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Comment by NittLion78 | Hacker News Reader

I started to have the most minor of flight-or-fight symptoms April 2020. I'm guessing I was exposed to covid then but was asymptomatic. Fast forward to August 2021 and I suddenly couldn't lift weights anymore without feeling like my head lost all oxygen. Like, my body can DO the thing but it will be severely punished for having done so.

I've been lucky that I've never had any of the breathing issues, even after I for sure had covid in December of 2021. But the post-anaerobic activity suffering is the worst. The general neurological damage (brain fog, nerve pain, untriggered anxiety) is the most frustrating bit as no one can seem to find the cause of it using any conventional scanning, at least not with me.

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>without feeling like my head lost all oxygen

>brain fog, nerve pain, untriggered anxiety

that all reminded me the time when i had anemia (for different than covid reason though), and reading symptoms described by others it all very similar to low oxygenation. I wonder if covid screws with oxygenation machinery - either lung function or in some anemic like way.

>The most common reported symptom of long COVID is fatigue and the overall symptom picture resembles that of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), which is often triggered by a viral infection.

There have been studies connecting the chronic fatigue syndrome to the post-viral infection rage of B-cells which may go for months https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/are-b-cells-to-blame... - in this and other similar studies they've used cancer (like methotrexate) and/or immune suppressing drugs to kill the B-cells.

>I wonder if covid screws with oxygenation machinery - either lung function or in some anemic like way.

Covid messes around with the oxygenation machinery in multiple possible ways including botching up the lung ability to restrict blood flow to damaged vessels in the lungs, formation of micro-clots in the blood vessels and severely disrupting the normal air-blood flow ratios.

Why can't the body repair these things?

I recommend: a) go to a Long Covid specialist / center b) get tested for POTS

Monitor your heart rate, especially the delta from lying down to standing up for 10 minutes.

The metabolic issue discussed in an article is a possibility but Dysautonomia / POTS are worth exploring.

What you describe is what the long covid specialist warned me about.

I'm a bit shocked that it took a year to manifest.

how long after the exposure did the anaerobic intolerance begin? it takes that long to manifest? had you been lifting the whole time and found it suddenly started happening?

and how soon after lifting weights do the symptoms begin?

Have you tried re conditioning your cardiovascular system with aerobic exercise?

If I'm honest reading your message makes me nervous the same will happen to me. I've been able to do some simple calisthenics without obvious fallout so far.

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