Anyone else had Long Covid? I believe I got it in June 2022 or that’s when my symptoms hit, including shortness of breath, brain fog, fatigue. The breathing was the worse, like I could never get enough air, a sensation which lasted for about 7 months before it started to alleviate. I now may have another disease but that’s another story (maybe related maybe not). The whole covid experience is what really inspired me to get into this longevity stuff.
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Sorry for your experience! I have had COVID several times, but each time it gets milder. The first two times I took PAXLOVID which arrested it’s progression and I could recover in 1-2 weeks. The last time was indistinguishable from a mild cold. Luckily, I never developed Long COVID. I think part of that was due to Rapamycin and the other longevity meds (like metformin) and supplements (like NAC + Glycine).
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As an allergist I am exposed to people sneezing, coughing, runny nose, etc. on daily basis. I had known COVID 2-3 times and probably had asymptomatic COVID as well. Each time I had several weeks of fatigue but I recovered.
In July 2024 I got stuck on flight in front of a guy who had hacking cough for several hours, NO MASKS were worn. I got COVID within a week and I got reaaaally sick. I must have had high viral load exposure. I was a high level cyclist at the time, doing 10 hours of riding a week with 1-2 hours of HIIT. I couldn’t HIIT anymore and exercise just wore me out. I had to dial back quite a bit. I couldn’t compete any longer. I actually quit riding and started weight lifting and got in to pickleball. I could still function otherwise and go to work, so it was definitely milder than what is usually reported by people.
I am slowly recovering and now manage to exercise about 15 hours/week with pickbleball, a bit of riding and weight lifting. All of at lower intensities, I haven’t tried full on HIIT sessions because those can wipe one out.
I was so desperate that I got on a regimen of NMR, Ubiquinol, theracumin, taurine, creatinine, TMG along with asthxantin and Vit D. I also do steam sauna -cold plunges-jacuzzi routine after exercise in the gym. My diet is mainly plant based - Green med/blue zone style. I am not sure what is helping but I am definitely better. I may even try HIIT on my bike again when it cools off in AZ.
Still having trouble with reduced HRV’s at night (Post-COVID Hyperadrenergic POTS ???), especially after exercising. I am playing around with beta-blockers with some good results.
BTW, HIIT on the bicycle is safer IMO, than running in terms of injury.
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Thanks for the share, long covid is a detour off the track of our lives for sure (frustrating there isn’t a diagnostic yet to show we 100% have it). I used to do MMA, competed at amateur level and wanted to get a few more fights in before I got too old. But now, I’m playing pickleball too!
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My PCP thinks my recently acquired food sensitivities are due to Long Covid. I have read anecdotal reports of very low dose tirzepatide helping some Long Covid patients who developed allergies. I am trying to find a way to test this myself.
I added to my poster page
https://citrate.science/2025poster/poster2025.html
A table of results from chatGPT of COVID causing mitochondrial damage. I have checked that the links work, but not checked the papers.
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I had something 2 weeks ago that I thought might be Covid, because I had “brain fog” (including strange cognitive problems that I won’t bother to say), but following a take-home test, the Covid came back negative, as did the test for Influenza a and b. It’s was actually worse than I thought. One piece of advice is to not avoid emergency rooms if you really don’t feel well, and are afraid you’ll be out of work or something a few weeks.
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Very intriguing. I don’t want to pry, and I respect people’s privacy - but it’s a bit of a “either or” as it stands. If you want full privacy, then there’s no need to post anything regarding that health episode. Meanwhile releasing tidbits like the above raises a lot of questions with not much in the way of illuminating knowledge or “lessons” for the reader. We have no idea what to conclude, other than “strange goings on”. Of course, my first wishes for you is a rapid and full recovery. Best of luck, and hopefully you won’t need to go through anything like it again!
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You’re right, I probably should not have done that. I will remove most of it. I am always torn between wanting anonymity and then also wanting to say something so it doesn’t just disappear.
