I knew there was a predicted summer uptick of COVID, but I’d been hoping that after 5 ½ years of this that maybe I’d miss it during my current incarnation.
No such luck.
I received a message from a longstanding patient who had been in the office earlier in the week with what seemed to both of us a mild cold. It had worsened. She had tested positive for COVID at an Urgent Care Center and was taking the antiviral Paxlovid.
This then explained my tickly cough and progressively worsening sore throat. My BinaxNOW Home Test was “positive”, so I phoned in Paxlovid for myself. Of course, there were product shortages all around the north side but my pharmacist managed to locate one at a not too distant Mariano’s. My wife, in her feeble attempt to avoid my infection, sent me off to my weekend cabin, which was just fine with me.
I had always told patients with COVID to take their first Paxlovid dose literally at the pharmacy for best results. Since this particular strain of the virus manifests itself mainly as the sore throat from Hell, swallowing three large dry tablets sitting in my car was a bit of a challenge.
I also stocked up on cough syrup, chicken soup, throat lozenges, and Aleve. In the back seat, some books, DVDs, and plenty of food.
Ask any Primary Care Provider: Paxlovid is pretty amazing. That same evening I actually felt 50% better. The next morning, 75% better and I went on a nice hike in the woods.
Paxlovid is a five day course of treatment and you must take it for all five days. Unless you have health insurance, it’s outrageously priced ($1,400). However, there are a vast array of discount coupons and rebates on the Paxlovid website.
In the meantime, as I finished up my own Paxlovid and feeling pretty much back to normal, my wife calls to report she has a sore throat and has tested positive. I phone in Pax for her and start heading home.
“Long” COVID
I’ve written several Health Tips on Long COVID which is considered a truly major epidemic worldwide. Every fifth person who gets COVID, even relatively minor manifestations (like mine) can experience one of the 100 (!!) protracted symptoms of Long COVID.
The commonest of these are fatigue, cough, brain fog, lightheadedness, depression, problems with taste and smell. Long COVID symptoms can be very debilitating and unfortunately for patients, diagnostic lab tests are all negative. The most common sentence patients with long COVID hear: “We can’t find anything wrong with you. Maybe you’re just depressed.”
This lack of “positive” tests will, of course, impair their ability to get any disability benefits from their employer or even medical leave of absence.
Now, after five years of COVID research, we do have more of an understanding about what’s occurring with long COVID:
- The virus triggers inflammation within the linings of the smallest blood vessels throughout the entire body.
- The inflammation may (or may not) lead to arterial “stiffness” (a/k/a “hardening of the arteries”) with the passage of time and an increased risk of stroke, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s Disease.
- For uncertain reasons, women are more susceptible to this phenomenon of arterial stiffness. Researchers termed this “early vascular aging”.
- The inflammation triggers the development of “micro clots” almost like microscopic strokes. The clots are made of a protein called amyloid which is the same protein responsible for Alzheimer’s.
- The micro clots damage the mitochondria within cells. Mitochondria are centers of energy production. Hence symptoms of “fatigue” and “brain fog”.
- Although there is no CDC approved treatment of long COVID, nutritional supplements can reduce inflammation, help dissolve amyloid and strengthen mitochondria and reduce inflammation in the walls of the arteries.
When my COVID test was positive, I started taking the following:
- Natto-Serrazime (Designs for Health) an enzyme to dissolve micro clots, twice a day
- Cytokine Suppress (Life Extension) reduces inflammation, twice a day
- Mitochondrial NRG (Designs for Health), twice a day
- SPM Supreme (Designs for Health), twice a day. This is a specific form of fish oil that reduces inflammation in the arterial wall.
The supplements are all available from our apothecary website.
I suggest taking the first three supplements for two months then discontinuing them. However, based on the current research, if you are female and have ever had COVID no matter how a mild a case, I suggest remaining on the SPM Supreme to prevent premature arterial aging.
Be well,
David Edelberg, MD
Have you covered smell and taste loss in any health tips? Are there treatments available? I had my first case of covid in March and the way I knew to test for covid was the morning I woke up realizing I had nearly zero sense of taste and smell – here we are 6 months later and I have maybe only regained 15% of what I previously had. It’s so depressing and odd to not have the information from two senses. And some days are still worse than others. There’s not much sense that it’s improving…
Summer Z
Thank you for covering this important topic! Two years ago my 38-year old cousin had a blot clot from long covid. Ultimately, they put in a pacemaker. She died suddenly last year of a heart attack at just 39-years old. And people say things like, “COVID is over.” The ignorance can be deadly as can not testing or staying home because “it’s just a cold.” Certainly, the studies that even mild cases are causing arterial damage should get more reaction from media and the public. I appreciate you putting this back on people’s radar and I’m super glad that you are recovering quickly! Thank you again for sharing this!
K Kirstin Osgood
Can mitochondrial NRG help fibromyalgia? I read there was some research showing it was related to problems with the mitochondria. Lyrica and Cymbalta are giving me only limited pain relief.
Barbara Newman
“when I take paxlovid, I get rebound COVID”
I am so old, there was a pandemic that was so bad, a symptom was that there was no symptom, so you had to take an experimental test to see if you had it.
They also created a vaccine for it and it didn’t work. So they had to change the definition of a vaccine so they could continue to call the COVID vaccine, a vaccine. Now when other vaccines don’t work, based on the new definition, it is ok and fits the narrative.
Dork