#postviral
For decades, people with ME/CFS struggled for recognition while researchers struggled for funding.

Then came Covid.

My latest for @bloomberg.com on how Long Covid is transforming the science of infection-associated chronic illness.

🎁🔗👇
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Chronic Fatigue Was Neglected for Decades. Then Came Covid
ME/CFS patients battled for recognition as researchers struggled for funding. The pandemic finally gave science the scale to start finding answers.
www.bloomberg.com
November 6, 2026 at 5:57 AM
My postviral condition is not from covid but the ways in which it exacerbates the hEDS—and vice versa—have been brutal. I do absolutely everything I can now to try not to get covid.
November 8, 2026 at 11:56 PM
“Why are you wearing a mask?”
“I have long covid so I have to be careful of infections”
“You have covid???”
“No, I have postviral illness from having covid years ago”
“Why are you here for a covid vaccine if you just had it?”

At a certain point I do expect my head to just explode
November 1, 2026 at 6:44 PM
The #buspirone challenge test: A review of older #ME/CFS and postviral-fatigue research finds a striking pattern: every published buspirone study reported an abnormally large prolactin response in patients. The rise typically peaked 1–2 hours after dosing.
November 9, 2026 at 11:27 AM
Last month I visited Cardigan Bay at Criccieth, and the extra postviral fatigue from 3rd Covid meant this is the first time I've been able to get back to my home sea in a month.
November 2, 2026 at 1:24 PM
Some pathogens can attack nerve cells directly, ( everything in the Herpes family)

but others trigger a demyelinating crises / auto immune attack.

It doesnt necessarily mean you are infectious . it can be a postviral reaction.
November 2, 2026 at 7:22 PM
i know there's more awareness of peri/menopause than for most of my life but it makes me both frustrated and sad that ppl are so *un*aware of postviral syndromes that

1) existed b4 covid
2) covid's HEAVILY associated with
3) can cause most of the things folx pin on peri/meno

when c19 stays rampant
Before I left Facebook every female friend over 30 thought she had perimenopause and every female friend who was post-menopausal decided they were menopausal again. My sister has had COVID five times and is attributing new cognitive symptoms she's getting at age 60 to menopause, of course.
October 31, 2026 at 6:01 PM
I have these constantly now. Repeating information over and over because they just blackout in the middle of hearing a sentence. Frustrating but they might be victims of postviral illness themselves. At least, I can say that I’m pretty sure I don’t run into as many of my fellow post concussion+
November 1, 2026 at 7:06 PM
Habe mich mit XFG impfen lassen, selbst bezahlt. Nachdem ich hier den Tipp bekommen hatte, habe ich einen formlosen Antrag mit kurzer Begründung bei meiner Krankenkasse gestellt (postviral erkrankt nach COVID) und sie haben die Kosten übernommen! Immerhin - wenn auch leider nicht für alle!
October 28, 2026 at 11:52 AM
October 28, 2026 at 10:46 PM
I got the pneumonia shot they usually give to seniors in my 30s after my third or fourth bout of pneumonia and many, many other postviral respiratory infections and haven't had one since. Highly recommend asking for the old people shots.
October 27, 2026 at 9:01 PM
Maybe we simply don't have good tests for brain fog??? Like many challenges that are real but mostly reported by annoying populations (women, people with postviral illness), brain fog is subjective and untreatable by design, because as a field we haven't prioritized designing measures for it
October 22, 2026 at 5:26 PM
The angle I think about it from is that there are a million zillion squijillion viruses out there that likely also have postviral syndromes, and I hope & think that scientists looking into long COVID are also taking a new look at these. It would be awesome to know more about how those types of
October 20, 2026 at 1:16 AM
Yeah -- one of my aunt/uncle pairs caught some kind of non-COVID bug last spring. She got better; he...didn't. It makes *so* much sense to me that the ME/CFS cluster of illnesses might be postviral, and I love that it seems like science is studying that seriously for maybe the first time now
October 20, 2026 at 1:20 AM
Preventing brain damage from postviral illness is not as mysterious as you think. But the consumer based economy depends on a lot of people falling for “It’s safe to pretend it’s 2019 again, now, forever”

We could have an economy based on meeting everyone’s basic need to live and be safe instead
October 17, 2026 at 7:56 AM
Horrendous - and a reminder that such a severe postviral illness can come after a bout of eg Covid that has no symptoms so you barely even knew you had it
Disability can happen to anyone at any time.

It’s not due to deconditioning or a moral failing.

Many chronic illnesses are the result of a viral infection from which the body never recovers.

We need more awareness, treatments & clean air to reduce viral spread.

www.bbc.com/sport/athlet...
Beth Dobbin: British Olympic sprinter in bed for 22 hours a day after ME diagnosis
Beth Dobbin ran for Great Britain at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. Five years on, she is largely bedbound after being diagnosed with ME, a devastating illness for which there is no cure.
www.bbc.com
October 16, 2026 at 12:47 PM
One issue is as far as I can tell it's overwhelmingly likely that long covid is really several different postviral syndromes that can be triggered by covid, probably with different mechanisms and different treatments
October 13, 2026 at 11:28 PM
Unha causa habitual de #POTS é a postviral, tendo sentido que fose frecuente nun mundo, tralo Renacemento, que se globalizaba de xeito irreversible.

A onde viaxaban a xente e as guerras, tamén ían e viñan as pandemias.
October 11, 2026 at 2:35 PM
As someone who has had brain fog from longterm postviral illness, I'm not sure I'd want you to stop using the term to describe your experience. Brain fog is common in perimenopause, among other conditions, and to me, OP seems to be talking about long covid being trivialized by the party comparison?
October 9, 2026 at 11:00 PM
Only five players had topped $20 million in LPGA career earnings before Jeeno Thitikul joined them as the sixth. 🤑⛳

#JeenoThitikul #LPGATour #LPGA #WomensGolf #GolfNews #GemGolfers #AnnikaSorenstam #PostViral
October 6, 2026 at 5:52 AM
I obviously have some "strong positions" on this stuff as an autistic transsexual, but something I think about a lot is how my sibling and I got chickenpox right before the vaccine rolled out. They got it from me, and I got bad postviral symptons. That's what they want for us, in every way possible.
The right has been targeting the HPV vaccine in particular for years. In a lot of ways, it was a dress rehearsal for the current anti-trans stuff; sexual possessiveness of kids, fixations on who is "pure." Also definitely in the lineage of their position on HIV/AIDS as punishment of sexuality.
I really wish the world’s most dangerous, extreme anti-vaccine activist & conspiracy theorist, RFK Jr, who is a eugenicist & a MAHA dude who repeatedly peddles vile lies, had not been put in charge of the US health system

Here he is telling truly horrific, dangerous lies about HPV & COVID vaccines
October 3, 2026 at 10:46 PM
Now we both just get to think about shingles. That still gets to me, even though I know it isn't my fault. My wife and my best friend both had postviral stuff from COVID. I think of my male puberty as a preventable injury. These are the experiences that they are forcing on us.
October 3, 2026 at 10:50 PM
--> Just a little primer on POTS here as I've talked with a few people who have experienced this change in their system, but their doctors didn't bring up the possibility of a Covid or Covid postviral connection. -->

my.clevelandclinic.org/health/disea...
What Is POTS?
POTS causes a range of symptoms when you transition from lying down to standing up. Learn how to manage it.
my.clevelandclinic.org
October 2, 2026 at 7:40 PM
The current theory is that a *lot* of postviral COVID sequelae is mast cell bullshit, yup
September 30, 2026 at 12:10 AM