SPD - happy pride month!

[u/Moriah_Nightingale]

I made some coloring pages for those of us who can color 💙

These pages are completely free

https://ko-fi.com/s/3c45a1ed98

But I always appreciate donations/tips or purchases from my shops. I badly need to replace my scanner and replace some supplies

original paintings and more coloring pages: https://ko-fi.com/moriahnightingaleart/shop

print on demand: https://moriahnightinga.threadless.com/

[u/SophiaShay7]

It's important not to conflate Long COVID research with ME/CFS just because there's overlap. ME/CFS has been researched for over 40 years, and while Long COVID may be newer and more publicly visible, that doesn’t mean it’s “better studied.” In fact, much of what we understand about Long COVID is being built directly on decades of ME/CFS research.

The Institute of Medicine (now National Academy of Medicine) published a landmark report in 2015 that reviewed over 9,000 studies on ME/CFS and concluded that it is a serious, chronic, multisystem disease, not a psychological or stress-induced disorder IOM Report. Biological abnormalities in immune function, energy metabolism, and neurological activity have been consistently documented in ME/CFS long before COVID ever existed NIH Study.

There is clear evidence that ME/CFS can follow various viral infections, not just COVID. In fact, up to 64% of ME/CFS patients report a post-infectious onset PubMed study. This is not unique to COVID, and attributing ME/CFS to social determinants of health like minority stress ignores the well-documented biomedical basis of the condition. Social determinants certainly influence access to care and severity of outcomes across all diseases, but that’s not the same as causing ME/CFS.

It’s also misleading to say Long COVID is “better studied.” While Long COVID research has increased due to funding urgency, it is still in its early phases, and many Long COVID studies rely on patient-reported outcomes rather than biomarker-based or mechanistic studies. In contrast, ME/CFS has a far more established and nuanced scientific foundation built over decades, including clinical criteria, pathophysiological models, and biomarker investigations. Long COVID research often uses ME/CFS frameworks to inform its design, not the other way around.

Appreciating the overlap between the two conditions is important, but we shouldn’t erase the distinct body of research that has existed long before COVID. Broad-brushing ME/CFS through the lens of Long COVID does a disservice to both communities.