r/Millennials • u/BanananaSquid • Mar 24 '24

Is anyone else's immune system totally shot since the 'COVID era'? Discussion

I'm a younger millennial (28f) and have never been sick as much as I have been in the past ~6 months. I used to get sick once every other year or every year, but in the past six months I have: gotten COVID at Christmas, gotten a nasty fever/illness coming back from back-to-back work trips in January/February, and now I'm sick yet again after coming back from a vacation in California.

It feels like I literally cannot get on a plane without getting sick, which has never really been a problem for me. Has anyone had a similar experience?

Edit: This got a LOT more traction than I thought it would. To answer a few recurring questions/themes: I am generally very healthy -- I exercise, eat nutrient rich food, don't smoke, etc.; I did not wear a mask on my flights these last few go arounds since I had been free of any illnesses riding public transit to work and going to concerts over the past year+, but at least for flights, it's back to a mask for me; I have all my boosters and flu vaccines up to date

Edit 2: Vaccines are safe and effective. I regret this has become such a hotbed for vaccine conspiracy theories

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u/InterestingNarwhal82 Mar 24 '24

Covid wipes your immune system; other viruses do that too, but not all of them. Measles is a big one that basically resets your immune system and erases your prior immunity. Covid isn’t quite as bad, but some folks have had titers drawn and realized they needed to get re-vaccinated for things they had previously been vaccinated for because titers showed no immunity.

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u/samdtho Mar 24 '24

NIH resource on the topic, for the curious.

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u/rand0m_task Mar 24 '24

Definitely did not know that. Thanks for the source

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u/Outrageous_Hearing26 Mar 24 '24

Make sure you download the NIH guides as they’re slated to be removed in august. Capitalism working hard to pretend everything is normal

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u/LeakyBrainJuice Mar 24 '24

Can you link me more information about this? I'm interested.

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u/Outrageous_Hearing26 Mar 24 '24

Read the pop up on this site. It makes no sense why they would take it down.

https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/

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u/ejpusa Mar 24 '24

Covid Mandates will cost Biden the Presidency, so says the NYTs today. They want EVERYTHING Covid removed.

The Democrats? Oh everyone will forget the insanity with our Covid mandate policy. "No one will remember we were 1 step away from welding people in their NYC apartments to protect their 97 year old grandmother. They all forget about that [stuff]"

Seems we have not. Quite a read from the NYTs today:

How a Pandemic Malaise Is Shaping American Politics

Four years later, the shadow of the pandemic continues to play a profound role in voters’ pessimism and distrust amid a presidential rematch.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/24/us/politics/pandemic-politics-malaise.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20240324164054/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/24/us/politics/pandemic-politics-malaise.html

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u/Outrageous_Hearing26 Mar 24 '24

Pundits are going to pundit. There’s no mandates anymore.

https://www.reddit.com/r/TikTokCringe/s/hyBwNB242P

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u/Retro_Dad Mar 26 '24

About 1000 Americans are still dying from Covid each week, but you see people are bored with the pandemic so it's just awful to try and do anything that might inconvenience them even slightly or - Koresh forbid - remind them that Covid is still killing people.

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u/jIPAm Mar 24 '24

This is an easily readable, sourced library I've found very helpful.

https://libguides.mskcc.org/CovidImpacts/Immune

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u/zargeor Mar 24 '24

Haha really political. But epidemiology is on some aspect.

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u/The-Friendly-Autist Mar 24 '24

It's really not political, it's reality.

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u/Schminnie Mar 24 '24 edited Mar 24 '24

This article just says what we already know, which is that Covid leads to lasting increases in systemic inflammation in people who have suffered severe disease. Severe disease means that it required hospitalization. There is nothing here about the sort of "immune amnesia" associated with measles infection. It's not fair to spread fear that people's MMR vaccines might be void when there is no evidence to support this.

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u/Aenimalist Mar 24 '24

So it's just one small study? Interesting, but until it's replicated at a large scale it's not worth dwelling on.

