To wonder why covid is so rarely mentioned as a factor in increased disability figures?

[Grapeexpectation]

It seems so odd. Why aren’t covid infections and their aftermath on health ever mentioned as factors in increased absence from school, long term sickness, people having to stop work etc? We already know that millions have long covid, reinfections double the risk and that each wave is going to increase the numbers, so why is it so rarely mentioned? It makes so little logical sense to compare figures to pre-pandemic, without mentioning the health impacts of the virus involved, yet it happens frequently. What’s the rationale for not mentioning it as a factor?

@Obsdidianrose Yes, autonomic nervous system dysfunction, especially dysautonomia, is very common in Long Covid. It generally results from the virus (or the immune system’s response to it) disrupting the nervous system, rather than being caused by emotions.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with people using mindfulness and breathing techniques to manage their symptoms when they find them helpful. The problem is when these techniques are offered as a replacement for medical treatment when it is needed, or used to misrepresent the cause or nature of an illness (whether by private programs trying to make money, or by the NHS or others looking for low-cost alternatives to properly funded medical research and treatments).
People who talk about the mind-body connection are right that the brain and body are connected; the brain is, of course, part of the body. The problem is that many of them misrepresent this link in one direction, by suggesting that physical symptoms with an organic basis are psychosomatic, while also ignoring the other direction; that psychiatric symptoms can in many cases have underlying physical causes, (such as the immune system attacking the brain, neuroinflammation, or structural damage to areas of the brain). This can happen in a number of conditions including in Long Covid.

I don’t think they are psychosomatic.

They are neurological, and not to do with interpretation or anxiety. Ie genuine symptoms.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow I wasn't saying that you do 🙂 That was in response to someone else, who seemed to be talking about automatic nervous system dysfunction as an example of the mind body connection. I was just explaining that it's a physical issue, but some people (in the nhs or who run programs such as the Lightning Process) may misrepresent or mistake these kind of symptoms as being psychosomatic.

@Sundayme you are falling into the same trap by separating out physical from emotional as if somehow our systems are nicely divided .....when we talk about the mind-body link that is not the same as suggesting that people's symptoms are psychosomatic at all .The virus may have been a trigger but there are other factors that lead to perpetuation of the condition by keeping the nervous system in a perpetual state of activation.

Not enough research, disabled people aren't a priority, people would rather accuse government of making a fake killer virus than acknowledge its impact on disabled people.

Why is this unique to the UK?

After WWII, the country was broken, emotionally and physically. But there was a spirit to rebuild. I wasn’t there obviously! And I am not being nostalgic and I am not being dismissive of peoples lived experience, but we have to rebuild.

What would an overall a national acknowledgement of the destruction to society of covid bring? Genuine question. It was a pandemic! Spanish flu!

I could be misunderstanding, but if you’re saying that the virus causes the initial symptoms but emotional factors (at least in part) drive many ongoing chronic symptoms, (particularly those involving the autonomic nervous system), then I do disagree, not because I’m “falling into the same trap by separating out physical from emotional,” but because that idea isn't evidence-based and ignores the evidence we do have on how Covid affects the body. Research shows that many ongoing neurological symptoms are driven directly by the virus causing immune dysregulation, viral persistence, endothelial and mitochondrial dysfunction, and neuroinflammation. All of these can disrupt autonomic nervous system function.
Anyway, I’ll leave it there. I don’t want to derail the thread any further, and I need to stop procrastinating on mumsnet! 🙂

This totally. And yes the brain is in the body!!

@Sundayme perfectly understandable for you not to understand, my cognitive challenges make it hard for me to put together a coherent argument! But we do not (yet) know what causes Long Covid , and what you are presenting as ultimate fact is not fact but actually extrapolation of certain theories and findings - very similar to the situation with CFS ,which I have followed the theories of for 35 yrs and there is still no definitive answer! Ultimately many of us with these long term weird conditions will have the daily experience of living with a dysregulated nervous system and our systems do not differentiate between what you may consider a physical trigger such as activity, bright lights, noise or those which you may consider an emotional trigger such as trying to support your child through exams, or feeling down about your condition or spending too much time on social media debating (!). The only thing we do know is that techniques that help regulate the nervous system really can help and those that hold so fast onto something medical treatable being found as a cure ,can get really stuck .

