Covid Recovery Days 15 - 22
How a Brain Injury Survivor Defends the Brain Against Damage from Covid, Despite the Malfeasance and Nonfeasance of Certain Medical Professionals
This post is a continuation of my previous posts, Covid Day 0, Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5, Day 6, Day 7, Day 8, and Day 9 - 14.
In hindsight, I was doing pretty well on Days 1 through 8, but everything changed after I was misdiagnosed with shingles on Day 9, and spent the following 6 days taking an anti-viral drug for shingles, even though I didn’t have shingles (the odds of me having shingles were also quite low given that I didn’t have chickenpox as a kid, and I apprised the doctor of this fact).
During that span of days, I figured I either had shingles or some other viral infection on top of Covid, because to my knowledge (and apparently the knowledge of the doctor I saw in Urgent Care), Covid could not produce the kind of strep throat symptom I was seeing.
Then too, not knowing much about anti-viral drugs (I’d never taken one), I made another mental error by thinking, “Hey, even if I don’t have shingles, an anti-viral can’t hurt in dealing with whatever remaining Covid I have.” I thought anti-virals were more similar to anti-biotics (which have affinities for certain bacteria but can still work in a general way).
This was a grave error because, as I later learned, anti-viral drugs are targeted at specific viruses, and not only do they not work on different viruses, they can substantially compromise your natural defences to the viruses that are actually attacking you, imperilling you to a greater degree than if you took nothing.
Thanks to the doctor’s guidance, I figured I was almost entirely past Covid and now dealing with something else. So I stopped taking the SynaQuell and took an anti-viral drug for a virus I didn’t have.
By Day 14, I felt terrible and realised what a potentially catastrophic error had been made.
The drug lowers one’s T cell count and does other things that compromise your immune system. It can mess up your kidneys (kidney failure is one of the adverse effects) and your gut biome (which your brain is utterly dependent on), and the epithelial layer of both your gut and your blood-brain barrier.
If this drug was acting on the virus I was infected with (it wasn’t) these trade-offs might be worth it in the end, but since it was merely swinging at nothing and hitting everything, it was one of the worst things I could have possibly been given.
I felt like I was watching that scene in Wrath of Khan where Spock lowers the shields of the Reliant and Khan screams “Raise them!” but they can’t because the whole system had been overridden from the outside.
When I stopped taking the drug, I figured it would take roughly 72 hours to fully exit my system. I expected to feel steadily better. I hoped I wouldn’t suffer a serious “adverse event” in the coming days.
Instead of feeling better, with every passing day, I felt worse. Every day, I was dizzier than I had been the day before. I had less energy than the day before.
By Day 21, I was lying in a relatively catatonic state. My jaw was slack. I had no energy to even move. I looked at my body and it looked lifeless. I could barely even think.
If I had received a severe blow to the head the day prior, I would feel better than this. I would also know what to do.
It was no longer deniable. Something was seriously wrong with me.
I lay on the couch and wept bitterly.
My wife and son came home to find me on the couch. At this point, they had recovered entirely. And instead of keeping pace with them, here I was, an absolute wreck.
They gave me an LMNT electrolyte drink. I drank it and took a dose of the SynaQuell for the first time in a week.
I took 1.5 grams of L-Tyrosine, which is a precursor to Dopamine (your body can make Dopamine from it). I checked the sports drink powder I sometimes use. One serving contained 3 grams of L-Tyrosine. For the next few days, I thought, I’ll take one gram in the morning, one mid-day, and one in the afternoon until I’m through this.
I took my usual bedtime supplements and went to bed, hoping I would feel better in the morning.
Day 22
I woke up feeling about the same as the night before—terrible. I did my breathing. I took a shower, stood there with the water running over my lifeless body, and cried. Was I damaged? Would I ever recover? If I could, it seemed like a long and difficult road ahead.
I got out of the shower, got dressed, and tried not to panic as I took my morning supplements.
I opened the video from Stanford that I posted here on Day 1, looking for additional clues. I keyed in on a few words.
Reversible. Brain. Inflammation.
I now knew exactly what I was going to do. The same protocol I would do if I was about 72 hours out from a concussion or mTBI.
I wasn’t sick anymore. Whatever was going on with me now was largely neurological.
I needed to move.
