This is a comment I tried to post on a 60 minutes Youtube video on Covid long-haulers. Unfortunately the comment never appeared on the site.
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I'm so glad I found this video. I'm not a long hauler. More than two decades ago, I suddenly developed severe migraines with aura. I scared me so much I did my rounds with doctors but it didn’t help. MRI, blood-tests showed nothing. At that time, migraines were thought to be benign, just a blood flow flaw. Finally after a few years, I started having massive panic anxiety attacks. So now a psychiatrist with anti-depressants and tranquilizers, a diagnosis of depression and anxiety. I finally could empathize with my aunt. She had severe migraines too and suffered panic attacks.
Only later did I come across an report where high resolutions scans of migraine sufferers brains showed small black spots, small lesions. Not so benign after all. I came to the belief that these small damages could break networks that in most migraine sufferers doesn’t cause any major problems but in the unlucky few do. Just a belief.
That’s why this long haul video really got my interest. The general malaise, the other symptoms, it all fits. The autopsy that showed micros strokes in the brain. Plus the fact that few covid recovering patients get long haul symptoms, just like few (I think) migraine sufferers would have gone through what I’ve gone through. It’s where the micro-strokes hit in the brain. It’s a long journey where I suspected that migraine could have some long term consequences. I now just accept this as part of life. I’m 67 years old so it doesn’t matter much anyway. But I do hope that the long haulers energize a movement to develop a cure. It would help me too.
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