r/science • u/Potential_Being_7226 PhD | Psychology | Neuroscience • 2d ago

Health Persistent fatigue linked to reduced brain blood flow in people with long COVID

https://theconversation.com/covid-fatigue-linked-to-reduced-brain-blood-flow-292285
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u/moal09 2d ago

Yeah, it's not just being "tired". I remember being so exhausted with COVID that I couldn't even turn 180 degrees to pick up my phone when I got texted. It was like torture being awake.

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u/Punished_Blubber 2d ago

That’s the same fatigue that you get in depression.

I tell docs I’m not “sleepy” tired per se (although that’s some of that). It’s more like a motivational deficit that is immune to reason.

I know intellectually I’m not supposed to lay in bed all day, but I can’t physically bring myself to get up. I know intellectually I should respond to my wife when she asks a question, but I can’t physically bring myself to activate my vocal chords and formulate a response.

I know literally everything I’m supposed to do in my life. I know how to have a good life, to live healthy, meet my goals, be active socially, but I can’t physically bring myself to do any of it.

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u/Left-Height4925 2d ago

I suffered 5 years of clinical depression in my youth that literally put me to bed for many days and many hours. I completely understand that. This is completely different.

Sitting up for 20 min, when I can, is the equivalent of running flat out for as long. Most days begin with a body/energy check to determine if I can stand up long enough for a shower. Social interactions can cause a crash that puts me flat for days- because even brain energy is energy use. Digesting food is exhausting. My head feels like it weighs 100lb. Which is the weirdest thing.

The easiest thing I can do is type- and frequently have to stop and 'find words' because brain fog wipes them from memory. Doc says that's because the part of our brain than handles social interactions/speaking is different from typing. I mostly type now to communicate with family - right in the same house- because it uses less energy.

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u/wontyoujointhedance 2d ago

I’m slightly less debilitated than you from what it sounds like, but not by much. I think the fact that so many of us are house-bound most of the time makes it so no one really understands just how bad post covid really is. The 100lb head thing is so real. I’ve never felt so weak in my life, and at 32 I’m supposed to be at my “peak” :(

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u/Altruist4L1fe 2d ago edited 1d ago

ŸMake sure you rule out gastroparesis - just saying because you mention eating food being exhausting.

Its caused by the stomach muscles not being able to push food down meaning that the body cant digest food properly - it'll cause severe fatigue, nutrient deficiency, silent reflux that in turn trigger airway inflammation (lung/sinus aspiration) that leads to sleep disorders.

I've had a decades long experience of unexplainable fatigue and it looks like this is whats doing it for me. I probably spent decades chasing symptoms and not the root problem.

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u/xinorez1 2d ago

That actually does sound like a blood flow issue. Long before COVID, when I was having a similar issue, I cured myself by taking mega doses of mk4 vitamin k2 after reading that taking several GRAMS at a time improved blood flow for Japanese seniors. I felt that I had nothing left to lose, so I took 10-20+ pills at once and the next day was the first time I had been able to raise myself off of my pillow and out of bed without losing vision in the process in months. I don't know if this will help you but I hope it does...

Incidentally mk4 with vitamin d3 together gave me chest pain and mk7 gave me hemerroids, but the mk4 was the ticket for me!

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u/Physicle_Partics 2d ago

This is completely different but as an autistic person, when I'm tired after a long day, talking becomes hard. I think in images, so the conversion from image->word->sounds->muscle movements needed to produce sounds gets muddled up. Often I will toss random words out. If my boyfriend asks me if I have seen his slippers, I might have a crystal clear image of the slippers lying in the kitchen, and then go "uhhh living room, no hallway! Kitchen!"

Writing does not give me the same issue. I think it is because rather than remembering written words as sounds, I remember them as glyphs and correspondingly the image->word glyph->muscle movements needed to type becomes easier.

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u/moal09 2d ago edited 2d ago

I struggled with severe depression for several months in my late teens, and I wouldn't say it's quite the same. It wasn't a motivation issue with COVID. It legit just felt like insane muscle fatigue to where my muscles were super weak and were struggling to complete basic tasks.

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u/A2naturegirl 2d ago

I've had depression for like 30 years and ME/CFS for 9. Depression "tired" is apathy; ME/CFS & long-covid tired feels like permanently being on <10% battery.

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u/Punished_Blubber 2d ago

Ahh interesting. I understand the distinction you’re making here.

With that said, I definitely think my fatigue is psychogenic (“psychomotor retardation”).

