Finding balance for long COVID recovery

August 13, 2022 Delainne Bond

We tend to push ourselves too hard. After a while it seems like a normal routine. We work long hours, run the kids in a million different directions, take on too many projects at once, take care of sick parents, drink too much alcohol, stay up too late binge watching shows, sit more than we walk, watch tv drama shows and the news, eat fast foods, choose Gatorade and fancy flavored drinks over fresh water, stay in toxic relationships too long, worry about things that really should be put in perspective as not that urgent…. The list goes on and on.

LONG COVID is telling us we are not living healthy lifestyles. COVID looks for our vulnerabilities and takes advantage of them.

Some people that thought they were the healthiest they had ever been before they got COVID have been taken down.

Why?

Because overdoing anything without balance is stressful for your body, including extreme exercise and diet choices.

Some examples of vulnerable people are:

Children in growth spurts
Extreme athletes
Vegetarians and vegans
People with PTSD
People with chronic mental or physical stress
Immunocompromised people

Physical and mental stress cause chronic fight or flight, releasing stress hormones into the body that are intended for survival. These should only be used for short term spurts to avoid danger. But many run on adrenaline for long durations. This means the energy our bodies need to stay healthy is diverted to the stress response.

Stress also burns up the nutrient NAD+, making us more vulnerable to long COVID. (Dietary NAD⁺ precursors such as niacin, nicotinamide, and nicotinamide riboside are the building blocks that cells use to create more NAD⁺).

There is no magic pill to fix the problems caused by the assault the COVID-19 infection has had on your body, so self-care is as important in your recovery as working with doctors to manage the treatable medical conditions that Long COVID is causing.

Minimize physical and mental stress

Minimizing stress is critical because your body cannot heal when it is using its energy to cope with stress because it senses a physical or psychological threat.

No matter what the stressor is, your body reacts the same way, by releasing adrenaline and other stress hormones that change the way your body is functioning. This is called the fight or flight reaction, which is a protective response to danger, regardless of what the danger is such as:

Reading an upsetting article
Arguing with someone
An accident or a threat of an accident
A threat to your life
Fear about being sick, losing your job, an animal… anything that causes fear
Frustration, concern or worry about family, kids or friends
Extreme or rigorous exercise
Small things you react to quickly like spilled milk or burning your finger.

No matter what the stressor is, the fight or flight activation is physically triggering histamine release and diverting your energy and oxygen from its normal pathways that supply your brain and organs with oxygen to you large muscles in preparing to run or defend yourself.

How does COVID-19 cause this?

COVID triggers an immune response that releases of cytokines, the chemicals that normally fight infection and keep you healthy. But COVID interferes with the cytokine control mechanism, so it doesn’t know when to turn off, leading to cytokine storm.

In turn, the cytokine storm leads to mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS) and the body starts to over produce histamines that cause inflammation of the brain, nervous system, organs and tissues. This is called multiorgan inflammation syndrome (MIS). MIS-C refers to children, MIS-A refers to adults.

Histamines are chemicals that occurs naturally in the body and some foods. They normally regulate the body’s response to foreign substances and injury, and are involved in things like allergies, stress reactions and inflammation in the human body.

Minimizing physical and psychological stressors is essential in recovery from Long COVID.

Taking control of your health care.

There are additional proactive actions you can take to support your own health.

You can ask your doctor to check your bloodwork including complete blood count (CBC), electrolytes, ferritin, a full iron panel, a full thyroid panel including reverse T3 and reverse T4, metabolic profile, cholersterol , C-reactive protein (CRP), ANA, rheumatoid factor, D-dimer, cytokine inflammatory markers interleukin-6 and interleukin-1b, along with kidney function tests.

Western medicine doctors are experts in medications, diagnostic testing, and surgery. You are a customer and MDs are service providers you hire.

It’s important to take a collaborative approach in which you advocate for yourself, ask questions, and bring your ideas based on scholarly research you have found to the MD.

Keep in mind, you cannot expect them to have expertise in areas like herbal and homeopathic remedies. Think of it like this - you wouldn’t ask your doctor to fix your car or your mechanic to perform surgery on you. That is not their specialty.

If your MD doesn’t have answers to your questions, it can be a good idea to look at complimentary health approaches such as Chinese Medicine, acupuncture, chiropractic, massage therapy. For example, if you want to know about herbs and supplements, talk to a Chinese medicine doctor, naturopath or nutritionist.

Members of the covidCAREgroup report faster recovery with these self-care strategies. Read more of our educational articles on Long COVID recovery on our educational blog page. Use the search bar on keywords like MCAS, inflammation, histamine, heart, ears, eyes, nerves, gut, and more to navigate to articles on that subject and see the resource list below for more helpful tools.

Things you can do to help yourself

Nutrition: Try to eat protein and vitamin rich foods daily.
Avoid chemicals, preservatives, sugars, fast foods, prepared foods and high histamine foods. Don’t skip meals. Your body needs protein , vitamin C, and vitamin D to heal from any injury or illness. A low histamine or low carbohydrate (sugar) diet is recommended by doctors treating Long COVID (PASC), and many people report a reduction in symptoms within 1-3 days of the diet change, including decreases in sneezing, itching or hives, irritable bowel syndrome, body pain, along with a reduction in swelling and inflammation.
Hydration: A minimum of eight 8 oz glasses of plain water daily is recommended.
Avoid drinks with chemical additives. You can easily make a fresh electrolyte drink yourself by adding a dash of mineral rich Epsom salt and a piece a fruit like a raspberry for flavor instead of spending money on commercial drinks like Gatorade that contain chemicals and sit in plastic bottles for long periods of time.
Sleep hygiene: Getting 7-9 hours of sleep so your body can repair itself. You need at least 4 hours of uninterrupted sleep to get into the restorative phase of sleep.
Avoid stimulating activities after dinner like thrilling movies or books, arguments, negative news or frustrating stimuli.
If you wake up frequently or with a startle, you may be experiencing drops in your oxygen level, which signal your brain to release adrenaline to force you to take a breath. This could be a temporary inflammation issue or more enduring sleep apnea. Ask your doctor for a sleep study to evaluate your need for a CPAP or BiPAP, a machine that forced air into your lungs when it senses an apneic episode.
Stress management: Stress affects every component of your life.
The only thing you can control about stress is your reaction to it. Try to avoid or minimize your exposure to stressful situations: Turn off the news, make family visits that end unpleasantly short, wait for the morning to have intense discussions, let go of things that annoy you but don’t really matter in the big scheme of things, avoid intense conversations or entertainment in the evening.
Exercise within tolerance: Pace yourself and do not push your body to extremes in any way.
For some this may mean seated breathing exercises, walking to the mailbox. Rest when your body says to slow down. Gradually build on your activity endurance as your body cues you to progress.
Breathwork: You can literally stop the fight or flight reaction by taking slow deep breaths.
Deep slow breathing shuts down the adrenaline flow, slows your heart rate, lowers your blood pressure and decreases stress related histamine release. When you do this, your blood reroutes back to your brain and nervous system to allow you to think clearly. It also allows your body to use its energy and oxygen to heal your inflamed nerves and organs.

Long COVID Solutions

Keep moving, keep breathing!

Brought to you by covidCAREgroup, connecting the dots of long COVID through education, research &resources.

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