With great urgency, I got outside and went for a 20-minute walk. As I began to walk, I honestly felt so bad, I questioned whether I should or could continue.
I’m guessing that many people who’ve been hit by Long Covid and didn’t have any experience recovering from a concussion (using the latest protocols) wouldn’t have continued to walk. They would have done what part of me wanted to do and retreat to the couch or bed thinking I was still sick and just needed to rest.
The thing with concussion recovery is that the only way out is through, and movement is essential. I’ve written about this in previous posts. For reasons that are known and some that are unknown, walking has almost magical healing powers. It helps spur lymphatic drainage. It brings blood flow into and out of the brain. It helps the brain set homeostatic pressure levels. Etc.
I felt bad enough that I effectively “paced” on the street in front of my house, walking about 100 yards back and forth over and over again for 20 minutes. Despite feeling dizzy, I did some vestibular stimulation, canting my head, doing the spin with some energy (not too much, but a little).
By the end of the 20 minutes, I felt better enough to know that I was on the right track.
I then proceeded to do a massive amount of housework, all of which made my head spin with dizziness. My wife wondered aloud whether I should be doing all this. She was still thinking I was sick. I knew I wasn’t. I kept going.
I started to realise that, unlike a TBI, what I was facing might be relatively straightforward. When a concussion creates an injury site in the brain, the problem is orders of magnitude more complicated.
In previous days, I had the foresight to order a batch of SynaQuell+ which is more potent than the regular SynaQuell I had been taking until this point. It’s the stuff you’re supposed to take after a concussion.
I took what I thought was a standard dose, two scoops (which was actually a complete daily dose, which is supposed to be one scoop in the morning and one in the evening).
As I continued working on the house, I layered in my usual Vielight treatments and a dose of greens (the bog standard green powder one can buy at just about any market, this one happened to be the Green Vibrance brand).
I stuck to the idea I had the night before and took 1 gram of L-Tyrosine morning, mid-day, and evening.
At mid-day, I went for a session of acupuncture, which I’ve always responded well to (which turns out to be a genetic trait, as I recently learned from Genetic Lifehacks). The acupuncturist had obviously treated many people trying to get back to 100% after Covid.
I asked her to focus on my brain and kidneys. As she started to put in the first needles, I mentioned that I had taken an anti-viral. “And that’s what did it to your kidneys,” she said, matter-of-factly. I nodded.
If you listen to the Huberman Lab podcast, you might be familiar with the full cycle of the circadian clock, which includes 90-minute periods called ultradian cycles.
Well, apparently in Chinese medicine (which I know very little about) they say it takes about 20 minutes for the energy flowing through your body to make a complete circuit. So after all the needles are in, I typically lie there for about 40 minutes, which I have found to be more effective than 20 or 30.
I walked out of there feeling better.
I went home and did another 20-minute walk in the afternoon. And another 20-minute walk in the evening.
I mistakenly took another full day’s worth of SynaQuell+ (so I’ve had a double dose for the day).
By the time night rolled around, I was half expecting to fall into the same catatonic pit.
Instead, I could not believe how improved I felt. I mean, like Luke Skywalker after Yoda lifts the X-wing out of the swamp kind of feeling.
The condition I was in just 24 hours prior was something I’ve only experienced in the aftermath of a concussion, and since those recoveries were always long if not endless, I had never improved this much this fast before.
As I went to bed, I was actually looking forward to the morning. To get after it again. I was no longer knocked back on my heels. I was back on the balls of my feet.
I thought of how I might describe this feeling when I eventually got around to writing about it, and I immediately thought of the barn training sequence in Rocky IV, when Rocky ditches all the fancy equipment and starts running in the snow and sawing wood and lifting wagons with his friends sitting in them. His shaved torso is covered in mineral oil because everyone knows that’s a must.
See my next post: Preventing Long Covid with a Concussion Recovery Protocol?
Brainwave is an informational resource for people whose symptoms haven’t resolved after a concussion or mTBI. I aim to present this information in a clear and concise way, spelling out what’s backed by science and what remains unknown. Nothing here is meant as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. I am not a physician or a healthcare practitioner of any kind; I’ve had a lot of sports-related concussions and had to learn this stuff the hard way. If you found this information helpful or know someone who might benefit from it, please share and subscribe to Brainwave.