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Post by Whitman on Jan 14, 2022 22:16:47 GMT
The husband of late "Dawson's Creek" writer Heidi Ferrer is calling for the medical community to find answers for long COVID-19 sufferers after he said the illness resulted in "the most terrifying deterioration of a human being" he has "ever witnessed" leading up to his wife's death.After losing wife to long COVID-19, man shares essay detailing her harrowing symptoms
Photo cutline: After losing wife to long COVID-19, man shares essay detailing her harrowing symptoms
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Post by Da Man on Jan 14, 2022 22:22:17 GMT
Gotta tell you I thought for sure this thread was going to be about a guy whose wife left him because of his incessant complaining about “long COVID” symptoms.
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Post by Whitman on Jan 14, 2022 22:25:03 GMT
I know Yahoo! is just click bait at this point, but this one's pretty damn egregious.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 14, 2022 22:28:46 GMT
Nick is a friend of mine.
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Post by Whitman on Jan 14, 2022 22:36:00 GMT
Nick is a friend of mine. Damn. Small world. And to be very clear: This is a terrible story and my criticism is 100 percent of Yahoo!'s dishonest framing of it, not to diminish what this guy is going through or what his wife went through. |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 14, 2022 23:03:40 GMT
Completely understood.
Just wanted to be open about it. I know him. We worked together for a bit on some projects and just hit it off.
We spoke about our families a lot, but he has never met my wife an kids. I had not met his.
We do not work together currently. I hav’t seen him since before the pandemic.
We text a bit and we’ve spoken on the phone since his wife died. Really nice guy and a tragic situation.
I don’t know much about the whole long COVID phenomenon. I’m skeptical of most of the reports.
In this particular case, I know this guy. I believe his wife experienced something terrible, and the entire circumstance is tragic.
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Post by YankeeFan on Jan 14, 2022 23:33:48 GMT
I think we might want to consider that some of the treatments she pursued did more damage than the virus. Two California men with end-stage kidney disease received her kidneys, he said. No matches were found for her other organs. Her liver was severely compromised, as Mr. Guthe had warned the hospital, because she had been treating herself with large doses of ivermectin, an antiparasitic drug falsely said to cure long Covid, and an alternative diet that included nearly two-thirds of a cup of olive oil each day.www.nytimes.com/2021/11/07/health/covid-organ-transplants.html |
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Post by YankeeFan on Jan 14, 2022 23:42:22 GMT
It's a sad story, and I'm sure she was a nice, fun person, with a good husband. But, she sounds pretty kooky. Also, has anyone who ins't vaccine hesitant ever described themselves as being, "generally pro-vaccine?" Only people who are not pro-vaccine talk that way. The latest on the Covid news front seems to be that the vaccine roll-out may take longer than we hoped, ugh.It looks like it may be mid-Summer for most of us to get vaccinated.How is the vaccine affecting Chronic Covid people? Well, we have a lot of health care workers among us who’ve been getting the vaccine lately.The reviews are mixed: some people have said they felt like it actually improved their symptoms.One said it was like it kicked her antibodies into gear, awesome.Some have said it made them feel flu-like symptoms for a day or three, others have said it felt like they got sick with Covid all over again. Noooo.Personally, I’m glad I don’t have to make a decision right now, it won’t get to me for a few months.I’m generally pro-vaccine, but don’t want to overload my system if it’s still fighting. I may have T-cell immunity from having it.I prefer the Moderna vaccine if I have a choice, which we may not.That’s the one the person I know said they improved after, by the way, the Moderna vaccine, but I also love that Dolly Parton donated to the research.The Latest Buzz in Covid MedsIt seems like the #1 latest buzzed-about medication for Covid is Ivermectin, which is normally used to treat scabies and parasites.I know it sounds weird, but it’s being used off label for Covid in other countries and increasingly here.This is not common practice in the U.S. at this point, but anecdotally, it seems to be helping with inflammation and possibly to help prevent viral replication.Some are saying it helps at every stage of the disease, even with prevention and for Long Covid.There are a handful of my online friends who feel they’ve either been helped or possibly cured by Ivermectin, but I’d say the jury’s still out for long term effects.Don’t take medical advice from me (I’m not a doctor, as you know), but I’m just giving you the latest buzz from inside the Long Haul Covid recovery track.Popular and adorable Dr. Been has a video about how they believe Ivermectin works against Covid on YouTube where he describes two possible mechanisms. One involves Ivermectin blocking Covid from entering cells and another appears to help prevent viral replication.We’ve all had to become junior scientists, haha.girltomom.com/health-is-wealth/long-haul-covid-recovery |
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Post by YankeeFan on Jan 14, 2022 23:54:10 GMT
Did she ever have COVID?? Here's what she wrote on her blog: In March 2020, before the bus hit my body, I was running around high energy.