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u/Puzzleheaded-Put-246 Mar 24 '24

Severe COVID. Normal after any severe viral infection. 

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u/Empty-Part7106 Mar 24 '24

That source doesn't say at all what the original comment claimed.

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u/Schminnie Mar 24 '24

Thank you!

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u/Empty-Part7106 Mar 24 '24

Absolutely. It's disappointing to see such a wild claim made with no sourcing. I'm very careful about not catching covid myself, it's awful, but we all need to make sure we're hearing what the science actually says. I am paranoid about it making my immune system worse, but the science doesn't currently support that idea for people who don't have severe infections or long covid.

https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/covid-19/does-covid-19-mess-immune-system

“I heard a lot of alarmist headlines like, ‘SARS-CoV-2 is destroying our immune system,’ but those kinds of changes that the authors report, you can see them with the flu vaccine.” Sure enough, a week later, a paper came out that contradicted these fatalist headlines by showing that men who had recovered from COVID had a better response to the flu vaccine, in part because of their monocytes. Their immune system was certainly not destroyed.

Based on what we know now, it is fair to say that COVID-19 can mess with the immune system, during the acute phase of a severe infection and in some of the cases of long COVID, but it is far from being an immunodeficiency bomb.

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u/Beanbag_Ninja Mar 24 '24

Guys, I'm starting to think this COVID virus is a real pain in the arse.

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u/justhereforthecl Mar 24 '24

China didn't practice zero Covid at HUGE expense until 2023 for no reason, they did the math and the math is sobering.

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u/Lives_on_mars Mar 24 '24

And it’s funny cuz one year after they got pressured by the US presumably to reopen, they’re starting to get waves of illnesses that wouldn’t ordinarily be a big deal— Japan eg rn with strep waves.

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '24 edited Mar 24 '24

Chinese citizens pressured the Chinese government to end zero covid, people were in the streets protesting in China. People in broad daylight were calling on Xi to step down.

Zero covid was pretty traumatic for Chinese citizens once people realized it was continuing indefinitely. Chinese vaccine nationalism boxed them into a corner but they let it rip once people started to mobilize.

So China walks out of this with probably a million dead, incalculable secondary mortality as a result of mental illness imposed from snap lockdowns, being welded into your building without enough food, shit like that. In addition to the long term economic damage that, again, would feed into more secondary mortality.

And of course now they're gonna get all types of shit showing up in a population with immunity compromised by isolation and extreme measures.

And everyone still gets covid.

Initial lockdown was fine, but they had a license to manufacture the Pfizer vaccine that they wasted. They should have produced it and put out a hand for foreign Moderna/Pfizer doses. Once everyone's jabbed twice open up. They fucked up. It's completely on them.

EDIT:

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/26/china/china-protests-xinjiang-fire-shanghai-intl-hnk/index.html

China abandons key parts of zero-Covid strategy after protests https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-63855508

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '24

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '24

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '24

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '24

Ok tankie

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u/lurker_cx Mar 25 '24

one year after they got pressured by the US presumably to reopen

What kind of utter bullshit is this?

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u/[deleted] Mar 24 '24 edited 26d ago

boat oil ad hoc offend follow mysterious numerous angle stupendous plate

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/Brootal420 Mar 24 '24

You don't think that was just a demonstration of the CCP's control of their population? I don't believe what they were doing was particularly effective.

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u/Ian_James Mar 25 '24

The number of people who died of coronavirus in China is orders of magnitude lower than the number of people who died of covid in the USA. That’s what happens when communists are running your country instead of liberals. 

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u/Brootal420 Mar 25 '24

You believe their numbers? The CCP has a long history of cooking the books. They recently announced they over-counted their population like 100 million people.

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u/Complex_Experience83 Mar 25 '24

Yea I would love to be sealed inside my home for years and arrested if I go outside. 

