@AlbaDocherty

Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil. Against stupidity, we are defenseless. -Dietrich Bonhoeffer

behind the red dot
Joined January 2022
Had Covid? Have you had these things ruled out? No? This is a *short* list of clinically-provable conditions in Long Covid that some orgs and other interests want you to think is (not-biomedically validated in Long Covid) MECFS instead. Many of these issues demand medical attention. Many of them have viable treatments that could help ppl right now. Many of them cause sudden death...we haven't seen any of that, have we? Dementia & Vascular Dementia - If you've had Covid, you have a 41% higher risk of dementia and a 77% higher risk of vascular dementia. This is anything but MECFS "cognitive PEM". Thrombotic microangiopathy - Microclots throughout small blood vessels severely limit oxygen and nutrient delivery to tissues. When you exert yourself, tissues cannot get enough oxygen to meet even minimal increased demands. This creates oxygen debt and toxic metabolite buildup that triggers a systemic crash - the delayed, prolonged exhaustion and multi-system symptoms can resemble MECFS. With organs already barely functioning due to poor blood flow, any extra activity pushes the whole system over the edge, causing a collapse that takes days or weeks to recover from. Heart failure (including HFpEF) - Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction is particularly insidious. Standard echos can look "normal" but the heart can't properly relax and fill. Causes exercise intolerance, shortness of breath, and fatigue that worsens with activity. Sound familiar? Interstitial lung disease/fibrosis - Scarring of lung tissue causing progressive breathing difficulty and exercise limitation that can seem like PEM. Chronic thromboembolic disease - Clots organizing in lungs, causing progressive right heart strain. The "PEM-like Sx" are driven by the heart-lung unit hitting a wall - any exertion beyond minimal activity causes systemic oxygen starvation and cardiac strain that takes days to recover from. Unlike deconditioning, rest doesn't improve capacity because the structural blockages remain. Diaphragmatic dysfunction - Nerve or muscle damage to breathing muscles, causing "air hunger" and exercise limitation that can seem like PEM. Pulmonary hypertension - High blood pressure in lung arteries causes severe fatigue and breathlessness with exertion that can be misdiagnosed as PEM. Often missed without right heart catheterization. Silent myocardial ischemia - Reduced blood flow to heart muscle without typical chest pain. Can present as fatigue, exercise intolerance, PEM. Aortic stenosis or other valve disease - Can develop from Covid infection and cause exercise intolerance that is often dismissed as deconditioning and/or PEM. Microvascular dysfunction - Covid can cause small vessel disease affecting coronary, cerebral, or peripheral circulation can cause fatigue, exercise intolerance, and cognitive issues that worsen with exertion. Pulmonary embolism (including microemboli) - Covid can cause blood clots in lungs, especially smaller chronic ones, that can cause progressive exercise intolerance and fatigue. Myocarditis or pericarditis - Post-viral heart inflammation can cause exercise intolerance, fatigue, and chest symptoms that worsen with activity. This requires proper cardiac imaging and biomarker testing to diagnose, but can be mistaken as PEM. POTS and dysautonomia - Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome and other autonomic dysfunctions can cause profound fatigue and post-exertional symptoms, but require specific testing and treatment, quite contrary to how Yale's Akiko Iwasaki & Harlan Krumholz run POTS "studies". Cerebral hypoperfusion - Reduced blood flow to the brain can cause cognitive dysfunction, fatigue, and exercise intolerance that is misclassed as PEM. This can result from Covid vascular damage, autonomic dysfunction, or other mechanisms that result in symptoms that sound a lot like PEM. Small vessel cerebrovascular disease - Microinfarcts or white matter changes from vascular damage could cause cognitive impacts and fatigue that can be mislabeled as MECFS. Neuroinflammation - Direct viral invasion or immune-mediated inflammation in the nervous system could cause symptoms attributed to PEM: Hypersensitivity to noise, light, and temperature; memory problems, difficulty with attention, persistent forgetfulness, difficulty focusing, slowed information processing, etc. that appear similar to "cognitive PEM". Cerebral venous sinus thrombosis - Blood clots in brain's drainage system. Can cause headaches, cognitive issues, and fatigue that can be misdiagnosed as MECFS, before catastrophic events occur. Progressive atherosclerosis - Covid accelerates plaque formation. Carotid or coronary artery disease developing years faster than normal. This Covid-induced condition present with MECFS-like symptoms through a mechanism of exertion-triggered ischemia and delayed recovery. Vasculitis - Covid can cause blood vessel inflammation throughout body. Can affect any organ system and progress to organ failure if untreated. Patients experience malaise, fatigue, and generalized weakness. Covid-induced systemic vasculitis can produce MECFS-like symptoms through multi-organ hypoperfusion and inflammatory exhaustion that worsen with exertion. COVID-19 causes brain and neurological damages that produce symptoms remarkably similar to the generic Dx checklist MECFS, isn't that convenient? Especially when doctors & ins companies won't cover the scans required to prove your brain damages, vascular damages, dementias, etc. Insurance companies LOVE the medical-care-ending-zero-treatment MECFS Dx. It's so much cheaper to tell 400M ppl to pace than to develop targeted treatments for them, isn't it? This is a short list conditions that can be caused by Covid, are found in Long Covid, and that require medical treatment, not to be written off as MECFS.