I stockpiled canned goods, water and shelf-stable foods for the apocalypse and spent way too much on dark chocolate peanut butter cups.
It was like preparing for an oncoming storm, terrible but a little exciting to feel empowered to protect my family.
Then I felt the first stirring symptoms in mid-April, odd feelings in my feet—a strange coldness—an awful crawling sensation. Somehow I didn’t know, yet I knew.
I pushed those thoughts aside until I got unmistakable Covid toes May first. So I tested myself for Covid in a drive-through saliva test the following week. It was negative.
My weird foot pain got worse in May, but I chalked it up to too much walking, just plantar fasciitis or an overuse injury, especially in my right foot.
I limped around, saw a podiatrist and bought new shoe inserts and custom orthotics, even trying a physical therapist.
I worried like everyone else about safety, about catching “it.” I couldn’t find Clorox wipes anywhere, so I spent $200 ordering 800 industrial gym wipes online that killed everything.
I wiped down groceries, wore my masks. I thought I was safe, I thought that my family was protected—that I did everything right.
But the monster was real…girltomom.com/covid-19/how-im-recovering-from-long-haul-covidHere's what a news article says: Her symptoms began with pain in her feet — a symptom that would later become known as COVID toes. Guthe originally thought Ferrer suffered from plantar fasciitis but their physician disagreed.Ferrer’s foot pain became so debilitating that she eventually had difficulty navigating the stairs in her home.Both Guthe and Ferrer had received negative COVID-19 cheek swab results. But as Ferrer’s condition worsened, she took a more accurate test developed by Stanford researcher Dr. Bruce Patterson. That test came back positive and eventually Ferrer was referred to the long-hauler clinic at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. The referral arrived the day before Ferrer died by suicide.Throughout her long-hauler ordeal, Ferrer experienced a number of post-COVID-19 symptoms, including intestinal issues, diarrhea, body aches, and chronic exhaustion, Guthe says.www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2021/06/28/coronavirus-long-hauler-crisis |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 14, 2022 23:55:46 GMT
Interesting piece at Freethink about prolonged effects and treatments for that: www.freethink.com/health/brain-stimulation-long-covid-treatmentI don't claim to know much about it, and I'm pretty skeptical of most of the reports I've seen of people claiming long-haul. At the same time there is some hisotry of long-term viral consequences with SARS. I don't really want to dissect how she handled it or what she wrote about it or if she was kooky. I didn't know her. She was going through something. I'm not rendering judgment on what she experienced. He lost his wife. His son lost his mother. |
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Post by YankeeFan on Jan 14, 2022 23:58:58 GMT
So, symptoms in mid-April. Doesn't test until early May, and it's negative, as I would suspect it would be, if she'd been infected weeks earlier.
When, and where, did she take the "more acute test" that came back positive?
Are they referring to an antibody test? They don't say.
There's also no indication that her husband, or son, who she lived with, ever got covid.
This sounds a lot like someone who suffered from something, including depression.
But, I'm unconvinced she ever even had COVID.
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Post by ecwyanks on Jan 15, 2022 1:43:51 GMT
Was she vaccinated?
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Post by dirtybird on Jan 15, 2022 13:53:07 GMT
I know Yahoo! is just click bait at this point, but this one's pretty damn egregious. I don't think this is good, but if we're gonna get hot and bothered over it, we should probably also aim our slings and arrows at the folks that actually published it, right? Like the original in the Guardian was headlined, "My wife had long Covid and killed herself. We must help others who are suffering" |
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Post by YankeeFan on Jan 15, 2022 14:48:12 GMT
Let's take a look at Dr. Brice Patterson, the Stanford researcher, who developed the "more accurate test". He's a Long COVID guru, whose name comes up immediately when folks start "doing their won research" into Long COVID. And, while he does have an affiliation with Stanford, he's also the CEO of IncellDx, where he is developing a new paradigm for predicting, identifying and treating long COVID-19 and other viral pathogens that impair the immune system’s ability to function effectively. Here's Mother Jones on him. He's sounds like a scammer, who prays on sick and desperate people. When Owen came down with Covid-19 in April 2021, he felt lucky to get away with a mild case. After a few days of a runny nose, he returned to his regular routine, including long sessions at the gym. But three weeks later, Owen, who was 25 at the time and working as an art director in Manhattan, began to have trouble breathing. It got so bad one day that he collapsed in his kitchen. Later, at the emergency room, doctors searched for a cause but could find none, so they sent him home.