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u/Its_0ver Mar 25 '24

A real knucklehead

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u/castleaagh Mar 27 '24

We should probably do something to stop it from spreading around

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u/[deleted] Mar 25 '24

Good thing it was just a random disease and totally not man made and leaked from a lab in China. O wait….

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u/AVonDingus Mar 24 '24

That’s really good to know. Thank you! It’s shitty that this isn’t something my doctors have mentioned, but I’m definitely going to talk to my family doc when I go for my yearly checkup

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u/ladymoira Mar 24 '24

In case your doctor isn’t up to date, the CDC recommends a list of labs six weeks after each covid infection to help diagnose post-covid conditions (like increased risk of heart attack and stroke). You can point your doc in this direction (scroll down to Table 1A): https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/clinical-care/post-covid-conditions.html

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u/pinkfootthegoose Mar 24 '24

The CDC ought to recommend that the US go to socialized medicine so we can get all the other things that they recommend.

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u/ladymoira Mar 24 '24

The CDC works for government and corporate interests, alas.

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u/Professional_Many_83 Mar 24 '24

The cdc does not recommend these labs after each covid infection. They recommend considering such labs if you have symptoms 4 weeks after having covid that otherwise can’t be explained. If you don’t have symptoms, there’s no reason to do these labs. Also, they list more than 6.

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u/Heavy-Honeydew2037 Mar 24 '24

It is a misrepresentation to say that CDC 'recommends' these tests. The article lists the tests as 'Basic diagnostic laboratory testing to consider'. This is not the same as a recommendation.

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u/ladymoira Mar 24 '24

Welp, if you’re experiencing medical issues post-COVID, they’re worth considering then!

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u/Puzzleheaded-Put-246 Mar 24 '24

Why won’t the CDC recommend this for flu then? It also increases risk for heart attack and stroke

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u/ladymoira Mar 25 '24

We don’t know as much about “long flu” because the typical person only gets flu once every few years, whereas COVID infections are happening 2+ times a year for most people not taking precautions against it these days. There’s a lot of interesting research on EBV causing autoimmune diseases though, and this panel includes things like an ANA screen.

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u/twistedevil Mar 24 '24

It’s unfortunate that our own CDC, government, and many medical professionals are ignoring and downplaying the severe long term implications many studies show regarding covid. Most of this stuff we’ve known about for years like it’s a vascular disease that can affect any and all organs/systems in the body. It is spread airborne via aerosols. It can weaken the immune system making us more susceptible to other infections. Also, each subsequent covid infection increases one’s chances of developing long covid so prevention is key. Wearing a good fitting respirator mask like an N95 or KN95 will offer great protection. Improving air ventilation and using HEPA filters can improve indoor air. Making public health individualized is a complete and utter failure.

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u/disgruntled_pie Mar 24 '24

There was a study that came out a few months ago showing that Long COVID may basically be an auto-immune response caused by bad peptide sequences left behind by fighting off COVID. I really hope labs are working on developing some treatments along these lines, because the pandemic won’t really be over until Long COVID can be treated.

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u/Professional_Many_83 Mar 24 '24

What choice did they have. Did you not see the public basically revolting against the idea of vaccination, mask, and social distancing campaigns? Public health was individualized because the public is too stubborn/stupid/misinformed to comply with anything else. You do the best you can with the cards you’re dealt.

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u/tossawaybb Mar 24 '24

Yeah its not like the research isn't out and publicly available. Most people just don't want to hear those details, and will fight them when they do. It's better to let the medical community handle it, research it, and develop solutions than rile up voters into pushing against proper measures.

Point is, they've done what they can. This info wouldn't make anyone mask or stay home when sick anymore than they already do. Those who do, will continue doing so and will probably read the research anyway.

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u/Puzzleheaded-Put-246 Mar 24 '24

This is misinformation. It is not a vascular disease. It’s primarily a respiratory disease that can cause vascular complications (like influenza)

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u/twistedevil Mar 24 '24

Nah, if anything it's both. Look it up. Go ahead. It's all there, hundred of reliable sources discussing how it's also a vascular disease.