@Sundayme perfectly understandable for you not to understand, my cognitive challenges make it hard for me to put together a coherent argument! But we do not (yet) know what causes Long Covid , and what you are presenting as ultimate fact is not fact but actually extrapolation of certain theories and findings - very similar to the situation with CFS ,which I have followed the theories of for 35 yrs and there is still no definitive answer! Ultimately many of us with these long term weird conditions will have the daily experience of living with a dysregulated nervous system and our systems do not differentiate between what you may consider a physical trigger such as activity, bright lights, noise or those which you may consider an emotional trigger such as trying to support your child through exams, or feeling down about your condition or spending too much time on social media debating (!). The only thing we do know is that techniques that help regulate the nervous system really can help and those that hold so fast onto something medical treatable being found as a cure ,can get really stuck .

Thanks for the link. In terms of comparing pre-pandemic to now, of course long covid will have had an impact. How can 2million people with it not have an impact and not be worth mentioning? Covid can affect any organ (including the brain) so will also be showing up across the board. One thing this report did was assume a blanket response to covid across countries, which also seems a bit of an oversight. A high presenteeism culture also isn’t mentioned. Our going response also plays a part - we can’t have it all ways with no impact e.g. poor sick pay/policies, high presenteeism culture, lower vaccine eligibility, treating it as though it isn’t airborne, a health service that runs very hot, a high wait and see approach in healthcare etc. Look at current hospitalisations here for example for covid compared to the rest of Europe. https://data.who.int/dashboards/covid19/hospitalizations

That was in response to @Obsdidianrose. I forgot to quote the post.

Because no other country has suffered the same increases. It’s just an excuse.

Everywhere has been affected by covid/long covid so to not mention it at all is an odd oversight when talking about decreased population heath.

For many who suffer from chronic invisible diseases, it can feel like a health hierarchy exists, with there being the socially sanctioned & acceptable diseases to have & the demonised ones. Total lottery which one you’ll get, but the demonised ones are predominantly your fault & you are treated as though you are a social misfit for claiming to have one. It’s ok to smoke, drink & eat your health into oblivion, despite the huge amount these cost the health service, they’re the ok diseases, the right ones to have. It’s quite fascinating, if it weren’t so corrosive, because so many diseases & conditions have gone through the evolutionary destigmatising rebirth into social & health equity & acceptability, (with women’s health still on that early trajectory), yet the post viral effects from a legitimate & universally experienced global pandemic are just an uncomfortable, inconvenience. Which they would rather people would just shut up. It’s fkd up.

There isn't a great body of clinical evidence showing clear causality between many of the symptoms of LC people describe, and Covid.

Also the numbers suffering long term are much lower than the "millions" op describes - for most people LC symptoms disappear within a few months.

it can feel like a health hierarchy exists, with there being the socially sanctioned & acceptable diseases to have & the demonised ones.

The demonised ones tend to be those where the clinical evidence for them is weak/non existent beyond self reported symptoms. They don't show up in blood tests, mri scans etc.

Fibromyalgia is a good example. The most common variant of Ehlers Danlos is another - the more severe variants have a known genetic profile, but hyper mobile EDS doesn't, and there are no known tests to prove you have it.

Long Covid tends to be somewhat like this too.

I think OP it's because there isn't much evidence you can point to that that is the case.

Apart from the 2m with long COVID?

And 60M worldwide?

How much more evidence do you need?

There is data/research/evidence from self-reported studies, from studies tracking differences before and after covid infections, research from scans, imaging, blood etc. There are thousands upon thousands of studies. The point is not whether some randoms on the internet choose to discard that information, but whether people in their professional capacity assessing impacts pre and post pandemic should be failing to openly consider it.

Covid has affected mental much more than physical health. Some, after lockdown, just gave up.

I think this is what has japppened to young people. But instead of suppprt they get demonised.

Tbf, they probably need a little of both.
It’s not acceptable to just throw the towel in an expect others to take care of you. But at the same time, it is understandable that motivation was severely depleted after so long in lockdown.

Well it fucked my teen daughter right over. She was desperate to get back to normal.

She’s neatly there now and we’ve had to pay for every bit of help.

So it’s mainly to do with no support.

For your daughter it would seem so. Not for everyone though.