Starting a thread on physical movement/elements that help keep my Long Covid in remission. This is not medical advice, just my story. It's part 4 of a 5-part protocol I created for myself. I have been symptom-free for 10 weeks. If I deviate from any part, symptoms return.

1/n Please note: I am aware of Post-Exertional Malaise in Long Covid. A recent and oft-cited study points to muscle abnormalities leading to worsening of symptoms with exercise in 25 people with LC compared to 21 people without LC.

But...

2/n

nature.com/articles/s4146…

Starting a thread on medications that help keep my Long Covid in remission. This is part 3 of a 5-part protocol I developed for myself. This is not medical advice, just my story. I'm symptom-free for 10 weeks now.

I will start with the medications & follow with rationale.

1/n I am not getting into dosages because that is highly unique, and no one should take any meds or supplements without medical supervision.

Daily: Xarelto, Famotadine, Cetirizine

Sometimes: Hydroxyzine, prednisone, Albuterol

Finished: Truvada, Metformin, Atorvastatin, Heparin
2/n

Starting a thread on supplements that help me manage Long Covid. This is part 2 of a 5-part protocol I developed over 4 years of trial and error. It is not medical advice for anyone. Just my story. Here's link to part 1, what I eat, if you missed it.

1/n

https://twitter.com/AlisaValdesRod1/status/1758894412246012304?t=HcA-DQ7EOwXgKfNmetaC3A&s=19

First, I will list the supplements. Then I will explain why I take them. I am not getting into dosages because those are highly unique to each person, and I am not asking anyone to emulate me. You should only take supplements under medical supervision.

2/n

Starting thread of how I eat in a day to keep my Long Covid in remission. Symptom-free for 9 weeks, I am not recovered. If I deviate from my protocol, symptoms return. This is not medical advice, just my story. 1/n First thing in the morning, I have a scoop (5 g) glutamine powder in a cup of warm filtered water. Let me explain why. 2/n

50 million Americans now have Long Covid. It isn't a prolonged recovery. It's a non-recovery caused by viral persistence that damages and dysregulates the immune system, leading to... 1/n chronic illness and pain, opportunistic new infections, new and accelerated cancer, heart disease, dementia, disability and premature death.

Anyone can get it. I have had it for 4 years. It has damaged multiple organs, given me... 2/n

Long Covid damaged my mitochondria and left my body unable to process and burn fat or create energy the way it did prior to my infection. This has led to weight gain and pre-diabetes, which in turn have begun to cause all the problems that go along with that...

🧵 1/6 ...including loss of kidney function, increased intracranial pressure (leading to cerebrospinal fluid leaks), and new artheriosclerosis that led to me having mini-strokes and a heart attack earlier this year.

2/6

People confused by Israel's genocidal behavior in light of the most recent (and other) genocides committed against the Jewish people might look to the history of the area we now refer to as Spain for an answer to the question: "With all they've been through, how could they?" 1/25 The region we now think of as Spain, once Catholic, was conquered by The Umayyad Caliphate of Damascus, under the leadership of Tariq ibn Ziyad, in 711 CE, initiating Muslim rein on the Iberian Peninsula, lasting about 800 years. 2/25

This quote, from the @nytimes review of the OPPENHEIMER film: "He served as director of a clandestine weapons lab built in a near-desolate stretch of Los Alamos, in New Mexico"...

It was inhabited by Hispanos. They were given less than 24 hr to leave. Their farms bulldozed. 1 Many of those families had been on the same land for centuries. The Oppenheimer's crew literally shot all their livestock through the head and bulldozed them. People fled on foot with nowhere to go. Land rich, money poor. Their land seized by the government. 2

Can't wait for the Oppenheimer buzz to die. The bomb those men built? They dropped in on New Mexico to test it. On my mother. She was 18 months old, in the fallout zone. Of the 21 girls in her high school class, 17 had leukemia. Tell THAT fucking story, Hollywood. #downwinders

Posting top of the article as a thread.

IS THERE A LONG COVID GENE?

Yes!

There is at least one Long Covid gene.

And we now know what it is.

1/14 In a pre-print study released last week, The COVID-19 Host Genetics Initiative (HGI) made the astonishing announcement that they’ve identified a gene mutation common in people with Long Covid that isn’t common in people without Long Covid.
2/14

When my son was 3, he was diagnosed with autism because he had taught himself to read and had built a replica of the Toronto skyline with Legos, from memory. I was told he'd never spontaneously tell me he loved me, and he'd never be self-sufficient.