That was only the beginning of Owen’s ordeal. In the weeks that followed, he was so exhausted that he couldn’t get out of bed. He tried to work, but his thinking was fuzzy. His appetite was low, and he had trouble digesting even the smallest snacks. Doctors ran heart tests, ultrasounds, and blood counts that turned up nothing. Owen, who requested that I use only his first name to protect his privacy, visited several clinics for long-haul Covid patients. He got vaccinated. He went through cognitive behavioral therapy, a psychological approach to managing symptoms. A doctor prescribed him a low dose of an anti-addiction medication that had shown some promise in addressing the brain fog. None of it helped. Over the next few months, Owen lost nearly 80 pounds. Desperate, he scoured the internet for answers.
It didn’t take him long to find online communities of long-haul Covid support groups on Facebook, where members described his precise symptoms: the months of debilitating fatigue, the digestive issues, the breathing problems. Some had been seriously ill during their initial infections while others, like Owen, had only mild symptoms. Members who were beginning to feel better shared what had helped—from special diets to breathing exercises to elaborate and expensive treatments with supplement infusions and oxygen chambers. Owen was skeptical about most of it, but then a concerned friend told him he had read about a program that sounded more scientific than the other treatments. A former Stanford virologist named Dr. Bruce Patterson had developed a special blood test to diagnose long Covid along with what he promised was a highly effective treatment regimen. When Owen researched it online, he found entire social media groups devoted to Patterson and his diagnostic company, IncellDX. “I am HUGELY thankful to them,” gushed one fan in a Reddit group. “For the first time in this nightmare, doctors are telling me that they have things to try that they think may help me.”
Patterson’s pitch was impressive: Owen would send a few vials of blood to IncellDX’s lab, where technicians would look for evidence of elevated levels of cytokines, proteins that are thought to play an important role in the body’s immune response. The higher the patient’s level of certain cytokines, they suggested, the worse the case of long Covid. Based on those results, Patterson’s team of doctors would assign Owen a “long-hauler score” that indicated the severity of his disease. Owen would follow up with an IncellDX doctor to discuss the results and treatment. If Owen’s doctor wouldn’t prescribe the drugs—which was likely, since many of them weren’t approved to treat Covid—Patterson’s team would connect him with a special network of doctors who would.
Owen had some reservations. He knew that the process could be pricey and that his insurance probably wouldn’t cover all of it. But he was desperate. “I was pretty suicidal,” he recalls. “I was just so done with all of this.” So, after paying a few hundred dollars for the test, he sent off his vials of blood to IncellDX and waited for the results.www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/01/desperate-patients-are-shelling-out-thousands-for-a-long-covid-cure-is-it-for-real/ |
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Post by YankeeFan on Jan 15, 2022 14:55:55 GMT
Dr. Patterson was a proponent of using horse paste to treat Long COVID. I'm very sorry about what happened to this woman, but this doctor took someone suffering from mental illness, and sold her expensive treatments for Long COVID. No wonder she continued to spiral. Her underlying condition wasn't treated. I've witnessed the exact same thing with my mentally ill mother in law, though not with Long COVID. But she's spent thousands of dollars on all kinds of classes and programs, instead of seeking help for her mental illness. And, like Dr. Patterson, the people selling these regiments are no better than snake oil salesmen of old. Patterson offers a treatment protocol that he describes as being specifically tailored to a patient’s test results—often a combination of off-label medications including blood pressure medications, steroids, an HIV medication called maraviroc, and the controversial antiparasitic drug ivermectin (though in an interview, his partner, an anesthesiologist and gym owner named Dr. Ram “Yo” Yogendra, tells me the team is now moving away from ivermectin because low-dose steroids work just as well). Proof of having had Covid isn’t required to enroll in the treatment program; the team believes that many long-haul patients had been infected before tests were readily available. Recently, Patterson’s team has also begun offering their protocol to people who believe they are suffering from long-term effects of the Covid vaccines. During a 90-minute Zoom conversation I had with Patterson and Yogendra in December Patterson explained to me, “We found a very similar pathology in postvaccination long haulers as we found in Covid long haulers, even though they’ve never experienced the actual virus.”www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/01/desperate-patients-are-shelling-out-thousands-for-a-long-covid-cure-is-it-for-real/ |
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