Peak fitness + long covid.

[GenderApostate19]

Only anecdotal I know but the people we know who have been severely affected by covid ( except two older aquaintances with multiple heath issues who died) have all been young, extremely fit ( marathon runners etc.) and very healthy.
For example, the man who probably infected DH back in April ( who in turn got me) is in his 30’s, was super fit and covid has floored him, he wasn’t hospitalised at the time but his wife was and she hasn’t been as badly affected.
10 months on he’s still not back at work full time and is severely short of breath on the mildest exertion.
What is causing such damage?
Is it the initial viral load exposure?
Is it because he was left untreated so his lungs were ravaged?
Does being super fit mean that your immune response over reacts and makes things worse? (Is that what cytokine storm is?).
It’s horrifying and fascinating in equal measure.

The answer is we don't know yet. Research is ongoing.

I don't know the answer, it's certainly interesting.

I know 4 people with long covid.

2 are fit triathletes in their late 40s.
2 are unfit couch potatoes, bit overweight, also in their 40s.

I'm almost at a point of going to my gp re long covid. Currently just over 9 weeks in. Mid 50s. Still breathless at times, fastish heart rate on exertion but better than it was. Not a linear recovery, regular relapses. I was active and fit for my age. Regular runner, gym goer, spinner. Very long uphill walks with my dog x 4-5 times a week., good diet. I'm nowhere near doing any of that and it's so depressing.
I've got asthma and well controlled hereditary high bp. I do know that antihypertensive meds like ramipril can increase your chance of catching covid. Likewise with asthma I have an overreactive immune system.
It seems to be potluck tbh but doubt it is in reality. My partner had it too but now almost fully recovered. He was told his viral load was very high so maybe that explains why ?

I am mid forties and was super fit and healthy for my age. Caught Covid in March. I have suffered with chest pain and shortness of breath for months. Just started exercising lightly at Christmas but my lungs still not 100 %. I have an appointment with the post Covid clinic in April so hopefully they may be shed some light on what's going on with my lungs.

Anecdotally there does seem to be a correlation. BUT it might be because people are more likely to mention a "30 year old marathon runner" as an example to shock and scare people about long covid. A "60 year old overweight man" doesn't have the same fear factor.

I'm sure they will be studying this stuff for decades to come.

This is interesting though
www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/10/sleep-more-reduce-coronavirus-risk/

And this

www.nytimes.com/2020/05/20/well/returning-to-exercise-training-recovery-coronavirus.html

Which suggests that you need to be very careful trying to return to full activity levels - to reduce long term impact.

Its definitely important to listen to your body...

Most people think a fever is caused by the virus but actually it's caused by your own immune system which is raising the temperature of your body as part of the way it kills the virus. You get chills because your immune system triggers a mechanism to make you feel cold (even though you aren't) so that your body kicks up the heat by shivering, and so that you want to get under a lot of covers to raise your body temperature to fever level.

Ditto - fatigue is your immune system wanting you to stay still / asleep so that it can use all of your energy to beat the virus and repair parts of your body that are damaged.

We interfere with these perfectly good natural mechanisms when we either take paracetamol / lemsip etc which brings our fever down or try to 'push through' the fatigue.

I'm not saying this is what has happened but it's important to understand and take into account with any virus.

(In a similar way to how you should avoid things like Imodium when you have the runs as you're interfering with a natural way your body is dealing with an issue and can make things worse by treating the symptoms)

I was training for a marathon when I got it in March. I couldn’t run for a bus now. I’ve still managed to keep up full time work (NHS) but am literally exhausted on my days off and sleep for 16+ hours frequently.

The ones we know are all males, a body builder, a runner who does every fitness related sponsored thing going and a serving soldier. All under 45.

Could it be something like those people are too low in body fat, like others are too high in it?

I’m super fit (bike racer), train 10-15 hours a week. I have low body fat (not underweight/ unhealthy). I have no underlying health conditions. I had Covid and was totally symptom free within 6-9 weeks (it was a while back so I can’t remember exactly). I continued gentle cycling throughout (I felt well enough). My training does smash my immune system, BUT, I’ve always been aware of that, so take steps to mitigate it - plenty of sleep, cold baths, no processed food/ whole food diet, no booze, loads of fibre and some fermented foods for good gut health, vit D in the winter, nutritional yeast before a training session. However, I did have Glandular Fever several months later (confirmed with positive Epstein-Barr Virus test). It’s taken a good 5 months to recover from the post viral fatigue (def not COVID related as I had a clear few months of normality). I do think I ended up with GF as I was so stressed with home-working and juggling childcare.

There haven’t been lots of stories of professional footballers or tennis players getting long covid, though, only stories of super-fit non-professionals who ran marathons, did weight training, etc. It might be a media blackout, or it might be that people without professional dieticians and trainers are more likely to overtrain, which is harmful to the immune system? Or they subconsciously took more risks, because they didn’t expect to be hit badly? Or they caught it while exercising, and inhaling deeply?! It’s still only tiny proportions of such people, though, and they are also more likely to notice the massive change in their health, before and after, and be particularly impatient about it, and pushing themselves to get back to their norm asap.

Interesting Walkaround! Yeah, as a pro certainly your job relies on your fitness/ recovery etc and you are more likely to have a team behind you (coach, nutritionist etc). I kinda think as it’s a pro you wouldn’t really want to shout about it, as it could mean your contract doesn’t get renewed or make it harder to negotiate a new contract on similar/ more money. Likewise you wouldn’t want to let your competition know you had a ‘weakness.’ That said I don’t think having support as a pro is necessarily a positive - I’m thinking of Mark Cavendish and his Epstein-Bar infection which wasn’t handled well. Since having had it myself and being a cyclist, I was keen to read up on the pros and how they handled it. Obviously this is anecdotal, but a large number weren’t diagnosed for some time. They knew something was off with their numbers, ability train, race and recover but not exactly what. Also professional sport is littered with stories of team drs, coaches etc who clearly don’t have the interest of the athlete at heart (doping being a fab example)... so I suspect that isn’t a fail safe to avoiding/ minimising long covid.