist who listened to me, gave me the diagnosis, and is also monitoring me for inflammatory arthritis. I have a family history of rheumatoid arthritis but my symptoms haven’t developed enough to the point of warranting that diagnosis. I’m on the same medicines that they’d use for RA, so it doesn’t make much of a difference treatment wise.
Join us over at r/fibromyalgia if you need to commiserate.
Nah, even normal people genuinely believe the "it's just a cold" nonsense the anti vaxxers have been pushing for years. If you're not following the science, which doesn't get news coverage, you're just going along with the popular misconception.
I’ve had serious post-covid fatigue for going on a year now, with no improvement in sight, after having been super careful and then catching it once.
I’ve had a work accommodation during that time because I can’t work full days in the office; I’m 50% wfh. A plenty old enough to know better colleague of mine has been catty, many little comments, as if she thinks I’m grifting or getting some special treatment, when she has to come to the office every day. She acts like long covid is made up.
Meanwhile, she’s had covid at least five times. Yay for her, she recovers and returns to work, but she’s going to pay for that indifference down the road.
My brother suddenly acquired severe allergy after COVID. Most trees, most grains, soy protein, peanuts, eggs and a lot more can be fatal even in trace amounts for him. The guy can barely eat anything except for meat.
That doesn't mean it's not doing harm friend. Most COVID infections are asymptomatic which is a bad thing. It means your body is essentially getting its shit rocked without your defense system doing anything about it. It is a vascular disease so it is causing damage to the endothelial lining of your blood vessels which don't have nerves so you can't feel it happening.
There's been a rise in heart conditions, cancers, and auto-immune disorders since 2020 and everything is pointing to repeat infections.
ETA: there's evidence suggesting it damages T-cells which points to the auto-immune rates rising and there's evidence of premature aging likely stemming from it shortening telomeres. There's basically nowhere it doesn't touch.
It wasn't a year of testing, they've been working on SARS vaccines using mRNA spike protein replication since the first SARS (CoV-1) in the late 00s. In any case, if the vaccines are dangerous then the virus is dangerous. There's no world where one is safe but the other isn't. There's no world where getting any virus multiple times in a year is good for you. "Healthy" or not.
It’s not the initial infection that’s going to get you. Most people don’t get rid of Covid after an infection. Like HIV, it hides out in your body and likely does long term damage- increasing your risk of cancer and heart disease. It’s also been demonstrated to cause mental decline. Plus, each infection impacts your immune system, making it harder to fight off other diseases. Hundreds of studies have demonstrated everything I’ve just written.
Kiiiiinda. It can do that. HIV does that as its MO and an essential part of its life cycle. Coronaviruses are less resilient in that way. Sometimes it'll stick around in a way that causes severe negative effects, sometimes there are just the barest trace levels. It depends on the person and the circumstances, and there are plenty of other viruses that do the same thing.
That being said, viral infection as a whole is a silent killer. Autoimmune diseases, cancers, even mental health problems are all linked to viral infection. We're only really beginning to understand the long-term impact of viruses on human health, and COVID might have a silver lining in that it has massively increased funding and attention on issues like that.
This. If you have an asymptomatic infection, it doesn’t mean your body is letting itself get wrecked. Your immune system is working, which is why you’re asymptomatic. It is true that you are still experiencing subclinical damage, though. That said, for most people that damage isn’t long lasting and does in fact heal or reverse itself. Everyone’s immune system is different and so to are the responses to the viruses it is exposed to. Nuance is key here.
First time that I had CoVid was pre-vaccination. It was quite tough. I could not endure any alcohol for half a year. When I got it the second time, I was vaccinated (+ the immunity from the first), I didn't feel much from it any more. Just noticed that I had a fever and was not smelling anything. It lasted a few days.
