Toronto scientists are trying to crack one of COVID’s biggest mysteries: Its impact on the brain

“Unfortunately, there are a lot of people affected by this, and they don’t know what to do. A lot of people can’t work, they can’t take care of their kids, they can’t do their daily chores, and so on, so people are very very impaired,” said McIntyre, who is also the head of the Mood Disorders Psychopharmacology Unit at the University Health Network.

McIntyre is leading a double blind study recruiting people from across the province to test an antidepressant called vortioxetine, with the hope it can help those still struggling with COVID’s brain impacts. Half the participants will get the antidepressant, and the other half a placebo, without knowing which one they’ve received.

When people are depressed and suffer from brain fog, he said, there’s often something wrong with their immune system. So his theory is that this anti-inflammatory might also help long COVID patients with brain issues".

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/20...iggest-mysteries-its-impact-on-the-brain.html

 

Thanks @Mij for this.

I read a CBC article that said medicine has known of other chronic illnesses caused by viruses. That article was also about COVID.

On the one hand it is hopeful that medical science is recognizing the terrible and sometimes permanent impact of what we usually view as viruses with no long term impact. But on the other hand, it's decades late for pwME whose disease has been marketed as psychological.

 

From the linked article: "Goulding was helped immensely, she said, by an interdisciplinary rehab program at an integrated-care clinic in Burlington, that included physiotherapy, and exercises like word puzzles, to practice her mental skills."

I hope the scientists undertaking this work have a better grasp of the issues facing the patients than what is suggested here. This sounds like a nightmare.

 

It seems that Dr McIntyre has been doing trials of vortioxetene for a Danish company called Lundbeck for at least ten years.

 

So essentially, have drug, let’s find a disease? Ampligen has been working hard on this as well.

 

Are pwLC suffering from severe insomnia? I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere. Insomnia is a big issue for a high(?) percentage of pwME.

 

Yes, a lot of them, it is quite a common symptom. Here is the NHS website mentioning it for example: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/coronavirus-covid-19/long-term-effects-of-coronavirus-long-covid/

 

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05047952

Exclusion Criteria:

M.E/CFS

 

It doesn't say that;

what is says is;

so, even when deliberately excluding people with the same symptoms, and likely the same condition as they are 'studying', they feel the need to make up yet another name.

CFS/EM.

It's almost as if they hated and despised us/me and part of that is refusing to acknowledge/name us, to give us existence, but making it very, very, clear that this is what they are doing.

It's a bit like those people who allegedly refuse to call people by their correct name, even when corrected, just to try and keep people off balance and annoyed.

 

My dx is CFS on my medical records in Canada.

 

Odd - it seems;

is an exclusion criteria - i.e. if someone isn't currently on antidepressants then they are excluded.

 

Since, depending upon the dosage, up to 32% of patients experience nausea with vortioxetine (vs. 9% with placebo), I'm not sure exactly how "blinded" the trial could be.

I briefly took a TCA (supposedly to address my dizziness) which sent my pulse to 130 bpm 24 hours a day. Were it a trial, I'd have had little doubt as to whether or not I was in the experimental group.

 

On my records, also.

 

I've been prescribed two TCAs for chronic pain and had to give both up PDQ. They both raised my heart rate - the first one to 150 bpm and the second one to 135 bpm, and it went on 24 hours a day for me too. It is a recognised side effect according to the Patient Information Leaflets I was provided with.

Unfortunately for me, the problem of the fast heart rate never disappeared completely once it began, even when I stopped the pills, and I have to rely on beta blockers to keep my heart rate down to "normal", although I don't need it every day (just most of them )

 

I read the title as "Tomato scientists are trying to crack one of COVID's biggest mysteries..."

About right, then?