Gryzemuis on 2/12/2020 at 11:42
Three more weeks (Christmas), and my social isolation will be lasting exactly 1 year! I spent Christmas with my parents. New Year's eve alone. My social life nowadays is (was) mostly meeting friends for dinner in the weekends. But by coincedence I didn't schedule any of those in January. In February I started to realize covid-19 was gonna be a problem, so I also was a bit reluctant to go outside. It was more of a coincedence than intentional. I started my social isolation with a head-start of 3 months on everybody else.
During the last year, I've visited my parent 3 times. I went out for dinner with friends 3 times during the summer. And I've been invited over for dinner 5 times this year. And I had dinner guests myself once. That was my whole social life of 2020. I'm very good at being alone. A true champion. But 2020 was a bit too much, even for me. On the other hand, I had to change my phone subscription, to increase minutes. I've never been on the phone more than I was in 2020.
Oh, and of course I've had politicians (council-members) come and visit my house to discuss about solarpanel-fields. I've met more politicians this year than that I met my friends. Fuck 2020.
When we get a vaccine in NL (plan: January 2021) I'm gonna try and convince my doctor to give me priority for a shot. I'm allergic (running nose) for trees, grasses, cats, dogs, dustmites. Not a big problem, I'm taking a daily little anti-histamine pill, which reduces the problem. I'm 50+, I'm a bit overweight. I once complained about breathing problems (during the few very warm nights in 2018). But I don't have asthma (I was tested). What else can I say to convince my doctor to move me ahead?
Last Friday, on Arte, I saw a registration of a live concert from 2019, (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1wOcPtXx8c#t=19m06s) Nouvelle Vague in a small club in Berlin. (BTW, I'm now in love with Melanie Pain. Not the redhead, (
https://www.google.nl/search?q=melanie+pain&complete=0&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X) this one). Fuck, that me realize I really want to go out, clubbing, meeting people, sitting whole nights in restaurants with friends. Once I get my vaccine-shot, I'm gonna party like it's nineteen ninety two thousand and twenty one!!
Edit: I just read that the plan in NL is to start vaccinating the non-risk groups in August 2021. Bah. That's way too late. I wanna be vaccinated before the summer. Before spring even.
Starker on 2/12/2020 at 14:54
Quote Posted by Kolya
*exaggerated meme that had nothing to do with the tone of the post and missed the point in general*
The woman is just an example. If she was just a woman writing idiotic tweets, as you put it, I couldn't care less. But there are loads of people like that who believe the virus isn't a big deal until it impacts them personally. And a few people who don't even then and rave and rant how this can't be happening as they are gasping for breath in a hospital, spending their last days in denial instead of using the time to say goodbye to their loved ones. One doctor said a patient even went as far as to claim it must be lung cancer.
Gryzemuis on 2/12/2020 at 16:41
Quote Posted by Starker
One doctor said a patient even went as far as to claim it must be lung cancer.
The father of a friend of mine had problems with his lungs this spring. He was 94 Years old. He thought it was corona. He was reluctant to visit his doctor, because doctors and hospitals were overloaded in the spring. Finally he went and saw his physician. Turned out he had lung-cancer. He died 3 months later. :(
Two months ago I spoke with an ex-girlfriend. We discussed covid-19, and how things would be better next year. When we have vaccines. To my surprise she said: "I'm not gonna get vaccinated. Vaccines don't work. They are a health-risk. They were all invented by the pharmaceutical industry to scam people out of their money". WTF? We went to the same school as kids, she can read and write. She's not an imbecile. Except when it comes to medicine. I have decided to not call her for another half year or so. Just to prevent us getting into a huge fight over the phone. :)
SubJeff on 2/12/2020 at 22:23
Quote Posted by demagogue
Most doctors are in the dark, save the ones that are in our groups and the ones that understand viral dysautonomia & POTS really well.
Actually most doctors are well aware of post-viral syndromes and that there is a massive spectrum of effects.
Quote Posted by Gryzemuis
Two months ago I spoke with an ex-girlfriend.
You dodged dat bullet tho booiiii!
Quote:
she said: "I'm not gonna get vaccinated. Vaccines don't work. They are a health-risk. They were all invented by the pharmaceutical industry to scam people out of their money". She's not an imbecile.
The evidence says otherwise.
I've been talking to some anti-vax nutters the past two days. Boy is it exhausting. It's layers deep, inconsistencies and nonsense all the way down.
@faetal - that dude is aces.
Kolya on 2/12/2020 at 23:56
Quote Posted by Starker
The woman is just an example. If she was just a woman writing idiotic tweets, as you put it, I couldn't care less. But there are loads of people like that who believe the virus isn't a big deal until it impacts them personally. And a few people who don't even then and rave and rant how this can't be happening as they are gasping for breath in a hospital, spending their last days in denial instead of using the time to say goodbye to their loved ones. One doctor said a patient even went as far as to claim it must be lung cancer.
We all suppress thoughts about a loved one or ourselves suddenly dying until the risk gets uncomfortably close. And we all care less about the ones we don't know. The idiotic part was that she tweeted her ignorance, which made this flaw instantly discernible, shareable and publicly detestable. Those tweets might have served as a warning to the careless, if served with just a little commiseration. But they're used to confirm other people's enlightened status with a side of Schadenfreude instead. First on Twitter (of which I expect nothing else) and then to the outskirts of the internet, like this place. And through this chain of events I learned about an American woman who first boasted about her unreasonable fearlessness and then got scared for her husband. Telling you that this seemed like a non-event was me being polite.
demagogue on 3/12/2020 at 01:29
Quote Posted by SubJeff
Actually most doctors are well aware of post-viral syndromes and that there is a massive spectrum of effects.