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࿐࿐Alba ࿐ retweeted
“Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” ― Carl Sagan
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࿐࿐Alba ࿐ retweeted
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࿐࿐Alba ࿐ retweeted
On 23rd August @cocomarvgrows wrote "It’s not just the mask. My tether’s been cut." Those words really, really hit home for me & are in part the inspiration for this new song I've written and sung. Along with "New Normal" & "Connect the Dots" Full lyrics in the 2nd post below.
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Excess death in France. It surely has nothing to do with the ongoing Covid pandemic. #SarsCasm
Excess deaths USA. Enjoy your new normal, zombies!
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࿐࿐Alba ࿐ retweeted
My FB feed is filled with sick folks traveling, then returning home to have a battery of tests due to chest pain, BP spikes, sinus infections, etc. Life feels ridiculous right now.
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࿐࿐Alba ࿐ retweeted
Replying to @PunkyBrewstuh
I'm seeing a disturbing trend. People being told they have #MECFS, and then un-aliving themselves when they buy into it.
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iF yOU mEEt tHE cRIteRiA yOU hAVe iT Flat-earth idiocy and anti-science tribalism have real life and death consequences.
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👏@Rob_DeRosa ✊🔥
1,700 people have signed a petition asking for a pause and independent review of a Long COVID trial planning to test the Lighting Process, a pseudoscientific mind-body program that outside experts have heavily criticized. thesicktimes.org/2026/09/22/…
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࿐࿐Alba ࿐ retweeted
Replying to @hasanthehun
Your fans are the most annoying people on the fucking planet
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Feeling defeated and deflated. This 13th wave of SARS-CoV-2 looks massive so far. This means more #LongCovid and more #LongCovidKids. Why didn't people listen to our testimony? Why did they offer up their kids and grandkids to this monstrous virus and the downstream damages? I'm so tired but saying "I tried" doesn't seem enough. Can someone else who cares about the children take the wheel? Please.
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࿐࿐Alba ࿐ retweeted
Astroturfing shills lie about and abuse HIV AIDS history to argue against dedicated Long Covid research. It's fucking depraved. The indisputable lesson of AIDS is that dedicated HIV research is what produced results: ~50 FDA approved medications.
They didn't get 50 Rx on the market by dumping into a bucket with other illnesses. HIV demanded their own dedicated research, their own funding streams, their own clinical trial networks. This is the ONLY reason HIV antiretrovirals exist. Not that this @ISLCPAIS idiocy is even remotely accurate...
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JUST IN: For the first time in history, the majority of online articles published today are "AI slop" instead of human-written.
