Photo: Freddy “Tavarish” Hernandez
Covid’s Lasting Brain Fog. Can Researchers Find A Fix?:
So a few weeks ago, Tavarish came back to his channel after being MIA for quite awhile.
Two months is a long hiatus in YouTube time.
He tells us in the video above, that he and his wife were probably both infected with Covid-19, even though their test-results came back negative.
And one of the big complaints he has, despite the negative results, is Brain Fog.
Well, a few studies have come out that show what Covid infection may be doing to some people’s brains…
The Short Answer:
- Tavarish seems to have had Covid despite a negative test.
- He and his wife are experiencing brain fog.
- Effects like that on young healthy people are less obvious problems.
- Covid brain studies show both oxygen-deprivation and blood-vessel leakage.
- MSK’s team found persistent markers of elevated inflammation, too.
- Studies on old anti-inflammatories have shown promise against Alzheimer’s.
- Maybe those drugs or the steroids some doctors prescribe can help?
- Harvard and JHU project that 30% of Covid recoverers will have permanent brain-impairment.
- This will be similar to the effects of a Traumatic Brain Injury.
- That affects the brain enough to make normal life tasks difficult.
- The risk is so large, The Alzheimer’s Association is starting a study.
- There are some bright spots, though.
- Post-Recovery vaccination helps some people.
- Doctors are saving people’s lives with blood-thinners.
- One study shows even vitamin B6 may help, too.
- Hopefully, the number of covid-survivors that are permanently-impaired will be very low.
Read on to find out the details…
→ Show/Hide Table Of Contents ←
Someone Can Look Healthy But Still Be Suffering:
So many of the results of being infected with Covid-19 are things we’ve all heard about.
Severe breathing issues, heart problems, massive immune response and inflammation from the “cytokine storm”.
At this point, we’ve all seen the 2 standard images of the pandemic; a) someone wearing a mask, and b) someone in a hospital on a respirator.
But Tavarish’s complaints point out something many of us might not have anticipated.
The effects on healthy-looking people that could be below the surface, and possibly long-lasting.
Science Suggests A Scary Picture:
I don’t know why this is, but when we see somebody in a hospital on a respirator, it looks very serious.
When we see someone who isn’t, we just assume there were no big problems at-all.
But the work that follows paints at least a cautionary picture of people who’ve had “covid brain”,
Regardless of how much less serious it may be for people who are still functional, and not the reference for the details in the studies.
So for the really bad news, people who died from Covid show many anomalies.
And while most doctors aren’t positive the virus can actually get into the brain, everything else it causes can hurt the brain regardless.
Problems Scattered Everywhere:
Specifically, for people who have passed-away, the studies show that people’s brains showed severe lack of oxygen in many places,
And also spots of internal-bleeding in many others.
Plenty of the severe cases also include encephalitis and even strokes!
In some cases like the ones recently-investigated by Harvard and Johns Hopkins, the blood-clotting factors were so out of whack,
They even found special clot-cells all the way up in tiny blood-vessels of the brain, very far away from the normal place they’re supposed to be!
It was so weird in-fact, that the researchers in question had never seen this, and there’s no mention of it in any previous literature,
So Covid is a really weird disease!
Covid Brain Could Mean Traumatic Brain Injury Equivalent:
So much so, that Harvard estimates 1/3 of survivors will have persistent brain-impairments similar to an official Traumatic Brain-Injury!
Now while we hope this isn’t true for too many survivors, and they were able to avoid brain damage from hypoxia,
Another problem researchers found seems to be related to the “cytokine storm”.
A different team from MSK looked at 18 subjects and found that they had surprisingly-high concentrations of inflammation-markers in the fluid that surrounds their brains.
So maybe it’s not just oxygen-deprivation and leakage from mini-strokes that’s causing the fog of “covid brain”?
Can Covid Brain Be Fixed With Special Meds?:
And since those researchers report that inflammation from other treatments is reduced with steroids,
Maybe the same can be applied to people who have persistent fog and confusion after being infected with The Bug?
Now previously, there have been studies on both Ponstel and Salsalate for Alzheimer’s Disease,
Due to the shutdown of the brain’s cleaning system, it seems that Inflammation is a huge component of that affliction.
The other issue that might be helped by anti-inflammatory drugs could be some of the problems with over-clotting that come from Covid, too.
Because one of the things that class of drugs tends to do is to also thin the blood and make it circulate more easily.
So perhaps long-covid sufferers might go out & get some recommendations from their doctors or the CDC for some kind of meds to help with that lingering fog?
The Walking Wounded:
The real question going-forward is that if Harvard & JHU are right about the TBI-like effects,
Then maybe the fallout from Covid-19 on the long-term health of many people will be a really-unexpected side-effect, long after everyone is vaccinated?
Specifically, the TBI-like effects seem to impair Attention, Memory, Comprehension, and Basic Executive Functions.
-All of which can get in the way of managing even the basics.
These people could go on to be something like “The Walking Wounded” as they move later on into life.
Alzheimer’s Association To Begin Study On Covid Brain:
This potential is so strong, that The Alzheimer’s Association is even talking about doing a long-term study on it and any future effects on global brain health.
Because one of the strange quirks about the disease is that the Alzheimer’s docs have speculated it might invade the brain via the region associated with our sense of smell.
This may be evidenced by the fact many sufferers report loss of that sense.
Still more worrisome to the AA researchers is that the olfactory-bulb is also hyper-connected to the brain’s memory-center.
Those doctors are now trying to fund a study to see how long any “covid brain” effects will last and if they result in Alzheimer’s-like problems.
A Few Bright Spots, Plus Hope:
Now although there are some bright spots out there like:
1) Doctors preventing death from Covid by using blood-thinning drugs.
2) People who have “Long Covid” actually start to feel better after they get vaccinated.
3) To a much lesser extent than drugs but still important nutritionally, other studies suggest that even just a vitamin like B6 may help calm down the clotting and other complications of covid.
We can only pray for the millions of people like Tavarish and his wife who were fortunate enough to recover,
That the future of covid brain is not one of complication and loss similar to the devastation from Traumatic Brain Injury.
Let’s hope that for Freddy & everyone else who’s survived, these effects are mild and eventually recoverable.
References & Links:
• Sources: MSK | Harvard Gazette | Harvard Health Blog | Alz Assoc
• Source Studies:
• CancerCell – Inflammatory Leptomeningeal Cytokines Mediate COVID-19 Neurologic Symptoms in Cancer Patients
• Jama Neurology – Assessing Brain Capillaries in Coronavirus Disease 2019
• Alz&Dem – The chronic neuropsychiatric sequelae of COVID‐19: The need for a prospective study of viral impact on brain functioning
• Frontiers Nutrition – Potential Role of Vitamin B6 in Ameliorating the Severity of COVID-19 and Its Complications
Leave a Reply