Losing a whole year - my Long COVID story
- Condition
- Long COVID
- At worst
- Severe (mostly bedbound)
- Ill for
- 2 years
- Published
- May 2024
Summary
D.C. Elton tried a series of psychiatric medications for sleep and mood — Lexapro starting at 1 mg, trazodone escalated from 10 mg to 150 mg nightly (ineffective at any dose), sublingual Ambien, Remeron 10-15 mg (caused daytime sedation), and Wellbutrin 75 mg dosed in quarters up to four times a day — before finding his main lever was graded exercise therapy, started in October 2022 and built gradually from one mile a day in December to running one to two times a week by April 2023. After his initial COVID infection in June 2022 he became severely ill by August, couch-bound for weeks, unable to work or reliably read or listen to audiobooks, and exhausted after walking just around the block. He was about 75% recovered around the one-year mark (April 2023) and 90% recovered by two years (May 2024). He reports some residual fatigue a few times a week, attributed partly to his pre-COVID baseline and sleep medication rather than long COVID itself, describing no relapses, with the improvement holding over the two years covered.
What they credit
Credits CBT & mindset, Graded exercise, CBT and psychotherapy, Graded exercise / graded activity, SSRIs and antidepressants.
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