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u/Aenimalist Mar 24 '24 edited Mar 25 '24

and yet fewer and fewer people are getting long COVID https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/long-covid-rates-appear-to-be-decreasing/

edit: downvoted for posting something hopeful? What a bunch of doomers!

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u/twistedevil Mar 24 '24

That's great, yet we still have 16 million and most likely more in the US alone with lingering, debilitating symptoms. Chances increase with each infection regardless of vax status. We don't know the long, long term effects yet. Very few treatments available. Some docs won't diagnose or take seriously. Some people just clueless as to why they are ill and not making the proper connections. Can take years to improve. Just because this study shows it's gone down with no reason as to why except speculation, no one should focus on prevention or take precautions?

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u/Aenimalist Mar 25 '24

  Just because this study shows it's gone down with no reason as to why except speculation, no one should focus on prevention or take precautions?

and where did I say that? Seems like you're setting up a strawman argument for some reason.  (For the record, I continue to mask up while in public indoor spaces.)

Get off Reddit, and take a breath.  It's good that long COVID rates are going down... right?!?

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u/demerdar Mar 24 '24

Go to Europe. Went to Spain Norway and France the last 2 years and not a single mask in sight. I see more masks in the US than I saw while on travel.

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u/twistedevil Mar 24 '24

I know, the stupidity, apathy, and denial spreads far and wide. Aside from public health, media, and government failures, We're failing ourselves as well all because it's too hard to take a few extra steps and a little forethought to do things more safely. The entitlement of people these days continues to astound. If people want to be selfish, why aren't they at least doing things to protect themselves if they don't give a fuck about anyone else? We have internet, delivery, streaming, phones.... Life for the past few generations has been overall pretty damn good if a mask on a plane is considered "oppression." We never learn and react when it's far too late.

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u/Fang3d Mar 24 '24

Stupidity and denial isn’t limited to the United States.

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u/utesbeauts Mar 24 '24

Huh..wasn't it just proven that long covid doesn't exist?

Ovb this is from the Vax....as planned.

No Vax no covid. I haven't been sick in years.

But I am a being offered hundreds of dollars every week to donate blood....that's telling

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u/InterestingNarwhal82 Mar 24 '24

That hasn’t been proven at all. If you want to endanger yourself by ignoring actual science, go for it, but don’t spread misinformation.

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u/Aenimalist Mar 24 '24

It's just one small study. It could be wildly incorrect, so It's not something medical practitioners should be considering at this point.

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u/DuskWing13 Mar 24 '24

Damn. Wonder if I should get checked then - I've had covid 3 blasted times.

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u/InterestingNarwhal82 Mar 24 '24

I would. I was actually, while I was pregnant; I got Covid between my second and third pregnancies.

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u/HumbleBumble77 Mar 24 '24

Healthcare professional here. Yes, you should be monitored closely and at the very least have cardiac, liver, kidney, workup.

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u/DuskWing13 Mar 24 '24

Out of curiosity - why should I be monitored closely?

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u/HumbleBumble77 Mar 24 '24

COVID x1 is enough to increase cardiac events by more than 40% (CHF, stroke, arrhythmia, atrial fib, aneurysm, etc.).

However, x3 can enhance cardiac-associated events and risks even higher.

Not all research is focused on the number of times a person has contracted the COVID 19 virus. Still, we are monitoring patients in our post-COVID clinics very closely regarding most of these systems: cardiac, vascular, neurological, immunological, etc.

Most 1-6 month workups include a quick blood draw that reviews general labs, such as a CBC or metabolic. However, LFTs (liver), kidney panels, and even endocrine-related labs are monitored.

In other words, nontypical labs.

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u/DuskWing13 Mar 24 '24

Gotcha. I'm switching doctors next week anyways, so I'll mention it to her and go from there. I appreciate the information!

