At this point, it's clear I am experiencing Post Viral Syndrome (PVS) from my one Covid infection back in February 2020. PVS can result from any viral infection, but in typical fashion with Covid, it has been rebranded to give the impression it is scary and unique to Covid - And thus was borne "Long Covid."
My SARS-Cov-2 PVS seems to have manifested with two symptoms:
1. A persistent smell of cigarette smoke as my "default" (when no other scent present). This started about 6-8 months after my suspected Covid infection (Feb 2020). When there's a real scent, there's no hint of the cigarette smell, and so I still experience all normal scents. But when there is no other scent, I just continuously smell cigarette smoke. Interestingly, 1) for a few months after I received my Covid vaccine, this symptom was completely gone; and 2) it seems to be almost completely gone right now, and I'm just a few weeks past what I thought was a very mild cold, but could have been Covid -- So, it seems fresh antibodies suppress this symptom.
2. A ridiculously high (to me) level of intelligence. For the last two years, learning and understanding things has been easier than it ever has been in my life. Everything seems to just naturally and clearly make sense. After being completely out of my "day job" for a year and a half, last summer I re-entered the field. I'm a Salesforce Commerce Cloud - ecommerce platform - technical architect, and even though I was out for 18 months, I'm f*cking killing it at my job. Never in my life has this been so easy. Any time a client comes to me and starts to describe a problem, I immediately know what the problem is and how to fix it, seemingly without even thinking about it. My brain feels like a super-computer. I've always considered myself as about average or slightly above average intelligence - But I worked hard, so my accomplishments have been a bit above my "intelligence grade." But for the first time in my life, I actually feel relatively smart. Of course, maybe just everyone else is experiencing a "Long Covid" symptom of lost intelligence, and I happened to dodge that one - So I'm still at my same old mediocre level of intelligence, but everyone else got dumber.
We kinda joke about "Long Covid" (often rightly so) because the anxiety-riddled CNN/MSNBC watchers keep citing it as a reason for them to be afraid to leave their house, and as a reason to continue restrictions. Logically, both of those conclusions are stupid, but make not mistake, PVS is a real thing.
Basically, once the virus infects, it just keeps replicating until either 1) The host dies; or 2) The immune system of the host neutralizes and clears it from the host. Contrary to popular belief, the virus doesn't "target" any particular part of the body. It just replicates, and goes wherever the body takes it. And some of the body's organs and functions are more susceptible to viral infections (or certain types of viral infections) than other (i.e. lungs). Also, some of the body's organs and functions are better at recovering than others.
So, for this reason, PVS can manifest itself via many different symptoms, and the whole scale of severity.
In the vast majority of cases - but not all - when we experience a viral infection (i.e. flu, cold, etc.), because our immune systems are prepared, the virus doesn't make it deep enough into the body's organs and functions to result in anything other than very minor - if any - PVS symptoms. Generally, PVS is so mild and/or infrequent, most people never even knew it was a thing.
SARS-Cov-2, with an assist from our click-bait media, changed that a bit. We saw reports of "Long Covid" like we've never seen with other standard respiratory viruses. Well, yeah - This is to be expected. Not because there is anything inherently more dangerous about SARS-Cov-2 from a PVS perspective, but rather, simply because it was novel to our immune systems. Novel viruses take longer to clear (as we have covered in previous posts), and so with an infection from a novel virus, it gets to replicate deeper into our body's organs and systems than does non-novel viruses. So, whatever havoc a viral infection might cause on different parts of the body, it's likely going to be worse when the infection is from a novel virus. The good news is, for the vast majority of us (if not literally all of us), since SARS-Cov-2 is no longer novel to our immune systems, from here on out, we can expect incidents and severity of "Long Covid" to approach that of PVS from other standard respiratory viruses that have been circulating among us our whole lives.
The other piece of good news is that if your Covid infection results in Long Covid, perhaps you too will become ridiculously intelligent like me!
My SARS-Cov-2 PVS seems to have manifested with two symptoms:
1. A persistent smell of cigarette smoke as my "default" (when no other scent present). This started about 6-8 months after my suspected Covid infection (Feb 2020). When there's a real scent, there's no hint of the cigarette smell, and so I still experience all normal scents. But when there is no other scent, I just continuously smell cigarette smoke. Interestingly, 1) for a few months after I received my Covid vaccine, this symptom was completely gone; and 2) it seems to be almost completely gone right now, and I'm just a few weeks past what I thought was a very mild cold, but could have been Covid -- So, it seems fresh antibodies suppress this symptom.
2. A ridiculously high (to me) level of intelligence. For the last two years, learning and understanding things has been easier than it ever has been in my life. Everything seems to just naturally and clearly make sense. After being completely out of my "day job" for a year and a half, last summer I re-entered the field. I'm a Salesforce Commerce Cloud - ecommerce platform - technical architect, and even though I was out for 18 months, I'm f*cking killing it at my job. Never in my life has this been so easy. Any time a client comes to me and starts to describe a problem, I immediately know what the problem is and how to fix it, seemingly without even thinking about it. My brain feels like a super-computer. I've always considered myself as about average or slightly above average intelligence - But I worked hard, so my accomplishments have been a bit above my "intelligence grade." But for the first time in my life, I actually feel relatively smart. Of course, maybe just everyone else is experiencing a "Long Covid" symptom of lost intelligence, and I happened to dodge that one - So I'm still at my same old mediocre level of intelligence, but everyone else got dumber.
We kinda joke about "Long Covid" (often rightly so) because the anxiety-riddled CNN/MSNBC watchers keep citing it as a reason for them to be afraid to leave their house, and as a reason to continue restrictions. Logically, both of those conclusions are stupid, but make not mistake, PVS is a real thing.
Basically, once the virus infects, it just keeps replicating until either 1) The host dies; or 2) The immune system of the host neutralizes and clears it from the host. Contrary to popular belief, the virus doesn't "target" any particular part of the body. It just replicates, and goes wherever the body takes it. And some of the body's organs and functions are more susceptible to viral infections (or certain types of viral infections) than other (i.e. lungs). Also, some of the body's organs and functions are better at recovering than others.
So, for this reason, PVS can manifest itself via many different symptoms, and the whole scale of severity.
In the vast majority of cases - but not all - when we experience a viral infection (i.e. flu, cold, etc.), because our immune systems are prepared, the virus doesn't make it deep enough into the body's organs and functions to result in anything other than very minor - if any - PVS symptoms. Generally, PVS is so mild and/or infrequent, most people never even knew it was a thing.
SARS-Cov-2, with an assist from our click-bait media, changed that a bit. We saw reports of "Long Covid" like we've never seen with other standard respiratory viruses. Well, yeah - This is to be expected. Not because there is anything inherently more dangerous about SARS-Cov-2 from a PVS perspective, but rather, simply because it was novel to our immune systems. Novel viruses take longer to clear (as we have covered in previous posts), and so with an infection from a novel virus, it gets to replicate deeper into our body's organs and systems than does non-novel viruses. So, whatever havoc a viral infection might cause on different parts of the body, it's likely going to be worse when the infection is from a novel virus. The good news is, for the vast majority of us (if not literally all of us), since SARS-Cov-2 is no longer novel to our immune systems, from here on out, we can expect incidents and severity of "Long Covid" to approach that of PVS from other standard respiratory viruses that have been circulating among us our whole lives.
The other piece of good news is that if your Covid infection results in Long Covid, perhaps you too will become ridiculously intelligent like me!