1 My son is 22, was a National Merit Scholar who graduated high school with a 4.3 GPA and is about to graduate college, which he attended on a full scholarship with a stipend, with a degree in economics. And he just got his first job.

2

I asked Chatgpt to give me the reasons a US president might lie about a pandemic being over when it wasn't. Here's what it said.

1 Hypothetically, there could be various reasons why a US president might choose to lie about a pandemic being over when it's not actually over. It's important to note that the following reasons are purely speculative and do not reflect any specific real-world events:

2

My son Alex ran 18 miles today.

He had Long Covid in 2020, with severed POTS until he got an experimental stem cell transplant that fall. He had a headache for 7 straight months, a rhr of 125, couldn't walk half a mile.

Why isn't the #nihrecover trialing stem cells in LC? He set a goal for himself of running the length of a marathon by age 22. He is almost there. He will not race in a marathon because of risk of reinvention around so many people.

New findings, 3+ years into Long Covid. My brain MRI yesterday showed small blood vessel disease of the brain, areas of white matter hyperintensities from either ischemia or demyelinatiom. I was in perfect health in Feb 2020. Now I have the brain of an 80-year-old chain smoker. Before you ask whether I was vaccinated...my problems began in 2020, before the vaccines existed. The virus and my immune response to it caused Long Covid. That said, both Pfizer and Novavax made me much worse. It is both the virus and the vaccine for me, likely spike.

Long Covid is a disease of the capillaries. Most people I know with LC were athletes, like me. I was a fitness trainer, runner, dance teacher for decades. Turns out athletes have 200% more capillarization than sedentary folks. Maybe the truth is, LC is more common in fit people. link.springer.com/article/10.100….

Sat outside for 2 hours yesterday. Felt burning pain under my shirt, chest and belly. Looked. All my capillaries had burst and I was bleeding under my skin EVERYWHERE. New symptom. TERRIFYING. 1/2 Covid destroyed my smallest blood vessels. Now I can't sit out on a nice day w/out risk of spontaneously bleeding to death because my capillaries are too weak to survive UV rays THROUGH MY CLOTHES. Too many of you still risk everything just to pretend life is back to normal. 2/2

Lots of valid Long Covid fears. I hope my experience reassures some.

Gray matter loss year 1. Year 2 normal. Brains can shrink and recover.

B cell deficiency year 1. Year 3, resolved.

Endothelial dysfunction year 1. Year 3, resolved.

New diabetes Year 2. Year 3, gone. Key to these improvements? A doctor who believed me and tried experimental treatments. Of the many we tried, these helped the most:

Anticoagulant, antiplatelet, statins, h1&h2 antihistamines, low carb diet (keto), b12, folate, iron, vit d, b complex, pycnogenol, quercetin, vit c

At this point, I have far more friends who are "getting back to normal" and doing just fine with it than I do friends who are "getting back to normal" and getting Long Covid or dying. Even my LC friends who get reinfected are bouncing back pretty easily. Could "they" be right? I mean, I don't want to get reinfected. But I am starting to wonder if my all-or-nothing complete isolation is necessary. My PTSD from the horrors of Long Covid might have me over-correcting? Anyone else wondering about this?

A moment of my beloved New Mexico...

A rugged and graceful survivor, enduring the winter in Cuba, New Mexico, as her ancestors have done since the first of them crossed into North America 2.6 million years ago. She carries their wisdom in her spirit.

Photo by Henry Dominguez Humans consider themselves separate from and superior to nature only because a weird book written 2000 years ago makes this absurd claim. In truth, this lone bobcat has more skill to survive, more awareness of reality, than any person zipping past in a truck. She is our better.

1. Growing evidence shows the HIV preventative Truvada (tonofovir) acts against SARS-COV-2.

2. More than 100 studies show persistent viral infection in tissues could be driving Long Covid.

3. I'm on day 5 of Truvada.

How am I feeling? (cont)

aidsmap.com/news/oct-2022/… I felt some side effects the first 4 days, the worst of them yesterday. I woke at around 3 am last night with this profound sense that covid had left my body. I'd been feeling pretty good, with occasional relapses, at 95 of normal on good days. But today I feel... (cont)

My son's dad left me for his current wife. I stayed single, raised my son alone. When he was 15 I said I was glad he had his "other parents" to model a relationship because I couldn't. My son said, "You taught me something more important, which is how to be happy on my own." 😭 This is him, six foot two, very patiently listening to his less-tall Cuban grandpa tell the same story about how much better tomatoes were in the old country, for the 4000th time.