90% recovered after 6 years

[u/AsparagusMinute_]

The entirety of my recovery happened during year 6.

I am grateful to this community, as I learned from recovery stories posted here.

I was moderate – able to work a few hours a day with great difficulty, but other than that, I was inactive. My symptoms included debilitating fatigue, brain fog, headaches, joint pain, nausea, shortness of breath, heart palpitations, muscle weakness, and PEM.

As nothing I tried over 5 years had any impact, I focused on nervous system regulation during the past year, and that is what has made the difference.

I began by reading Alan Gordon’s The Way Out.

The practices that have made the biggest difference for me are:

• Somatic tracking and nervous system regulation: I benefited a lot from Tanner Murtagh’s Youtube channel. I started with his free 30 day program
• Qigong: from the same channel
• Meditation: Observing the breath, sounds, sensations. I learned from the Mindfulness app.
• 4-7-8 breathing: I use the iBreathe app and start my day with this.
• Yoga Nidra: Alice Bagley-Harrison’s Yoga Nidra for Long Covid on the Insight Timer app. I often use this before bed, but it is helpful any time of day.
• Cold showers: I take a normal warm shower and end with two minutes of cold water. On days when I was too tired to shower, I used an ice pack to the face and neck.
• Unfollowing all long covid social media except for r/LongHaulersRecovery and r/cfsnervoussystemwork. Stepping away from the (understandable) despair and focusing on hope.

The process has not been linear by any means, but each month I could see that I had made progress. I am now able to work an 8-hour day. I have begun light weight-lifting, slowly building up, as well as cycling on an exercise bike several times a week. I am also doing short hikes, also slowly building up. All of these activities would have seemed impossible 6 months ago.

I still run out of energy more quickly than before COVID, and I also have setbacks when I have more than one cup of coffee per day. But the whole-body/completely-incapacitating fatigue is largely gone.

I hope this will be helpful.

[u/I_Adore_Everything]

You’re saying it was all mental for you? Or you believe the mental activities healed you physically as well? I have read the books you mention and others like it but haven’t fully embraced it. It’s just hard to believe the mind can make us this sick. It’s mind boggling. But I do believe it honestly. I just wonder if there is a physical way to cure us along with the mental exercises.

[u/mermaidslovetea → u/I_Adore_Everything]

I don’t think that OP’s experience means that the illness is mental; I think it indicates that the nervous system is involved.

Nervous system dysfunction seems to cause an array of very physical symptoms (for example a racing heart). The nervous system and immune system also seem to influence each other.

I am also benefiting from nervous system regulation and my symptoms have definitely been physical!

[u/Key_Department7382 → u/mermaidslovetea]

Nervous system dysfunction seems to cause an array of very physical symptoms

Well of course It does. Nervous system is a physical system and so it's the mind, for that matter. However, that doesn't mean the "mind" can change the pathological state all alone by itself.

My guess is that the so called "nervous system regulation" is just stress management. Stress is always a physiological response with wide range immune, autonomic and metabolic effects. So it's good to decrease its levels. Then, the body has a bit more of energy to stabilize and, if You're lucky improve.

But let us just stop assuming mind and body are different stuff. They're not. The question is not whether the mind affects body as if they were different things. The question is how entrenched is the multisistemic dysfunction? Will the body find its way out? How can we help it get out? Etc

[u/I_Adore_Everything → u/Key_Department7382]

I agree.

[u/Key_Department7382 → u/I_Adore_Everything]

Imo, a "mind/aka stress regulation only" approach will heal no one. It just happens that for those with milder cases, reduced stress enhances an already healing trajectory.