PHQ-9 Screening: “ Little interest or pleasure in doing things?”

So, here’s the info I got today:

The Aurora healthcare system, which covers a large swath of SE Wisconsin up to Green Bay and down to the IL border merged with the Advocate system, so now their area is expanded and they are renamed Aurora Advocate. It sounds like with the Aurora and Advocate merger their footprint may also include parts of Illinois, Indiana and Michigan.

To get into their Virtual Long Covid clinic you would need a referral from an “Aurora Advocate” provider - it needn’t be your primary care provider, it could be a specialist. But you need to specifically request the virtual clinic, so that there is no confusion with an in-person clinic at Sinai hospital in Milwaukee. (https://www.advocateaurorahealth.org/)

It doesn’t look like you can even find the Aurora Advocate Virtual Long Covid Clinic on the internet, and their doctors are only recently becoming aware of it. (My PCP just received info about a month ago and passed it along to me.)

Yes, I just posted as a reply here:
https://connect.mayoclinic.org/comment/916752/

I have experienced everything you state. I am depressed YES, but it’s about the lack of help for my illness. And that is it! I still want to do everything I did in the past, but I cannot. I am dizzy, my ears are ringing and my vision is distorted. That makes it impossible to live my normal life.
They push anti-depressants because it’s all they have. I’ve tried many of them because I’m desperate. SSRI and SNRI often have a negative result for tinnitus and hyperacusis, which I have in spades. When I report my ears/hearing have become worse and I have discontinued the drugs, doctors tell me I did not give it time to work.
They usually lose interest in my case at that point. They have no other answers.

Agreed. I score myself at zero for that question. And honestly, as the form was created by Pfizer, I have decided that I won’t fill it out ever again. It’s a worthless screener.
I know when I am depressed. Feeling sad does not equal being depressed. Being anxious about abnormal test results does not equal depression. Being frustrated at not being able to have the same life before covid does not equal depression.

In 2010, Pfizer gave the phq -90 the gad form to the public. I am not a conspiracy theorist, but I do question assessments created by drug companies.
https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfizer_to_offer_free_public_access_to_mental_health_assessment_tools_to_improve_diagnosis_and_patient_care

Most people in Medicine do not follow the science of sarscov2. They can’t help the millions of long haulers because they don’t know what sarscov2 does to the body. Sarscov2 is a disease of our “blood”, and it can go places that our immune system can’t. It can attack cells that don’t have ace2 receptors. It can hijack the bacteria in our gut. It is a pernicious virus. It is not a respiratory disease. We have to help ourselves and each other. Don’t give up.

Stress not the cause for me, but certainly a precipitation of acute flairs.