Self Care Basics
Self-care is essential for Long COVID recovery, symptom management, and to minimize the risk of additional or worsening complications.
Things you can do to help yourself.
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.
Take control of your health care.
There are 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.
Most Western medicine doctors are experts in diseases, medications, diagnostic testing, and surgery. They may not be aware of alternative or natural options.
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 for functional medicine providers or 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. If you need doctors who understand and treat long COVID in the US and Canada, consider our providers of choice, The Wellness Company.
Long COVID Solutions
Keep moving, keep breathing.
Brought to you by covidCAREgroup, connecting the dots of long COVID through education, research and resources.
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COVID Care Group, LLC is not a healthcare provider and does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. If seeking medical treatment, contact The Wellness Company.
Resources from covidCAREgroup
Recovery Tools — covidCAREgroup
Education Blog Table of Contents — covidCAREgroup
Long COVID Recovery Information and Resources — covidCAREgroup
COVID-19 Long Haulers Support Group (Facebook)
Scholarly resources
How do low histamine diet works and what to eat
NIH: Role of histamine in modulating the immune response and inflammation
Original publication date: March 23, 2021