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࿐࿐Alba ࿐ retweeted
🥾Doing extra cognitive work when my body is stretched to thin always brings sharp pain and a fizzing sensation over my right ear in a specific place for at least three years of the five and a half years of this disease. It's becoming more predictable. Here is what I think is happening. 🫧Why Deep Thinking Triggers Sharp Pain & "Fizzing" in Your Scalp when you have LC 🤯Thinking takes real, physical energy. For people with LC, pushing your brain to solve problems or process complex information drains your system just as fast as physical exercise and I do it alot. 💪I know others are trying everyday to figure out what is happening in their bodies so I felt like I needed to address it. 🚨If you get sharp, jabbing pains above your ear followed by a strange "fizzing" or "bubbling" feeling when you try to think hard, there is a clear physical reason for it: 👉 Phase 1: The Sharp Jabs (The Adrenaline Surge) 🧠When you focus hard, your brain demands extra blood and fuel. Because LC damages normal blood flow, your body has to dump a sudden burst of adrenaline to force blood upward. 💆This sudden push stretches the small blood vessels in your scalp, pulling on the delicate nerves wrapped around them and triggering quick, sharp, "ice-pick" pains. 👉Phase 2: The "Fizzing" or "Bubbling" (Energy Failure) 🔌If you keep pushing through the pain, those scalp nerves completely run out of energy. Instead of sending normal signals, the nerves drop into chaotic, low-voltage misfiring. 🌊 Blood flow through the strained vessel becomes turbulent. Your brain perceives this disorganized nerve chatter and blood movement as a fizzy, carbonated, or electric feeling. Nursing Note🩵 ⚠️Mental effort is a physical workout. The sharp jabs followed by a bubbling feeling are a physical warning light telling me that the blood vessels and nerves in my scalp have run out of fuel. 🌩️When the fizzing starts, it's most likely my local brain battery is at zero and the only fix is total rest. And I resist. So often I push it away and try to continue with whatever my brain is trying to work out. 🤓Nursing Note to Self The task can wait a few. I can take breaks. I can be gentle with myself. It's hard for some people like me to turn it off. I am a compassionate problem solver at heart like many others on here. It can still wait a few. Rest is extremely important when my body is fighting a constant battle against a disease that limits blood flow to the brain and organs. 😴🛏️ #LongCovid #BloodFlowProblems
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"A code for the symptom PEM/PESE could lead to doctors recognizing only that symptom and they may never review the patient to assign the code for an ME diagnosis" They may never assign a #LongCovid diagnosis, either. meglobalchronicle.wordpress.…
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By whom? By none other than those you all so worship. This started as early as 2021. If only you malicious idiots had spent your time looking at the truth instead of slandering, harassing, and blocking the ppl pointing it out, eh?
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There are so many actions, non-actions, choices, and selfish priorities that have disgusted me over the past six and a half plus years that I will never forgive. My lack of forgiveness is essentially meaningless, though, in the course of things and to history. But when this generation of children and teens fully understand how those actions, non-actions, choices, and selfish priorities impacted their health and future, their lack of forgiveness will be meaningful and history will take note. #LongCovidKids
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Our children continue to suffer without proper awareness, mitigations, research, and treatments while people without their best interests in mind continue to assert that this is nothing new. 💔 #LongCovidKids
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࿐࿐Alba ࿐ retweeted
pwME dON'T sAY tHEy'RE tHE sAMe tHInG Here's our pwME "allies" abusing LONG COVID AWARENESS DAY to protest for themselves in front of THE WHITE HOUSE carrying signs of DISINFO AND LIES that say "LONG COVID IS MECFS". This rancid bullshit was featured in ROLLING STONE.
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By whom? By none other than those you all so worship. This started as early as 2021. If only you malicious idiots had spent your time looking at the truth instead of slandering, harassing, and blocking the ppl pointing it out, eh?
"A code for the symptom PEM/PESE could lead to doctors recognizing only that symptom and they may never review the patient to assign the code for an ME diagnosis" They may never assign a #LongCovid diagnosis, either. meglobalchronicle.wordpress.…
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PEM in Long Covid (or, any other condition) ≠ MECFS.
Illnesses that can involve post-exertional malaise (PEM) include ME/CFS, Long COVID, post-SARS-CoV-1, Epstein-Barr virus/mono, post-Lyme disease, post-GBS, fibromyalgia, POTS & other forms of dysautonomia, multiple sclerosis, Lupus, & cancer.
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