i have a lot of thoughts on long covid for someone who has never had covid to begin with-- but does have a disabling post-viral disease. but i dont really know how to put them into words. somewhere between "im sorry this happened to you" and "welcome to the club". Like i guess maybe the scale or severity are unprescedented but like, we've known about post-viral conditions for over a decade (and probably longer). its just a little frustrating that my disease only got research after millions of people had to get it, like since 2017 we went from "some doctors dont even believe POTS exists, if you say you have it you're probably a hysterical woman with anxiety" to five years later "hey why do millions of people have these complex disabling symptoms huh weird". I went from being the only person IRL I knew who struggled with this to having both my parents have it now as well as a student I work with and the wife of my coworker and many of the people I know online. its a little surreal honestly after over three years of being in medical misdiagnosis 'its just anxiety' limbo that only now after millions of people are suffering can i feel validation in my suffering. idk.
I want to point out that im not saying Long Covid=POTS, Long covid has a slightly different presentation of symptoms and may contain POTS within it, hard to tell. I'm drawing the comparison between post viral conditions.