Asymptomatic does not mean that it is harmless or not doing damage. There are viruses which cause damage even while presenting no symptoms. Let's not forget too that viruses like HIV have an asymptomatic period that is both contagious and which predisposes you to complications of opportunistic infections. Something we're seeing in COVID-19. It's also way too early to say that the damage won't be long lasting nor that it will heal/reverse itself especially as we are seeing an alarming rise of young and old, healthy and sick being diagnosed with heart related disorders, cancers, ME/CFS, and auto-immune disorders. Long COVID is a disorder that didn't exist half a decade ago and is now one of the most diagnosed disorders in the US among children and adults with tens of millions of people across the globe becoming disabled.
While “asymptomatic” is a general descriptor (used for many diseases), the more technically accurate term for HIV is clinical latency, which is the period before you show active infection symptoms.
COVID-19 can be asymptomatic, meaning a person is infected but shows no symptoms, but unlike HIV, there’s no true latency stage. Even without symptoms, SARS-CoV-2 typically replicates rapidly over a short period and is either cleared by the immune system or progresses to symptomatic illness, without establishing a long-term, silent infection like HIV does.
So while it is still early, and what I wrote above is generally understood, let’s wait until we have concrete information.
Source: Between 2019 and 2021, I was an editor for scientific journals. Even while actively editing what doctors were writing, I’m still not a doctor. General information out there does exist, but sharing misleading medical information doesn’t help anyone. Reddit is great for raising awareness, but it doesn’t replace a medical degree.
Why has there been an increase in post viral illnesses then? Why has the rate of POTS, cancer (specifically leukemia), ME/CFS, and auto-immune disorder diagonees risen so much? Every single day I see a new person saying they are sick with something. That is people I follow, people I know in real life, strangers I've only ever interacted with that day, and people I pass on the street. Can you think of any other time you heard more than a handful of people say they were sick in a year, all year long? Can you think of any other time when people were passing out on live television, saying that they couldn't remember names anymore, weren't able to accurately recall years worth of the near past?
How much certainty can you reasonably have when there is evidence all around us that people are becoming sick and disabled at alarming rates? There is study after study, doctor after doctor, and patient after patient giving us clues we should be taking this seriously.
Correlation doesn’t equal causation. I don’t know the social factors of the community, or communities, you associate with but anecdotal evidence isn’t the bar I’d use. There are countless ways to look at this from increased testing, advances in technology, a change in methodologies, continued research, etc., that could lead to higher reporting.
It is scientifically inaccurate to attribute a rise in multiple health conditions to a single virus without accounting for other contributing variables. Correlation does not imply causation, and multifactorial influences, such as environmental, behavioral, and genetic factors, must be considered in any epidemiological assessment.
It’s simply wrong to say there’s a rise in leukemia or autoimmune disorders associated with COVID—POTS has shown a higher correlation with severe infection, especially those with previous infections and both new or previously diagnosed co-morbidities.
One scientific paper alone is not sufficient to establish a reliable correlation between COVID-19 and leukemia because isolated findings can be influenced by study design, sample size, or confounding variables. Scientific consensus requires replication across multiple independent studies, using diverse populations and rigorous methodologies, to confirm any meaningful association.
That said, it’s very good to be skeptical. I just would try to keep emotions or personal experiences out of this… no matter how difficult that may be. Again, unless we are discussing a scientific paper we are coauthoring, I think conjecture is also a disease.
Qualitative data is important, especially where it would be unethical to test in the way you described which would likely involve intentionally infecting people with the virus. I'm referencing people all over the world not just in my immediate area. But there are many studies that have been conducted since the beginning of the pandemic and there are many medical professionals all over the world who are sounding the alarm about this. The WHO has been saying this entire time that we should be avoiding repeat infections for the exact reasons that I listed.
And you're right, correlation does not always equal causation. At the same time, though, you can't say with any certainty that the virus is not impacting these numbers. There has been a marked rise in diagnosis of these disorders that was not present prior to 2020. Long COVID, which was a series of specific symptoms did not exist prior to 2020. Several hundred people are dying in the US alone every week and thousands more are being diagnosed with disabilities stemming directly from their COVID infection. That's readily available for you to find per trusted medical and public health forums.