I know they understand it generally. My point is if you ask some doctor off the streets, for example, is there a connection between tachycardia and tinnitus they'll tell you no, there's no real connection between them, like the three I've seen did. Or they'll say, like you're saying, post-viral syndromes are across this wide spectrum it's hard to predict.
If you come to our group, they'll tell you, yes, you can expect the tachycardia to start up 2 weeks in, peak in this period, tail off in this period, then you have this period of resurgences. And the tinnitus will start up around this period... This is the period around which you'll lose taste. In this period you can expect to have the smell of something burning. This is the period for rashes and skin issues, here for the gastrointestinal issues, here for the vertigo, here your vision will get blurry, etc., etc.
Well, people post their symptom lists & calendars and you start to see patterns emerge when you look at enough of them. I shouldn't imply that it's understanding. Most people going through it probably don't understand anything about the autonomic system or ACE receptors, and I wouldn't say I understand too much, and any given doctor is going to know that level. It's more an issue of experience with a type of profile that gets repeated in certain ways.
------
Edit: And I wouldn't want to overstate this point anyway. Now there's a problem where people are starting to recommend medicine, or recommending stopping a medicine, or giving medical advice to each other over these groups, and that's clearly a problem because who are these people? So now there's a move to make sure people always talk with a licensed doctor or provider for any advice about medicine and the like, and to punish people giving recommendations over the group.
Just looking at the sociology of it, it's an interesting dynamic. On the one hand, a very common reaction is complaining about the dismissiveness of doctors with these symptoms, since so much of it overlaps with general anxiety and stress. But that's not what someone going through it wants to hear! Stress never gave me vertigo so extreme it put me on the ground, and chest flutters like an electric bolt. So there's a trend to want to discount their advice. But on the other hand you clearly can't have untrained people handing out advice.
One thing that's happened is that it's elevated the few "house doctors" we have in the group that understand the field & the covid brand of dysautonomia operates (e.g., it's not too different from the SARS brand, just on a more massive scale), but of course they can only do so much for such a vast audience.
Starker on 3/12/2020 at 10:04
Quote Posted by Kolya
Telling you that this seemed like a non-event was me being polite.
No, this instance is not a big event, that much I agree on, and I never treated it as such. It's just something that popped up in one of my feeds and which I thought to share because it's so emblematic of the the wider sentiment: "Screw you and your safety precautions, I do what I want and there's nothing you can do about it." This is not fearlessness, this is putting on a show and throwing it into people's faces, taunting them. "Be mad," she said, "I don't care." It's performative assholery, pure and simple. And if she did get flak on Twitter and outskirts of Internet, as you say, I would bet it's for this reason.
Kolya on 3/12/2020 at 16:20
Well she said that she would be attending mass no matter what, because she was "willing to die for my religion", which is something that probably sounded great after a glass of wine or two. Somebody - preferably an authority from her church - should have told her, that the true grace of charity would be to stay at home. Maybe someone did. We don't even know if she actually went to mass. Probably not between these two posts, which were sent on a Thursday and following Saturday. But she got tested in this time. So she's not above all safety precautions. She just really wanted to practice her religion and was childishly cocky about that. I don't know, I'm not religious. But I get that it's very important to many people. I just think that making an example of her on social media won't teach her sympathy and solidarity with her fellow people.
Starker on 3/12/2020 at 17:19
I don't really use Twitter other than reading the odd tweet and I very much doubt she visits the forums. And even if she did, I'm not saying anything I wouldn't say to her face.
To be clear, though, I don't have great sympathy for her either. For one, she's a grown-ass woman, not a child. Secondly, Twitter is a public space. Even if we accept your premise that all she did was making a fool of herself and nothing more (which I don't agree with), the consequences are much the same as if she had embarrassed herself in public in real life. If you get drunk and pee yourself, people are going to talk and there's a better than average chance they might make fun of you afterwards. And she wasn't just foolishly declaring how much she wants to go to church, she clearly wanted to strike a nerve. "Be mad. Don't care." Y'know, some of the people she was taunting genuinely are scared for someone they know is at risk or even have had loved ones pass away from the disease without even being able to be there to comfort them.
The issue is not whether or not she followed some of the safety precautions. It doesn't even matter whether what she did was out of ignorance, fervent religiosity, or just because she is childish and wanted to provoke outrage. This is not an isolated thing. She did it for her audience, her like-minded peers who think it's fun to act like a rebel during one of the worst health crises in decades.
SubJeff on 3/12/2020 at 23:38
Quote Posted by demagogue
I know they understand it generally. My point is if you ask some doctor off the streets, for example, is there a connection between tachycardia and tinnitus they'll tell you no, there's no real connection between them, like the three I've seen did.
That's odd because one major cause of tinnitus is being able to hear your own physiological sounds and blood whooshing through vessels as a result of tachycardia and/or hypertension is a very very common one.
Admittedly in these cases it seems to have a different causal link, but still...