UPDATES are in comments
The GAO is a US government accountability office that makes reports to Congress to keep them up to date of economic issues and is this case, health issues. 2-22 ... USA GAO gives an excellent overview of long COVID. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-105666
How many people in the U.S. have developed "long COVID"? It could be in the range of 7.7–23 million, some estimates say.
Being one in 5 people who contract COVID have at least one symptoms that lurks long after, Congress needs to be made more aware of what the future holds. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/coronavirus-long-term-effects/art-20490351
There are many other posts on Long COVID here on the forum. To access them, use the second search line at the top right. Today, I am going to focus on just one symptom. Tooth loss and Alveolar bone loss. (I am not a medical professional or a dentist. I will add information from those who are...)
I have loose teeth and have since my thirties. My mom and dad had Pyorrhea(The severe form of gum disease) from WW2 rationing, stress and likely also shared living quarters with many others, so both had false teeth in their early thirties. All of us kids have had to be extra careful to stave off severe gingivitis... which I did until now. It has advanced because I used to get my teeth cleaned every 3 months, and during COVID I had 5 dentists due to 2 quitting and one moving away and more. I was lucky to get an appointment every 6 months. What has that got to do with Long COVID, you may be asking? Well during the early stages, some people were losing their teeth a few months after a COVID bout. In Ghomert's case it was 6 months. https://mashable.com/article/louie-gohmert-loses-tooth
Well that was me this morning... and it was an expensive capped molar with 3 roots. It was sudden, painless and almost bloodless. (Which is how many others describe it as well) I had COVID last month.
So now we have gotten to the "root" of the problem. Is this poor hygiene, stress, aging, or COVID ?
It is very likely all 4, being few people saw their dental hygienist as regularly during COVID as before, stress was relatively high for everyone and even more so for the poor and elderly who already have more health and gum issues and cannot afford the Dental insurance and COVID itself wrecks havoc on the vascular system. Healthy gums require a good blood flow and COVID makes it sticky...
And wait... there's more...
Tooth loss
Alveolar bone loss and tooth loss are associated with COVID-19 severity but are not independent risk factors. An explorative study. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8603227/
COVID Infection of the mouth may contribute to gum and teeth problems and bone loss. Investigating the mouth–COVID connection https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02922-8
Calcium absorption
Calcium absorption and COVID: (Vitamin D, magnesium and calcium supplements help assure all 3 work together for activation and absorption) 7k samples studied using peer-reviewed data, that is far more robust than most.
"It is the first of its kind in the world to actually biologically identify the overlap in the dysfunction with long COVID and ME/CFS patients," she said. Dr Marshall-Gradisnik said damaged receptors, like a dysfunctional lock and key, do not allow enough calcium in. "The receptors are located on every cell in the body," she said. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-11/long-covid-and-chronic-fatigue-syndrome-pathology-overlap/101318522
Hypocalcemia in COVID-19: Prevalence, clinical significance. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8041474/
Blood abnormalities
This is a preprint, not peer reviewed but interesting. Blood abnormalities found in people with Long Covid. Battle weary immune cells. https://www.science.org/content/article/blood-abnormalities-found-people-long-covid
It is still all so new ... and I am so very tired. (One of my symptoms that I hope to shake) and we have to hope we will not all be exhausted and ravaged by COVID even though we are vaccinated and boosted. Vaccines and boosters still give a relatively high degree of protection from long COVID, and certainly for keeping us out of the hospitals and dying.
I will wake tomorrow with one less tooth... but, I'll be alive and kicking.
UPDATE 2
I wrote the original post a month after a second bout of COVID. I am much better now, but symptoms still linger. The studies on long COVID are ongoing. I was about to be in one, but the people who are doing the study forgot a crucial question. Do I have a smart phone? Well no, I do not and so, I can't be in the study. ARRRGH! Hopefully they will use my answers to the hundreds of questions as they said they only have one person my age in it and very few seniors.
