I tell my wife that COVID rewired my brain. My memory is shot, I don't enjoy things the way I used to and while I have eventually gotten my anxiety to a manageable level, it's still way higher than precovid. I unfortunately suffered 4 COVID infections over a 2.5yr span, and yes, I was vaxxed. I think I got a little more scrambled than most.

[–] sychthys@lemmy.world 14 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yo, same. Like, down to the number of infections, timespan, and being vaxxed. Anxiety spiked hard, memory is much worse, and my energy levels are just shot.

Thankfully Spravato treatments have me pretty much anxiety free again, but its been six years of hell with panic attacks and being unwilling to do normal things due to the anxiety.

[–] Gerudo@lemmy.zip 11 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Being able to recognize my anxiety triggers, and realizing that if I don't address it immediately, I'll just go into panic mode has helped me a lot. I am off daily anxiety meds now, but I still need the occasional Xanax when it breaks through.

I know long COVID has been described as typically a 1.5-2 year length, but I have permanently been affected. I've mentioned it in other posts before, but I have considered going to Portland to try a session of therapy through psychedelics since some testing shows that it tears down and renews neural pathways, almost like a reset switch.

[–] Carl@anarchist.nexus 5 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I have deadass considered just taking like 10g of shrooms to see if it would rewire my brain and potentially fix some of the BS that COVID caused. I used to do heroic doses (+15 hits) of LSD in my youth, so it’s not like the trip would be unfamiliar.

[–] sychthys@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago

That's awesome progress without psychedelics. Like, huge. I'm finally reducing daily meds after doing weekly Spravato treatments for about six months. It definitely seems to have rewired a few things. The ketamine seems to do something similar to psychedelics in that regard. Once I got a few good sessions in with solid time dissociating everything seems to have gotten so much better in respect to anxiety.

[–] starlinguk@lemmy.world 8 points 3 days ago

Covid set off my menopause. So I have Covid brain and menopause brain. I've had to quit my job.

[–] rimu@piefed.social 19 points 4 days ago

Same.

Feels like I can't afford to get that much dumber again, next time I'm infected.

[–] kurmudgeon@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I seriously think this explains much of the MAGA crowd.

[–] Murse@slrpnk.net 12 points 3 days ago

Naw, they were just as stupid/malicious/anti-American pre-covid.

Any effect it had on their brains has been obfuscated by their chimpanzee-esque baseline.