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Comment by pgo | Hacker News Reader

My family got corona positive last month, around the same time my brother started having some neurological issues. The doctors after seeing the MRI did not detect any issues. The same was confirmed by other radiologists and multiple other MRI scans over the month. Yet he faces these issues: nausea,headache,confusion,weakness,ataxia (unsteady walk) sensory changes, including numbness or tingling,trouble with vision (one eye doesn't move / change focus as much as quickly as the other eye ). All these issues point to a brain infection yet none is detected.

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I'm no doctor, but during this period I've experienced anxiety, and some of those symptoms match physical symptoms of anxiety. Nausea, headache, difficulty breathing, tight chest and neck (hell i've noticed even the fucking tongue was tight being pressed against the teeth and I didn't even realize that), tingling of hands/feet/arms, and during a spike you get confusion and you make poor decisions, heart bpm goes to 120 while sitting/laying down.

So, just to mention to not discard that.

In fact a lot of people are experiencing several degrees of anxiety during this period.

None of us experienced this level of stress and anxiety before, the glimpse of uncertainty and the lack of control fucks our mind.

One of the triggers I had was allergy (clogged nose), and other was when I saw news of people acting irresponsibly after me doing my part and giving up a lot of things to try to contain this (I'm not from the US, I'm from the EU).

Boosting this. I’ve had anxiety problems for years and it’s crazy how it can manifest as real physical symptoms. Every doctor visit always ends up with the same diagnosis: anxiety.

Most recently I was 100% convinced I was having a retina detachment. Noticing a ton of “floaters”, sparkles in my vision, etc. Came back from a comprehensive examination at the eye doctor and the diagnosis was yet again, anxiety. After the clean bill of health, a lot of the symptoms disappeared.

You might have had a migraine aura. I have them. One of my coworkers has them too, and they told him it was retina detachment, until he had an episode that lasted one hour before going right back to normal. That was a clue that it was migraine aura all along.

> Boosting this. I’ve had anxiety problems for years and it’s crazy how it can manifest as real physical symptoms. Every doctor visit always ends up with the same diagnosis: anxiety.

I have been taken to the hospital (with blaring sirens) twice for anxiety mimicking heart attack symptoms. Completely checked out and walked out with a healthy heart and alprazolam. It happens only rarely but I carry a strip everywhere just in case as that is not fun.

I tested positive this week. My symptoms are flash headaches and nausea along with persistent ear ringing. No other flu symptoms are present.

I've never had headaches like this before, both in feeling and duration.

I've been careful since the end of February. Always wearing a mask, social distancing, hand washing with soap and disinfectant wipes. I've had limited exposure to other people except delivery people, my GF, my mom. I've only been to stores 3 times since the end of February.

I knew it was just a matter of time when I saw the massive increase in numbers of infected in this county. People almost have completely stopped wearing masks or social distancing.

Luckily, the worst is already over for me. I'm getting better by the day, and it was a short illness too.

I will still use best practices after my self quarantine is over.

So where do you think you caught it? Seems strange that some people take all precautions and still end up getting it.

It seems likely either delivery people, GF, or mom. All it takes is one person in your network to be in someone else's network, and someone there is in someone else's network, and suddenly you get COVID because you thought you were safe and they thought they were safe and they thought they were safe...

> some people take all precautions

The problem is that "some" isn't enough. Everyone needs to work together. sigh

Fine people who do not; they do it here, it is effective.

The known precautions are just to slow the spread down not prevent it, at risk people are still at risk, and so is everyone else. That persons R0 is probably lower than 1, which is the only metric we actually care about.

The only solution is complete segregation and sustainable farming. Otherwise you are fodder as an individual and at best helping the R0 rate decline as well as the velocity of spread.

That isn't strange to me.

Some of the precautions (particularly masks) are primarily around not giving it to others, so you really need _other people_ to be taking the precautions, too.

Are you on anti-coagulants?

I'm not a doctor (idk any doctors who browse hackernews) but:

> nausea,headache,confusion,weakness,ataxia

I have experienced these with low oxygen saturation (I have had chronic asthma my whole life, some really bad attacks).

If it's affecting his vision also (black dots) get him checked.. it's known that scar tissue continues to exist on the lungs (similar to pneumonia survival) and will take a very long time (decades) to recover, potentially).

Honestly that sounds like anxiety or stress to me. Your brother should be checked for that. It’s amazing what anxiety/stress can manifest as. Yes, it can cause powerful physical symptoms.

Did your brother have any underlying health issues prior to contracting covid-19? Incl family history of any of these disorders, obesity, diabetes, etc?

No disorders, No family history of diseases except diabetes in a few older ones. All of us got over corona with just a little fever except him. Well we cant even say with confidence what is happening with him is due to corona, it could be two different diseases coinciding at the same time.

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