Anyhoo... on to the reason for my post. There are up to 300 symptoms of Long COVID... and 200 are fairly certainly attributed to COVID and the complications that come with it. If you search Long COVID here on the forum (The lower search line is the forum search) you will see many of them... and they contain studies, information and some help...
Here is a newer study that talks about iron. I had NO IDEA that the body hides its iron supplies from an infections agent!! My Doc did not mention it when I had her test for possible deficiencies.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3676888/
And here is why I find it so interesting... I felt better after taking iron pills ...weeks before I saw this. My brain fog is still there but lifts more often now. And this may be why ...from a substack blog of Epidemiologists: https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/virus-research-roundup
Iron and long Covid: A potential path for treatment?
The study: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41590-024-01754-8
Being ill depletes your essential vitamins. It takes time to get the stores back up and it should be the first thing Docs remind people of, especially during a pandemic. IOW, being ill and not replenishing your vitamins means you are more susceptible to a secondary bout or another illness. The a'hole antivaxxers used that reality to conjure up that Zinc and Vitamin D are cure-all... whereas they are immune regulators ... essential but, nor a replacement for a vaccine as many tried to prove to their chagrin, regret and ... all too often, demise.
And now on to one more related topic. I have written earlier about COVID being found in the tissues of dead people and not in a living human... and what the researchers did instead was look for the spike protein in tissues. And they found some traces of live virus as well...
So when you think about it, the body may be depleting vitamins even as you supplement, because your immune system is constantly attacking what it thinks is a persistent threat and may or may not be...which is also the reason why I have so many autoimmune diseases.
Of course the RWNJs seized upon these studies to blame the vaccine... when in fact, the vaccine, boosters and Paxlovid are HELPING many with long COVID to reduce their symptoms... another reason why it is becoming more certain that Long COVID may be mainly caused by lingering virus. Hopefully there will be an answer soon as too many people have had their lives and livlihood disrupted by COVID. (I am one of the lucky ones still able to function for the most part and retired early with at least a small fixed income so not in immediate danger) I truly wish for better days for those who are suffering still
These studies are still ongoing, as I can attest... and will have to continue, because long COVID has caused the health care costs of many countries to soar and remain high. There are still too many of us.
I am sorry that I was not well enough to write and add this as I meant to when this first came out. Here is some info on Immune modulator vitamins.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8065427
UPDATE 1
I made the main post too much about me. I apologize as I prefer to relay info to keep everyone generally well informed. Here are 2 charts to pass on to anyone who still believes COVID is harmless, with a cough and cold symptoms. The damage will be felt for many more years to come... being the virus can attack anywhere you find Ace 2 receptors in the body. Although there are natural ACE inhibitors you can add to your diet, none are going to stop the virus and prepare your body for the onslaught.
I use all of these below and have for some time. VACCINES are more reliable in preparing the body for the onslaught of COVID, as we here have seen in full gory view, but the foods will do no harm unless you are lactose intolerant or contraindicated, IE: already taking blood thinners.
Milk, eggs, soured cream/yogurt/kefir, pomegranate juice, flaxseed, beet-apple juice, vegetable juice, prunes, dark chocolate, hibiscus tea, curcumin and blueberries. Pomegranates are also high in antioxidants which can improve and strengthen the arteries, and prevent blood from clotting.
1) Schematic representation of ACE2 expression in human organs.
“Body Localization of ACE-2: On the Trail of the Keyhole of SARS-CoV-2” https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmed.2020.594495/full
2) The protein expression profile of ACE2 in human tissues - PDF: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.31.016048v2.full.pdf
So sorry to hear that you had Covid and are still suffering the consequences of it. Your posts are always very informative and I really appreciate that. If only the antivaxxers would read your posts they might be converted. Hello, are there any of you lurking here?
Sorry to hear this but not surprised. Only more surprised that people politicized this virus, this very nasty virus that potentially affects every organ system we have.