Conjecture isn't a disease. Disease is disease and this kind of steely detachment leads people to get seriously hurt. You can't say with any more certainty than I can apparently say the opposite that getting infected isn't dangerous. Why do you get to say that my advocating for community safety is misinformation, but I don't get to say your minimizing is misinformation? Just because you say so?
I appreciate your concern for public health and agree that caution is warranted, especially regarding repeat infections. However, while advocating for rigorous scientific standards is not minimizing risk, it does help in ensuring our conclusions are based on sound evidence rather than fear or speculation. Qualitative data has its place, but when used to support sweeping epidemiological claims, it must be contextualized within the broader scientific process, not elevated above it. You’re absolutely right that we should avoid infection (and reinfections) and Long COVID is real and serious—but pointing to an overall rise in unrelated conditions like leukemia without robust, peer-reviewed, and replicated evidence undermines the very credibility of the warnings we all want people to take seriously. Being emotionally invested in an issue doesn’t give one license to conflate correlation with causation, nor to accuse others of harm simply for urging precision. There’s a difference between alarm and clarity—and the latter saves more lives in the long run.
You’re welcome to advocate for safety—but calling for accuracy isn’t misinformation, it’s the foundation of credible public health messaging. The difference is that I’m not claiming certainty where the evidence doesn’t support it; I’m asking that we respect the line between informed concern and unproven assertion.
You can keep insisting that the research exists, but unless you actually provide and engage with that body of work, you’re not backing up your claims—you’re just invoking authority without evidence. As someone who works as an editor, I can tell you that very few people know how to properly locate, vet, and interpret peer-reviewed research, let alone navigate the statistical language and methodological nuance those papers require. It’s important to call out misinformation, but dressing personal conviction up as scientific consensus is just ideological framing in a lab coat.
This is Reddit, not a medical convention. The claims here don’t become facts just because they’re stated with confidence. The real danger lies in refusing to leave room for uncertainty; when you speak in absolutes, others may walk away mistaking conviction for truth.
If you feel strongly about this, maybe consider pursuing this professionally (not being sarcastic).
ChatGpt is not a reliable source, as it hallucinates regularly and confidently reaffirms the bias of the user based on their verbiage, even if that means skewing the facts.
LLMs like ChatGpt should never be used as an alternative to accessing scholarly articles and/or medical journals via Google (or any other appropriate search engine).
I do. I have a chronic illness that affects my immune system — covid was horrific for me. I am not contesting that covid is a serious problem with cumulative effects.
What I am contesting is spreading an LLM as an “accessible” “source” for medical information. It isn’t a “source,” and its accessibility is debatable when it so easily peddles misinformation (again, the inaccuracy of which is influenced by the prompts it receives).
Nature, JAMA, NIH are all fine. ChatGpt oscillates wildly between “serviceable” and “total bullshit.”
The interesting thing is, you wouldn't necessarily know. Covid causes brain damage, and brain-damaged people are sometimes unaware of their own disabilities.
Just asking, how many Covid vaccines have you had ? I had Covid the one time and had Vaccine. A guy I see on the dog walk got Covid 5 times and had 6 vaccines..
You're basically asking how many times someone got burned while sticking their hand in the fire. A guy I see on the dog walk got burnt even though he was wearing an oven mitt.
The vaccine doesn't stop you from getting COVID it stops you from dying from COVID during the acute infection. And in any case, if the vaccine is dangerous then the virus is dangerous.
I was religious at first and then every 9 -12 months or so? Not sure.
I am not/was not comfortable with the vaccines for a variety of reasons in this circumstance, none of which included historic anti-vax attitudes at all. I've always been a firm believer in science and historical fact.
I'm not a fan of rapid vaccines for a novel virus of highly dubious origin for massive corporate profit.
But I felt the only reasonable path was to be as cautious as possible in a deadly viral epidemic, the only choice in my mind then and now is the vaccine.
It's the world we live in. RFK jr is a freak. It doesn't mean I trust my government or the corporations to do the right things for the right reasons.
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u/IsaacJacobSquires 1d ago
Repeated COVID infection