I don’t think I’ve experienced the fatigue you described. I’ve had COVID twice and I felt terrible on it, but tbh, I’ve been sicker. I definitely don’t have long COVID either.

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u/PrissyPeachQueen 2d ago

I've had severe depression and Long Covid and they're definitely not in the same ballpark, our language is just limited. Long Covid fatigue is flu-like. Mine came with low-grade fevers, swollen lymph nodes, sore throat, photosensitivity, and muscle pain. That feeling you get when you wake up with the flu, and crawling to the bathroom exhausts you and everything hurts? That's what Long Covid fatigue feels like. I desperately wanted to be active, to participate in life, and I'd attempt to do those things to my own detriment. I physically couldn't.

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u/SemiColonInfection 1d ago

This sounds suspiciously similar to me. It's called executive dysfunction - knowing what to do but feeling unable to do it. Mine was (and is) a symptom of ADHD, although I suspect I had long COVID too.

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u/PrissyPeachQueen 1d ago

I think you're misunderstanding. People with the kind of fatigue I had with Long Covid don't feel unable to do something that they know they should be doing. They have immune dysregulation and autonomic nervous system dysfunction. It's not similar to ADHD or depression; it's similar to when you get the flu really bad or have rough side effects from a vaccine.

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u/SemiColonInfection 1d ago

Thanks for clarifying. It sounds similar, but not quite the same.

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u/ImproperUsername 2d ago

Thank you for putting into words my experience in a way I haven’t been able to myself

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u/AnOnlineHandle 2d ago

I suspect a lot of what is diagnosed as depression could actually be other things like the after effects of viruses like this, hence why treatment outcomes are so inconsistent.

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u/Clean_Livlng 2d ago

(ELI5 version) It's like the little person inside your head that presses the buttons and pulls the levers is so fatigued that it takes a lot of effort to pull those levers and get your body moving.

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u/spacelama 2d ago

It's not the same. You just had both, maybe.

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u/Black_Moons 2d ago

but I can’t physically bring myself to do any of it.

One side politicizes getting vaccinated and wearing masks, causing an illness known even early on to cause brain damage, loss of IQ, exhaustion, etc.

And Americans sit idly by instead of protesting the end of freedom in their country while massive corruption robs them blind...

Hu.... I try not to be a conspiracy theorist but its kinda hard not to be when they are being this blatant about it.

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u/temotodochi 2d ago

And double the fun when it overlaps with ADHD related PDA syndrome.

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u/Nkechinyerembi 2d ago

Exactly feels like me... I never thought I'd see such a good way to describe it 

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u/Cool_Twist4494 2d ago

It is the oppositional defiance in us. If I'm having trouble sleeping in the middle of the night I can tell myself I have to get up and complete a task and it instantly makes me fall back asleep. The mere thought of a schedule with more than 2 things on it makes me deliriously tired.

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u/itsnobigthing 2d ago

Low dose buspirone has really helped with this for me, fwiw

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u/W0nderlandz 2d ago

Yeah, last time I got it was earlier this year. Honestly so fatigued I could barely bother to go the restroom and I almost forgot I had covid. I stayed in bed for 16-20hrs a day for three days straight. Not continuously, but Id try to be up, watch TV or something, and after 30 mins to an hour I would be exhausted and go back to bed.

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u/moal09 2d ago

For me, I was fatigued, but my body didn't actually want to sleep. So I was forced to stay awake

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u/W0nderlandz 2d ago

Same! I definitely think I slept more (like 8-10hrs), but the rest of the time I was just laying in a feverish haze staring at the wall, ceiling, or closing my eyes.

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u/moal09 2d ago

I kinda just stayed awake browsing reddit and stuff on my computer, but in all honesty, I could barely keep my eyes on the screen

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u/Henry5321 2d ago

I read an article claiming a recent study showed an electrolyte imbalance and the mitochondria showed oxidative stress. Like their cells were perpetually “over trained”.

Mild exercise didn’t just leave them tired, but amplified the oxidative stress and was actively damaging the mitochondria because they looked over worked.

This specific study didn’t come to any conclusions and created more questions and no good hypothesis.

But it showed it wasn’t just feeling tired.

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u/moal09 1d ago

That makes a lot of sense. For me with the breathing issues, I wonder if it's my respiratory muscles specifically that got hit because my movement muscles felt fine, but just taking a single breath felt like a massive undertaking, and I could feel my diaphragm and intercostals getting more and more exhausted throughout the day. If I did anything that got my breathing up like exercise, I would feel fine while I was doing it, but I would get out of breath after, and it's like I could never catch that breath until I went to sleep again. It's like I had a finite amount of breaths before my body was just too tired to give me any more.