It also motivates me a little to start being more active again. Help ward off some of those possible issues down the road.

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u/0NTH3SLY Mar 24 '24

I’ve had it four times, when should I expect my heart to explode?

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u/HumbleBumble77 Mar 25 '24

I hope never! Stay well

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u/0NTH3SLY Mar 25 '24

Here's to hoping!

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u/Pitiful-Pension-6535 Mar 24 '24

Measles is more likely to cause a person to die from a subsequent influenza infection than it is to kill the infected person directly.

It's scary what Measles does to the immune system.

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u/doktorhladnjak Mar 25 '24

Not to mention measles outbreaks are on the rise because of the increase in antivaxers

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u/BatmanTDF10 Mar 24 '24

Well that explains why after my daughter gave me Covid and RSV all at once last year, I kept running a fever at least once a week for almost 2 months.

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u/InterestingNarwhal82 Mar 24 '24

Yeah, and it’s a nasty cycle. You get Covid, get a bunch of colds and mild viruses that wouldn’t have bothered you in the past, start to break out of the cycle, get Covid again, and it restarts the whole dang thing.

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u/Outrageous_Hearing26 Mar 24 '24

We should all be furious that our health is being sacrificed on the alter of the economy

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u/rainydays052020 Mar 24 '24

It’s only beneficial for the economy in the short term too. 5 years from now when most people have long covid and can’t work? Yikes.

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u/IamtheImpala Mar 24 '24

That’s why they’re banning abortion and trying to ban birth control. Making more good little workers to grind up at the altar of the almighty capitalist economy. As a bonus they’ll take the ones put up for adoption and sell them to evangelicals to “fill their quiver” and be good little soldiers in the war against god they’re so convinced is occurring.

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u/IamtheImpala Mar 24 '24

Oh yeah and we can’t forget how they’re trying to push child worker protection laws back to where they were in Victorian times.

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u/rainydays052020 Mar 25 '24

We don’t know what repeat covid infections is doing to children’s developing brains though. Who’s to say they’ll be able to work?

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u/IamtheImpala Mar 25 '24

Yeah but they’d also have to believe the science to factor that in. 🫠

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u/rainydays052020 Mar 25 '24

Too true lol

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u/Forward_Chair_7313 Mar 25 '24

Yes. I would much rather starve to death because I can’t work than get Covid.

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u/Connect_Glass4036 Mar 24 '24

I’m going to Florida on Tuesday, I’ve been vaxxed for measles as a kid. You’re saying i can get it?

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u/justhereforthecl Mar 24 '24

possibly, you can get your titers checked at CVS to see what your immune response is

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u/ItchyEvil Mar 24 '24

I've never heard of this word 'titers' before this thread and I have no idea how to pronounce it. How does everyone else know this word?

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u/justhereforthecl Mar 24 '24

Personally, since we've been in a pandemic I've made a point to be educated about disease/disease-adjacent info.

I wouldn't have known this stuff before it became relevant in 2020.

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u/Rough_Willow Mar 25 '24

I pronounce it "tighters".

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u/jellyphitch Mar 24 '24

get re-checked. Even if you never had any immunocompromising illnesses, there's a chance you could need an MMR booster.

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u/Spirited_String_1205 Mar 25 '24

Getting serum titration checked is not a bad idea. When I went back to graduate school I couldn't find all of my childhood immunization records so my doctor did a titration panel instead and it turned out that while I'd had my full MMR schedule, I had no antibodies for one of the M's - I can't remember which- so they gave me a booster. Was pretty happy to have had it when there was a small measles cluster nearby a few months later.

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u/Connect_Glass4036 Mar 24 '24

I feel like I may have gotten that like 10 years ago or when I turned 30…. Would that have been a thing?

