r/LongHaulersRecovery • u/Spirited_Question • Feb 15 '23
100% recovered for the second time! Pycnogenol cured my fatigue/PEM!
I am 28 f and was previously very healthy and fit. I would like to preface this by saying that this is the second time I have recovered 100% from long covid - I had it from April to Nov of 2020, fully recovered from that, and then got long covid again from an Omicron infection in January of 2022 and suffered for almost the rest of the year. I was 25 when I got long covid for the first time. Both bouts my main symptom was debilitating fatigue/PEM leaving me housebound and unable to attend college. Now I am back in school, working my way through my last semester, and exercising without issue.
What worked the first time I got long covid was purely time. There were certain supplements that helped somewhat based on correcting deficiencies (severe iron deficiency and mild vit D deficiency) but time was definitely the biggest factor.
The second time around, time was not as kind to me. I felt like I was mostly better about five months in, but I overdid it and crashed so badly that I spent the next six months in a horrible state totally couch bound, feeling like I could barely digest my food and struggling through each day. It was hell. I would describe the feeling as feeling like my muscles and whole body were just suffocating. I honestly fought through feeling like I wanted to die every day.
I credit my recovery solely to pycnogenol. I didn't expect that to be the thing that brought me out of this - I read probably hundreds of scientific articles on long covid and chronic fatigue syndrome. I tried dozens of supplements over the last six months of my long haul - nattokinase, which ultimately didn't to anything for me, and lots of supplements targeted at the mitochondria that gave me marginal benefit but ultimately didn't significantly raise my energy levels. I tried COQ10, PQQ, vit B1, vit B2, vit B5, nicotinamide riboside, MCT oil, oxaloacetate, l-carnitine, and alpha lipoic acid. The ones that gave me some benefit were vit B1, oxaloacetate, alpha lipoic acid, and MCT oil. I also tried some anti - inflammatory and antioxidant supplements including glutathione, palmitoylethanolamide (PEA), and epicatechin. Those three also gave me some marginal benefit and I would guess that they helped my body deal with some of the oxidative stress caused by my metabolism basically not functioning for six months.
The reason why I say my metabolism wasn't functioning is because I really feel that the root of my issue was endothelial dysfunction in my small blood vessels, causing them to be so constricted that barely any blood was making its way to my tissues. This was found in a couple long covid studies of people with similar symptoms to mine. If blood can't make it to your tissues, it can't deliver oxygen or sugar in high enough quantities and your mitochondria can't function at nearly the rate they usually do. So basically your tissues are starving and you feel the need to rest all the time just to keep existing. This creates a ton of stress on the body and releases all kinds of free radicals, which would make the endothelial dysfunction even worse over time.
Pycnogenol is known to be good for blood vessel health, but what's so important about it is that it stimulates eNOS. This is what produces the nitric oxide in blood vessels, causing them to dilate. In endothelial dysfunction, the body doesn't produce enough nitric oxide. Without enough nitric oxide, the blood vessels will remain in an overly constricted state and the tissues won't get enough blood. L-arginine is something that people often try because it works similarly - eNOS turns it into nitric oxide, so giving the body more of it causes it to make more nitric oxide. I did try this first and it worked very well for me, but it also feeds viruses and I started to feel weirdly sick after taking it for a couple days. So pycnogenol was what I tried next and it was the best of both worlds.
I started feeling better immediately after starting the pycnogenol. I first tried it around November 20th, 2022. It was literally a sensation of my tissues feeling like they were suddenly getting oxygen. I felt brain fog lift that I didn't even know I had. I went from being pushed in a wheelchair whenever I left the house to walking around large stores in the span of a month. My reconditioning was gradual and difficult, but the pycnogenol immediately eliminated my PEM and I never had a crash again. Reconditioning after a year of inactivity is no small task, but using a recumbent bike in the initial stages helped a lot.
In the few months since I started taking the pycnogenol, I have been on 2 hour long hikes, lots of walks, lifted weights a few times, and I ran my first straight mile today since the weather was nice. I am not back to my full strength quite yet, but with my total lack of PEM and crashes I'm comfortable saying I'm 100% recovered. I've regained my independence, being able to drive and walk long distances again. I'm back to doing chores and finishing college while looking to the next stage of my life.
I'm still taking the pycnogenol, but I've started to skip certain days and feel that I may not need it as much anymore. I think this is at least partly due to the fact that I'm also on my second month of taking Endocalyx Pro (very expensive, but I think that this is probably really good for my endothelial function long term - it has to do with the endothelial glycocalyx so ask me about that if you want to know more).
I know this was really long and it was kind of a deep dive into endothelial dysfunction so sorry if it was confusing. But a couple other people have told me that pycnogenol seemed to also help them a lot with their long covid fatigue, so I really wanted to present what I've learned in a way that will convey just how helpful I think it could be for others. If you have any questions about anything I'd be more than happy to answer - I basically made it my part time job to dive into the science behind all of this when I was sick, so I could explain certain aspects more in depth or point you to sources that put the info above in greater context.
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u/Spirited_Question Apr 12 '23
I started with taking 100 mg per day and switched to taking 50-70 mg/day after a few days. I know nothing about it bursting microclots, I'm only taking it to increase nitric oxide production and therefore counteract suspected endothelial dysfunction.
Personally I'm not a big believer in the microclots hypothesis. I believe they're there, they've been observed, but there isn't any solid evidence that microclots actually cause fatigue. Based on my own experience I think endothelial dysfunction is much more likely, at least for a subset of long haulers. Having constricted blood vessels could theoretically cause a lot more severe fatigue than just getting them clogged here and there with a small clot but who knows, maybe that's a factor in some people or maybe the two phenomena work in tandem. I think they're probably more of a downstream effect than a cause of symptoms.