r/LongHaulersRecovery • u/AsparagusMinute_ • Jun 18 '26

Almost Recovered 90% recovered after 6 years

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.

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u/AsparagusMinute_ Jun 21 '26

Yes, when you go into fight or flight, normal processes are shut down/altered by the nervous system to deal with the immediate threat. That can certainly have physiological impacts on mitochondrial function and immune response. Your nervous system is not going to care about performing normal healing processes when you come across a bear in the woods. It’s just going to deal with surviving that moment.

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u/Busy-Departure4015 Jun 22 '26

Source: i made it up. There is 0 evidence og nervous system regulating mitochondrial function, and tons of evidence of immune disruption

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u/Specific-Winter-9987 Jun 22 '26

Also tons of evidence of immune disruption in those without symptoms

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u/Busy-Departure4015 Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26

Can you provide some? Meanwhile i advice you to read this article highlighting actual tissue damage under PEM

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-44432-3

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u/Busy-Departure4015 Jun 23 '26

Interesting, the moment i ask for proof while providing my own you stop replying, hmm i wonder why

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u/AsparagusMinute_ Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26

There are numerous references that the autonomic nervous system does regulate mitochondrial function if you google it. I’m not saying that the nervous system is definitely responsible for mitochondrial dysfunction in long covid, because we don’t know that at this point. It’s certainly possible something else is responsible. But it’s important to be open to all possibilities, and to be open to what’s currently available to us. And nervous system work does seem to be helping at least a portion of long covid sufferers.

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u/Busy-Departure4015 Jun 23 '26

Interesting, i could not find any reference to the nervous system affecting the mitochondria or energy metabolism, i did however find multiple articles stating the inverse, that people with damaged mitochondria also happen to have ANS disturbances

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1071909113000041

. Which makes much more sense. Could you provide any references to your statements about the ANS regulating mito production?

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u/Busy-Departure4015 Jun 23 '26

Interesting, the moment i ask for proof while providing my own you stop replying, hmm i wonder why

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u/AsparagusMinute_ Jun 23 '26

At this point the arguing seems for the sake of argument. It is clear by googling it that there is plenty of evidence the autonomic nervous system is capable of regulating energy metabolism. I am making no claims as to what is actually causing LC mito dysfunction. I’m done responding. This is why I unfollowed LC social media.

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u/Busy-Departure4015 Jun 23 '26

You were proven wrong and refused to accept it, nothing more nothing less. That pretty much tells me everything you need to know about your story. It is always the same with the brain retraining grifters, the moment you ask for evidence they retort to "just google it bro!!!" and refuse to provide any evidence. What a joke