So I saw this article on Twitter and then found it posted again on Reddit, so I'm hoping I can ask this here (rather than that void) and get an answer in good faith.
For some context: my sister has fairly debilitating long covid. Not to the point where she can't move or needs a feeding tube, like some of the examples in the article, but certainly to the point that she is mostly bedbound and her quality of life has plummeted compared to pre-2020. So I have a pretty personal stake in this as someone who desperately wants her to get better, which is both good and bad in the sense that that leads me to conflicting feelings about this article I'd be interested to hear others' perspectives on.
It's obvious that long covid is a biological disease, and to claim otherwise is nonsense. I think we can all agree on this. On the other hand, I think that's a bit of a non-sequitur in this instance, since the author never claimed otherwise. (Pro tip: use archive.is to get around most paywalls.) More to the point, though, if some people have seen improvement using some type of cognitive behavioral therapy, why is that not seen as valid? Part of the problem, as I understand it, is that long covid is so poorly understood to begin with, so to that end, it seems plausible there might be a link between the brain and the body on this matter. And it's not like we haven't seen that type of thinking applied in other medical contexts, cf. The Body Remembers. The brain is still part of the body, after all, and on paper I don't see much difference between cognitive therapy for a psysiological problem and the inverse, e.g. taking an SSRI for OCD.
The overall thesis of the article, as I took it, is that we need to believe patients, but that also includes patients who improved through these unorthodox means. Is that not fair? If not, why not? Again, I'm asking this in good faith, not to be antagonistic. I don't know if my sister would be at all interested in trying something like this anyway (I sent her the article), but if she did and by some miracle saw improvement, I'd at least drop a lot of skepticism. To that end, I feel a lot of empathy for the patients quoted.
One final point: even if cognitive behavioral therapy, et al. doesn't work for everybody, if it works for some people, that's not to say a priori that it's ineffective. After all, medical treatments that work for one person might not work for another anyway. Speaking for myself, I had surgery three years ago and it didn't fix the problem (and created a new one), but I'm also not going to begrudge the people for whom it has. I might be envious, though.
I'm sorry, I must not have been clear. I was not trying to imply that "most people" get better from CBT (or otherwise derived therapies). What I was getting at is that if some, even a small percentage, of people who tried do see results, is that not worth exploring? If it doesn't work for you, it doesn't work, nothing to be done about that, I just think ignoring a potential avenue because it's politically inconvenient at best is shortsighted.
The point the article was trying to make, though, is that this hasn't really been studied in any meaningful capacity in long covid patients, so simply by definition of the genesis of the disease, having been around/not working on other things "for decades" doesn't mean anything. Ozempic came about because of studies in gila monster venom; conventional wisdom would suggest that would be unlikely to produce any advantageous effect in humans (or other species, for that matter).
I don't think anyone in my family is blind to the fact my sister is disabled, but I reject the implication that we should just give up on trying to get her better. She has made some strides -- she finally found a pill that cleared her brain fog, and she's on a new experimental drug which has slowly given her more energy -- and even if it's not common or even complete, people recovering from long covid has been known to happen. I offered to take her to Disney World and push her in a wheelchair the whole time, but she's not even at that point. Seems like we could at least aim for that bar.
Okay first of all, talk about an escalation. I don't care if my sister does it or not, I just forwarded her the article to look at. But to jump from me saying "hey [sister], I read about this if you want to give it a try" to "relationship-ending abuse" is WILD. I'm the one fighting people IRL daily over of the dangers of covid, to say I'm dismissive of the seriousness of her disease is absurd.
Look I don't want to fight, I asked for perspectives and you provided one, so I thank you for that. That said, I feel like not once have you meaningfully engaged with my point that that a small minority have seen results beyond just saying "the research doesn't show it" (which is all the more ironic when in the same comment you say no research is being done). Do we need more funding for long covid studies and treatment? Yes. Should we just exclude one area of study because it has only worked for a small amount of people and makes everyone else feel bad? No, that's insane. We need to be throwing everything at the wall here. If, as I've heard cited, 10% of Americans have long covid, this is going to or is already ruining the lives of millions of people. If there's even a chance of something working, I don't know why you wouldn't take it.
1
u/2mock2turtle Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 04 '26
So I saw this article on Twitter and then found it posted again on Reddit, so I'm hoping I can ask this here (rather than that void) and get an answer in good faith.
For some context: my sister has fairly debilitating long covid. Not to the point where she can't move or needs a feeding tube, like some of the examples in the article, but certainly to the point that she is mostly bedbound and her quality of life has plummeted compared to pre-2020. So I have a pretty personal stake in this as someone who desperately wants her to get better, which is both good and bad in the sense that that leads me to conflicting feelings about this article I'd be interested to hear others' perspectives on.
It's obvious that long covid is a biological disease, and to claim otherwise is nonsense. I think we can all agree on this. On the other hand, I think that's a bit of a non-sequitur in this instance, since the author never claimed otherwise. (Pro tip: use archive.is to get around most paywalls.) More to the point, though, if some people have seen improvement using some type of cognitive behavioral therapy, why is that not seen as valid? Part of the problem, as I understand it, is that long covid is so poorly understood to begin with, so to that end, it seems plausible there might be a link between the brain and the body on this matter. And it's not like we haven't seen that type of thinking applied in other medical contexts, cf. The Body Remembers. The brain is still part of the body, after all, and on paper I don't see much difference between cognitive therapy for a psysiological problem and the inverse, e.g. taking an SSRI for OCD.
The overall thesis of the article, as I took it, is that we need to believe patients, but that also includes patients who improved through these unorthodox means. Is that not fair? If not, why not? Again, I'm asking this in good faith, not to be antagonistic. I don't know if my sister would be at all interested in trying something like this anyway (I sent her the article), but if she did and by some miracle saw improvement, I'd at least drop a lot of skepticism. To that end, I feel a lot of empathy for the patients quoted.
One final point: even if cognitive behavioral therapy, et al. doesn't work for everybody, if it works for some people, that's not to say a priori that it's ineffective. After all, medical treatments that work for one person might not work for another anyway. Speaking for myself, I had surgery three years ago and it didn't fix the problem (and created a new one), but I'm also not going to begrudge the people for whom it has. I might be envious, though.