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Comment by nullserver | Hacker News Reader

I have a blood clotting disease. Factor 5 Leiden. Basically destroyed my life once it activated.

I mostly had it under control with blood thinners. If I went off for a few days I would have issues, then a stroke. ( I hate side effects of Pradaxa)

Got covid. Sucked, but got over it. However now I can’t miss any pills. If I skip tonight’s, Tomorrow one side of my body will go numb. I get severe brain fog, Plus a host of other issues that take days to weeks to resolve. Same crap as before covid, but I have no margin for error now. Oh and now I piss blood, because blood thinners, yeah.

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I'm sorry. That really sucks.

Clotting clearly does happen for a subset of patients. But it's wrong for the OP to claim that this is because the virus is doing something to the blood. That's a leap too far. Other infections cause similar sorts of issues -- sepsis, for example.

The distinction matters, because if the clotting is mediated by a runaway inflammatory response (e.g. an over-reaction of the innate immune system), it's inherently a problem that will affect a subset of people who are infected (for reasons we don't really understand). Whereas if the virus attacks some component of the blood, it would be expected to affect most people the same way.

But if we have a population of people who will experience this, wouldn’t that feed into the GP contention that no one is measuring the experience between alive and dead?

I completely buy the idea that all of these effects happen with other conditions, but if there’s a surge due to covid, shouldn’t we investigate it?

> wouldn’t that feed into the GP contention that no one is measuring the experience between alive and dead?

Well, no...there have been a lot of publications in this area. We hear about them all the time. Most of these publications are bad at the moment, but that's normal. It takes time for good research to be completed. It will happen.

> if there’s a surge due to covid, shouldn’t we investigate it?

Sure. I don't think anything I've written here implies otherwise.

This is fucking brutal. My ex-girlfriend had Polycythemia. I realise it's very different to what you're explaining here, but her symptoms when she didn't take her medication, or when she got hot, or did anything strenuous were very similar to what you listed.

In addition to pissing blood.

Is this a disease that you've always had? Came later in life?

If this is asking too much or prying to deep, don't answer my questions. I empathise as much I can with you, as much as I can.

2 parts. Genetic disorder factor 5 Leiden. Not aa problem until a few years ago.

Also have an Autoimmune disorder. Had it since I was a teen. Made worse by my teenage love of mountain dew.

It’s a risk factor for clotting, and probably contributes. It also causes inflammation and neuropathy. It was was annoying and a slow but growing problem.

Then I got exposed to a LOT of natural gas from a mega rental company house.

Well dormant gene for factor 5 activated and I my blood went crazy. Lots of clots. Autoimmune also went nuts and decided that nervous system and various organs needed to die in a most painful way possible.

Took a few years to get it under control..ish. Covid has clearly made it worse.

Man, that sounds hard. I wish you the best.

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