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If you have Long COVID, it probably won’t show up on a COVID test. Usually the tests only show when your viral load is highest during the infectious period.
I thought long Covid was accepted to be mitochondrial damage.
I thought I would say what happened to me (I’m a little more receptive to writing about it now), though I don’t think there are any “lessons” people will learn, because it only strikes about 1 person in 200,000 in the U.S. each year. What happened was that I got a brain abscess, following an ear infection. The bacteria in my inner-ear penetrated the bone (“mastoiditis”) and entered my left temporal lobe area, and started to form an abscess. It really fucked me up. e.g. I could not recall the names of people I had known for 20 years. I could tell who they were if you showed them to me, but just could not generate them. I also had transient reading difficulties – like, English looked like an alien language for about 5 minutes, and then things were back to normal.
I initially thought I had hypoxia or Covid, and tried all kinds of at-home tests, but they came back negative. I even tried taking oxygen cans that I bought from CVS. I just really didn’t know what was happening to me.
In a panic, I drove to the emergency room, thinking I might have meningitis. They initially recognized that that’s not what I had, saying, “I can tell immediately you don’t have meningitis. If you had that, you’d look a lot worse. Let’s run a CT scan.” The guy seemed pretty sure that it would just be nothing, but then when it came back, he said, “I’m really sorry… it just doesn’t look right. We need to do an MRI as fast as we can.” And then I was admitted to the hospital, and went through multiple CT scans and MRIs, and brain surgery.
It turns out that if I had waited, thinking I could lick this with supplements and exercise, I would have died. The morality rate is about 66% if you wait 2 to 3 weeks; and it’s almost 100% (like probably 99.9%) if you wait more than that. Only maybe Alzheimer’s has a higher mortality rate.
The people who often get this are IV drug users or immune-compromised individuals. I don’t do drugs, and I’m not immune compromised. I just happen to be one of those rare people who periodically (like maybe once every 3 years) get really, really bad ear infections that almost leave me deaf.
I think the reason I was able to recover so quickly (it’s just been about 3 weeks since all this started) is that I’m in really good shape and am obsessed about optimizing my health.
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Wow, thank you for sharing your story. Thank goodness you went to the hospital.
It’s a good lesson on not hesitating to get checked out, just incase… heck, a couple years ago I had chest pain for several hours before I was willing to go… and that was only because my doc made me. I was fine, but I was also stupid to wait.
You never know what might help someone in the future, and you might have just done that.
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Was your initial bear infection caused by Covid or something else?
Thank you for that. I am very happy you have fully recovered, though I kinda disagree that there are no lessons. First, I appreciate even more how important it is to pay attention to any ear issues - I started a thread a few days ago, about when you need to go to the ER immediately, and one case was sudden hearing loss. The ear is very close to the brain and there appears quite a bit of vulnerability in this anatomy. Ear infections are serious business, and your case confirms it, that’s a powerful lesson. As I’ve gotten older, my ears are getting blocked by excess earwax which I’m regularly clearing out - now I’m going to be even more careful with using tools to do so.
And as Beth says - if things are suspicious, given how anatomically connected ears are to the brain, going to the ER should be something you always consider. Time is a factor. That’s a powerful lesson.
I’m glad you’re fine now, and thank you for sharing this cautionary tale. Keep healthy!
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I have no idea what initially triggered it. I hypothesized it might have been a virus that temporarily weakened my immune system to allow the bacteria to do the damage. I know it wasn’t the common cold, influenza a or b, or Covid. I know the trigger wasn’t the common cold because I did not have a runny nose (I had thick nasal congestion, not runny nose). It’s possible the trigger was another bacterial species. They have me on Meropenem through a PICC line in my arm, which targets a wide range of bacterial species (they might actually know the specific strain that caused it). I also take Daptomycin.
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What a story! Happy it’s all behind you now. As my nephrologist used to say “you were hit by a truck”. Human body is so fragile on one hand and so resilient on the other. You didn’t die - that’s what counts!
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