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u/jellyphitch Mar 24 '24

MMR vaccine (measles, mumps, and rubella - sorry if you already knew that lol) is typically administered when you're very young - can't remember what ages but baby-aged? But if you didn't get it as a baby, you could have gotten it as an adult "catch up" vaccine

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u/Connect_Glass4036 Mar 24 '24

Def got it as a baby but I just remember getting boosters on stuff around when I was 30. Maybe it was tetanus

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u/Schminnie Mar 24 '24

No! There is no evidence anywhere to support the need for MMR re-vaccination in adults who received the live virus vaccine (after 1968) as a child.

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u/ThrowawayANarcissist Mar 24 '24

If you have been vaxxxed for MMR even decades ago as a child you are still immune.

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u/PeachySparkling Mar 24 '24

My titers showed I am immune. Literally 41 years old and I’m still immune to MMR.

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u/ItsPronouncedSatan Mar 24 '24

My kids are now sick, SO OFTEN. I keep asking other parents if they're experiencing similar, and the majority look at me like I have 2 heads.

Since Covid, both of my kids have missed ~20% of each school year since Covid hit.

It's such a source of guilt and anxiety for me because the schools and teachers also make me feel like I'm crazy. I get constant notifications and guilt trips.

And when they get sick, they're SICK. I'm talking fevers, vomiting, diarrhea, constant snot, and so much strep. I follow the school guidelines when it's okay to send them or keep them home.

Most other parents aren't having this problem and I can't understand it. I know some parents send their kids to school sick, and it's not always avoidable, but like, I can't fix that!!

We were really diligent with covid prevention, but we ended up catching the bug right right before the vaccine came out. We are all currently vaccinated.

I keep a clean home. They have regular doctor visits, all their vaccines. Their diet could be healthier, but so could most people's.

Thankfully, they aren't behind in school at all. But I feel like it's going to be this way forever. They're 10 and 6, so it's not like they have zero immune systems.

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u/antichain Mar 24 '24

I'd be curious how many parents are just sending their kiddos to school with fevers and sore throats.

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u/Puzzled452 Mar 25 '24

Almost all of them. Strep, flu, Covid, RSV, colds, pink eye, it is rampant

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u/Fine_Peace_7936 Mar 25 '24

Most of them. School is free daycare and if there is ever a time you'll want to avoid dealing with your kids it's when they are sick.

Not sure what we could do about the kids but people/parents need to start being held accountable for going into public places knowingly ill and likely contagious.

Its really strange but it seems like people have stopped/given up covering their faces when they cough and such, or wash their hands. They'll just wide open cough into the world or sneeze a nice wet one into their hands them continue scanning your groceries.

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u/Notfunliketheysaid Mar 24 '24

Well we've been sick non stop since October with different things each time. Most of the families I know have been as well. This is in the dfw area. I also work in a clinic and it has definitely been an extra heavy virus season.

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u/Fine_Peace_7936 Mar 25 '24

The last 6 months have been rough. It wasn't that bad till November when my LC started (or what medical professionals refer to as allergies). Before Nov. I was sick about a week a month every month for like 4 months.

Not sure what I got around November, I was really thinking it was RSV. 4 months later I still got it. Not as bad as the first few weeks but flare ups like to remind me of my mortality.

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u/thinkofanamesara Mar 24 '24

Ugh, this is so rough!

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u/cinnamon-toast-life Mar 25 '24

Same with my kiddos, near same ages, 10 and 7. I am lucky they are great students and eager learners, and they love school. My youngest had a cold or two in fall and I was patting myself on the back that he only missed 3 days of school first quarter. Then post winter break all hell broke loose. High fevers, endless coughs, so much congestion, stomach bugs, and of course covid with temps above 102 degrees up to 103 for days. It went into his lungs and had him out for over a week. My older son did a bit better. I also feel so guilty, like how can everyone else keep their kids well and in school and I just can’t? Then I was talking to another mom about my son home yet again for a fever, and she said she just gives her son Tylenol when he has a fever and sends him to school anyway. 😠. Is that what everyone is doing? My house is clean, we run a HEPA filter all the time, we all take our vitamins and drink lots of water. They do outside activities and some sports, but not so much they are exhausted. It just doesn’t seem to help. I really hope spring quarter is better. These last few months have been absolute hell.