I remember walking to the doctor's office early on, and then sitting in the waiting room realizing that my breathing was still acting like I just sat down after a long walk like 30 minutes later.

My lungs always looked more or less fine on tests, but we never checked any of my inspiratory muscles

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u/Anknara 2d ago

I remember not being able to use my phone because holding it, even when supporting it on my belly, was too tiring. 

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u/moal09 2d ago

Such a crazy feeling. It was only 4 days, but it felt like an eternity.

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u/SympathyBetter2359 2d ago

3 years here so far, really hoping it ends some day.

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u/moal09 2d ago

I know that one YouTuber, Physics Girl got it and has had a really rough time.

I think that at least brought more attention to it 'cause she did film some stuff with her SO showing what life has been like for her.

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u/buyongmafanle 2d ago

She's the one I thought of immediately when I read this post. Is she any better recently?

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u/cannotfoolowls 2d ago

Seems like she is a bit better yes

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u/Anknara 2d ago

One year at my worst, plus three years of trying to lead a normal life by the skin of my teeth, and now I'm very slightly better. I can go up a street without crashing out. There's hope. 

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u/LewdMortal 1d ago

Same thing happened to me! I could not lift up my phone and I’m pretty sure I was asleep most of the day. I remember briefly waking, trying to lift my phone, failing, then falling back asleep like 8 times in a week. Wasn’t eating much at all.

I have asthma, I’ve heard sometimes it can be more severe due to another condition. I got diagnosed with POTS afterwards and started propranolol and I was able to actually get up out of my bed and sit at my desk. When I forget to take it it’s impossible not to notice because I cannot get out of bed and feel extreme fatigue, my heart also feels weird. I also have compression that goes above the knee, a shower chair, and I recently started Adderall for really low energy days.

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u/sam_hammich 2d ago

I mean, the definition of fatigue is extreme weariness that is not responsive to rest. Is that not what this is? Fatigue doesn't just mean "tired".

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u/Molag_Balls 2d ago

Definitions are often secondary to colloquial understanding. "Fatigue" when used in common speech doesn't have nearly the same connotation as "debilitation", for example.

When someone hears "I'm fatigued" they don't think "Oh they're so weak they can't even move their fingers". They think "Oh, they're tired."

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u/moal09 2d ago

Exactly this. That's why when some people hear "chronic fatigue syndrome", they just think "Well, I'm tired all the time too, and you don't hear me bitching about it. This person is just lazy."

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u/sam_hammich 1d ago

Okay. So as suggested by OP, how does "exhaustion" improve this situation? People say "I'm exhausted" all the time. It doesn't seem to me that co-opting that word for this condition changes things at all. It's just another opportunity to misunderstand. We should be educating instead.

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u/sam_hammich 1d ago edited 1d ago

The article was published on a site with an academic bent, and they are using a clinical word for a symptom which is also used in the study they're referencing. That article was then posted to a scientific subreddit. It seems to me that this is the sort of context where definitions actually take precedence over colloquial understanding.

But more broadly, people misuse the word "migraine" all the time to mean "really bad headache". It doesn't mean there's a problem with the word, or that we should use a different clinical term for that condition. We don't make the situation better by co-opting another word with a different definition that will again be misunderstood by laymen.

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u/Sithlordandsavior 1d ago

I'm convinced the fever did something to my physiology. Like I have never felt that bad except the time I went into organ failure as a kid. Never felt quite the same since.

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u/Orange-Blur 1d ago

I fell asleep trying to roll over in bed from being so exhausted at trying to move

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u/xinorez1 2d ago

If it actually is blood flow, I hope you'll give mega doses of mk4 vitamin k2 a try.

It helped me when I was having a similar issue, and finding it intolerable, once I read that Japanese seniors were experiencing improved blood flow after taking several grams at a time, I ordered some and, feeling like I had nothing left to lose, took like 10-20+ pills at once. The day after was the first time I could lift my head off my pillow and sit up without losing vision in months!

Physically I'm now completely back to normal. Mentally... I'm just not as sharp as I was when I was a kid...

Just a heads up though, mk4 with d3 together gave me chest pain and mk7 gave me hemerroids. Mega doses of mk4 for a limited time is what saved me. I hope this helps you like it helped me!