My Recovery from Long Covid PEM: Part 1
- Condition
- Long COVID
- At worst
- Severe (mostly bedbound)
- Ill for
- 2.5 years
- Published
- Sep 2025
Summary
In summer 2023 Christy Collins began four months of dual anticoagulant/antiplatelet therapy with apixaban (Eliquis) for long COVID PEM; a planned spring 2024 "three-pillar" protocol (mitochondrial and metabolic support, antivirals, and immune stimulants) is named on this page but not detailed with specific drugs or doses. She had developed severe POTS (unable to stay upright more than 1-2 minutes) and severe physical PEM — she describes lifting a water pitcher from the fridge as feeling "like lifting a barbell" — starting in February 2023 and continuing about six months before the anticoagulant trial. On apixaban her POTS greatly improved while her PEM improved by only about 20%, then plateaued, and she gradually discontinued the drug without regressing. As of this September 2025 post she says she waited to share the story until she was sure the improvement — nearly a year by then — had stuck.
What they credit
Credits POTS medication, Anticoagulants, Antivirals, Supplements, Triple anticoagulant therapy.
Symptoms mentioned
Symptoms: POTS & dysautonomia, Post-exertional malaise.
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