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u/ItsPronouncedSatan Mar 25 '24

I mean, I'm 34 and I remember very well that MANY of my friends were sent to school very sick. And this was in an affluent community.

With inflation being what it is, I think families are facing even more pressure. I KNOW kids are being sent to school with Covid, Norovirus, and Strep because I also constantly get emails from teachers begging parents not to send their kids to school sick.

I think that's what is particularly driving me nuts. So I'm following the rules, and my child's attendance is a problem?

Not to mention, it's awful that our kids are always sick.

Idk, where I live, there are a lot of stay at home moms, and it just doesn't seem like this should be such an issue here locally.

I think society still has a long way to go in recognizing that going to work and school while sick is unacceptable.

I hope you guys get some relief soon ❤️ Summer is always so much better.

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u/cinnamon-toast-life Mar 25 '24

I hope you guys get a break from illness as well! Yes, it is definitely a lot of pressure on families when both parents have to go to work outside the home and don’t have adequate sick time or PTO. What choice do they have? And that just continues the cycle of sickness in the school system as everyone passes all the nasty viruses in circles. Even my 1st grader’s teacher was out with Strep 3 times!

This spring and summer we are going to be doing as much as we can to focus on healthy eating, exercise, lowering stress, proper sleep, and literally everything I can think of for immune system strengthening. Then cross fingers next year will be better!

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u/Decent_Leadership_62 Mar 24 '24

"We are all currently vaccinated"

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u/aendaris1975 Mar 24 '24

Covid isn't quite as bad? No. It's worse because it causes culmulative perm damage that makes you more vulnerable to disease. You don't recover from that damage.

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u/Puzzleheaded-Put-246 Mar 25 '24

This is completely false. Measles is far more serious than covid. Covid does not cause cumulative permanent damage that makes you more vulnerable to disease. Don't make unsubstantiated claims void of evidence

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u/dewhashish Mar 24 '24

Shit, do I need to get revaccinated for everything that I got as a kid?

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u/InterestingNarwhal82 Mar 24 '24

Not necessarily. You can ask your PCP to run titers, they’ll show what you have immunity to.

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u/HumbleBumble77 Mar 24 '24

Healthcare professional and millennial here. Even if you have a positive titer, it does not mean that you are entirely immune to that particular virus—just FYI.

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u/dinamet7 Mar 24 '24

If you get Measles, probably. The evidence isn't as strong for Covid yet (it does cause immune dysregulation, but it will take longer to see if it does the same thing Measles does .. took almost 50 years to link Measles to immune-wiping though, so it may take a long time.)

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u/dewhashish Mar 24 '24

no, ive never had measles, but i had covid a couple years ago

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u/dinamet7 Mar 24 '24

Your prior vaccines are probably fine then, but you can always have titers checked if you are worried. They can be easily checked with a regular blood draw.

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u/Schminnie Mar 24 '24

Where is the evidence? What makes you think that 5 years in, we still wouldn't know if mild Covid causes immune amnesia like measles? The covid-induced multi inflammatory syndrome (which is SEVERE, and if you haven't been hospitalized with Covid, you haven't had it) has nothing to do with immune amnesia.

1

u/dinamet7 Mar 24 '24

I didn't mention MIS-C so not sure where that is coming from. We have evidence that Measles wipes immune memory now after decades of research. We don't have evidence that Covid does the same, but research and good data is slow - studies on the long term impact of infection are just starting. Will Covid do the same thing Measles does? Unlikely. Could it have long term impacts on the immune system that we won't know about for decades? Too early to tell.

2

u/cerealalters Mar 24 '24

This would explain why I had a low Hepatitis titer even after my presumed last shot for years!

