For all my friends and friends of friends who might still be suffering from long COVID. I pass on to you things which I have not tried because I have been lucky not to have to. These are ideas which clearly seem in line with my metabolic/bioenergetic view of the world which is to say they are highly plausible. They are also very low risk and low cost.
The best resources I’ve found and I will thus basically copy from is here:
I suggest you just read that and follow his/her logic and suggestions, but I’ll also try to abbreviate or simplify below.
What I found most sad, interesting and consistent with what I’ve previously written about is the vulnerability of younger generations of women to long COVID. Here are the charts suggesting a link from the above paper:
It might not be that thyroid is the contributing factor, but my evolutionary thinking and experiences lead me to find that idea highly plausible as at least a, if not the major factor. It could be that women are intrinsically a bit more metabolically sensitive to stress broadly, or perhaps behaviors unique to modern women like chronic undereating, taking birth control or simply avoiding pregnancy and nursing are impairing the thyroid. I have good reasons to believe in both and no good answer for the balance of the causal weighting.
Both birth control and PTSD flatten circadian cortisol curves, increasing stress at rest and reducing full stress response to events like infection
Muted cortisol seems to be highly predictive of long COVID:
“Of all the factors, abnormally low cortisol levels were the factor that really differentiated the long-COVID patients from the healthy controls.” (source)
What is the relationship between PTSD, Thyroid & Cortisol I do not yet know.
Regardless and pragmatically here is an approach to postCOVID consolidated from the butterfly method blog. You can use the symptoms on the blog to see where to start or just do all in parallel:
Fix Intestinal dysbiosis:
Probiotics & Prebiotics
Monolaurin a saturated fat and gentle soap/antiviral
Melatonin & Niacin, Niacinamide (add NMN if you are following anything I’m writing about anti-aging)
Assume thyroid dysfunction and fix or mitigate it
Iodine and retinol are thyroid precursors
Iodine -
Create “blue iodide” - mix normal Lugol's iodine with starch (amylose)
Vitamin A/retinol (or get it from liver)
Many people do not convert beta carotene to retinol
One can overdue retinol, increases in retinol dramatically increase the need for vitamin D, K & E
Selenium
Zinc and copper (copper is dense in liver tissue)
Assume Iron Overload
Give blood
Chelate iron
Curcumin
Thiamine/Benfotiamine (my addition, source)
Inositol hexaphosphate
Manage Iron
Retinol, Zinc, Copper, Magnesium, Selenium
Me
Try/Add Methylene blue, especially Methylene blue and sun exposure (within a few house of ingestion), NMN (a form of Niacin), creatine, supplemental desiccated thyroid, sun exposure, fresh orange juice
Everything that increases cellular energy is probably good for the immune system
Pushing down cortisol at night with ashwagandha, astragalus or apigenin is also worth a try
Sources:
Long Covid - Recover via Fasting / Autophagy | Facebook
Long covid—mechanisms, risk factors, and management | Southern Health
Benefits of Niacin (Nicotinic Acid), Miracle supplement?
(My prefered probiotic provides oxytocin) Even dead L. Reuteri boost oxytocin and bring many benefits | Ray Peat Forum
The Team of Doctors and Biohackers Who Seem to Be Successfully Treating “Long Covid”
Methylene Blue has a potent antiviral activity against SARS-CoV-2 and H1N1 influenza virus in the absence of UV-activation in vitro | Scientific Reports (www.nature.com)
Role of methyle blue in the management of mild, moderate and severe COVID-19 disease
OSF Preprints | Sufficient niacin supply: the missing puzzle piece to COVID-19, and beyond?
What is NIATONIN? - audio from Dmitry Video with transcript
Apple pectin for the reduction of niacin-induced flushing (Aspirin is also useful for the same and is also antiviral)
People Thirsty to Reverse Their Coronavirus Vaccination Love This Wacky 'Treatment'
This article was a critique - They are so sure about physiology and the motivations of the biohackers - I absolutely do not agree but here is the TLDR. IMO this is for those who wish to stay helpless in all this mess:
“A few people have built entire businesses centered around these products and services. “It’s all bunk,” Hotez stressed. “But it has made money for these people.”“Any product or service that claims to undo or reverse the impact of the vaccine is based on a lie,” O’Connor added.
(me: Whomever O’Connor is the idea that we “cannot undo vaccine impacts.…i.e…inflammation” is kind of like saying we will never fly not realizing its 2022 it’s happening all the time everywhere so huh?) Let’s hope someone dramatically misquoted the person.
Note: I have not included doses and sources. Happy to discuss with my friends and family currently in 4 continents. I’m currently in New Zealand which is known to be deficient of selenium and iodine immediately…and treats Melatonin like a street drug. Cases will vary. Maybe a good rule of thumb is to find out the government daily recommendation and aim to take 2 - 4x for a while for the minerals above. Overdoing selenium and other factors is not good despite how critical they can be.