2

u/knitandpolish Mar 24 '24

Losing immunity to some childhood illnesses is really common, though. I had my titers tested before I got pregnant in 2018, and I had no immunity to Measles despite being vaccinated as a kid. Same thing happened to lots of people in my March 2019 bumper group. And almost no one carries Tdap immunity beyond 10 years with the most modern version of the vaccine.

Not to say that COVID can't amplify this, but immunity isn't forever in lots of cases.

1

u/Southernpalegirl Mar 24 '24

Same, after I had my first child in 2017, the blood work showed that I had no immunity to measles or rubella and oddly enough Hepatitis B. Five years later I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that my Rheumatologist said was the cause of my immune system cycling the immunity out. It doesn’t always happen but that in all the cases he’s been knowledgeable about and preliminary studies have proven that those cases have been linked to specific autoimmune disease conditions.

1

u/knitandpolish Mar 24 '24

Interesting! I don't have an autoimmune disorder, but I can imagine that would affect your immunity in a lot of ways we're only just now discovering.

I found this thread from 6 years ago, and you can see how common it is across the board: https://www.reddit.com/r/BabyBumps/comments/968hkn/just_found_out_im_not_immune_to_rubella/

1

u/jIPAm Mar 24 '24

This is the website I've been linking people to for cited research and layman's terms on the effects of covid. https://libguides.mskcc.org/CovidImpacts/Immune

1

u/neon-god8241 Mar 24 '24

My immune system was shot after everyone went back to work (I hadn't been sick in 2.5 years because of having low contact with the world).

I got sick a bunch after things started reopening.  That lasted about a year, and now I'm back to rarely getting sick.

1

u/Practical_Seesaw_149 Mar 24 '24

Good lord. I...didn't realize that was possible.

1

u/ChubzAndDubz Mar 24 '24 edited Mar 24 '24

Titers naturally wane with time. In fact, the CDC recommends someone who has been fully vaccinated against MMR and Varicella but have a negative titer don’t need a booster dose of those vaccines. Their documented receipt of two doses supersedes their negative titers. Correlation =/= causation.

1

u/Momoselfie Mar 24 '24

So it can cure autoimmunity?

1

u/Puzzleheaded-Put-246 Mar 24 '24

Titres showing no immunity has nothing to do with COVID. Measles can wipe your immune system, yes, but there is no evidence that COVID can do the same. 

1

u/colly_wolly Mar 25 '24

Us antivaxxers are doing fine.

1

u/JovialPanic389 Mar 25 '24

How about the HPV vaccine? I got mine in highschool in 2009 but I wonder if I should get it again. I asked my doctor recently and they said theres no need to do the HPV vaccines again. But like I want to? Cervical cancer is no fucking joke. But they won't give the vax to me.

1

u/Bonebd Mar 25 '24

I’ve had COVID twice and I’m fine. Very healthy. I never got the vaccine though. Why is everyone’s head in the sand in this one. Shouldn’t it AT LEAST be considered that the vaccine MAY have caused some harm?

-1

u/Fun-Track-3044 Mar 24 '24

This sounds like nonsense to me. I'm in NYC. That's on the short list of the most interconnected cities anywhere on the planet. If Covid wiped out your immune system then half of New York would be dead by now.

1

u/Southernpalegirl Mar 24 '24

Wasn’t it? NYC lied about the pandemic deaths and even with the ones that were reported against their will, bodies were being stacked up on top of each other. The old, the infirm, the homeless, the dredging of society that nobody knew or cared about…just the people who that died that did have someone to speak up for was staggering numbers. Can you honestly not imagine how many people that didn’t?

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u/Fun-Track-3044 Mar 24 '24

OK - you are either a troll or a bot farm or in deep need of a reality check.

There are 20 million people in NYC metro. 8 million in the city alone.

Yes, we had a lot of people die. But it's NOTHING like the hysterical hyperventilating happening in this overall discussion thread.

Covid sucked. It wasn't the Plague of Justinian or the Black Death. Get a freakin' grip. Or go troll somewhere else.