Long COVID & Vax Injury: Best Non Pharmaceutical Approaches

Lifestyle Hacks, Supplements & Other Tools

I often liken the various approaches to treating Long COVID & Vax injuries to tools at your disposal, but the toolbox is quite large, it can seem utterly disorganized and it can be baffling what to reach for first.

Those suffering from Long COVID & Vax Injury will find hundreds of bits of advice floating around on social media platforms and various websites.

For example we have a Long Haul Reset group on Facebook.

I share various recommendations on Twitter and in weekly Q&A and other videos.

I have a somewhat comprehensive protocol and video explainer available also.

But I thought I should try to give some general guidance here also, since some subscribers may not have seen the other resources, or after having seen them might still be left confused and unsure where or how to start and navigate it all.

I hesitate to hand down commandments from on high, because there is more than one way to skin a cat (are we allowed to use that expression anymore? Seems iffy in this era of cheap outrage, but I’ve been holding it in too long).

Instead I’ll provide some suggestions and then you can choose your own adventure.

In general you should think of this as an “n of 1” experiment you are conducting.

The best way to run an experiment is to hold everything constant except for 1 variable that you change. This helps to determine if it’s that variable that is making the difference.

In practice this is difficult in experiments on human beings since there are not only physical variables, but also emotional ones.

By way of contrast, what people usually do is they decide one day to make a change and they start eating right, sleeping more, exercising, taking supplements, thinking positive, getting more sun, smoking and drinking less, etc.

That’s all great, and you’re certain to feel better if you can keep it all up, but there’s no telling if any of the supplements are doing anything at all.

Improvement could all be due to your lifestyle changes, and in most cases probably is.

However in practice it would take a very long time if you tried to isolate every variable completely, so it’s easier to group some of them together.

One way to get started is to try lifestyle stuff first for a few days or weeks, and then try various individual supplements or groups of supplements for a few days to weeks at a time.

If you hit upon something that helps keep it, and if you find something makes no difference you might drop it and move on.

(You might also decide you’re really not up for any lifestyle change right now, and you’ll just be trying supplements, which is fine. Many Long COVID & Vax injured have come across specific supplements that made all the difference for them.)

Once you’ve come up with a combination of interventions that resolves your symptoms it’s best to stick to it for 1-3 months before trying to gradually ease out of them again.

If the symptoms creep back, return to your protocol for a bit longer, maybe another couple months, before trying to taper off once again.

Eventually you should be able to taper off completely, but it could take anywhere from a few months to a couple years.

For example those with depleted zinc levels may need to supplement for a year or more to restore whole body zinc stores and similarly those with MTHFR related methylation deficits manifested by homocysteine levels over 10 or so, often need to supplement with activated B vitamins for a couple years to fully restore underlying health parameters.

Lifestyle Hacks Grab Bag

If micronutrients stores are already optimized lifestyle changes alone can often resolve Long Haul symptoms - I’m a case in point, and I’ve heard from others as well who used only lifestyle interventions.

I benefitted primarily from cold plunges - sitting in an ice bath for about 2 minutes a day - which helped to reset my autonomic nervous system and rid me of anxiety, insomnia and numbness in my arms.

Other ways of rebalancing the autonomic nervous system (which is one of the most important pillars of recovering from Spike protein disorders) include breath work, meditation, meditative movement like Chi Kung/Tai Chi/Yoga, vagal maneuvers, sauna (can be any type including NIR, but best temp range is180-212F for average of about 20 min per day), and using a vagal nerve stimulator.

My Breath Work Discovery

One of my symptoms was heart pounding anxiety that I could feel in my neck when I lay down to sleep every night.

I tried various pranayama (yogic) breathing exercises that are recommended for anxiety, but most of them only seemed to make me feel worse (some may still work for you).

But I noticed that the pounding was always relieved when I breathed in deeply and resumed as I breathed out (this was while laying down).

Then I found that I could continue breathing and suppress the pounding if I first took a deep breath and fully expanded my chest and then while keeping my chest fully expanded, breathed out and in in a somewhat shallow manner using just my belly muscles.

I continued breathing in that way for a few minutes and then breathed normally again and found the pounding would remain gone after that.

Vagal Maneuvers

Vagal maneuvers help to increase the activity of the vagus nerve which helps balance the autonomic nervous system.

Activities as simple as bearing down hard can trigger increased vagal activity.

In medicine we often use these maneuvers for patients suffering from certain kinds of rapid heart beats, one of the most commonly used ones is the carotid sinus massage, though there may be some contraindications for those who have had a recent stroke or who have significant carotid plaque build up.

However if your provider clears you to perform the carotid sinus massage, it can be very effective for anxiety, anxiety attacks and especially the extreme histamine dumps many patients suffer from.

Another one of my personal favorite vagal maneuvers is called the dive reflex.

It involves taking several deep breaths, then breathing in, holding your breath and plunging your face into ice water and holding it there as long as you can (very refreshing too).

Sunlight

Sunlight has many healing benefits and can be thought of as a vital nutrient right up there with food, water and oxygen.

Sun exposure is directly correlated with levels of autoimmune disease and rates of all cause mortality at a population level. Autoimmunity is an important pathophysiological feature of Long COVID & Vax injuries, so sunlight is certainly an important element in healing from them.

Sunlight helps supercharge your mitochondria, the powerhouses of your cells, which are dysfunctional in Long Haulers.

Sunshine also improves vascular health and reduces vascular inflammation and therefore helps resolved micro clotting.

It increases serotonin levels and boosts mood and motivation.

The blue end of the spectrum helps stimulate Vitamin D production (UVB) and shuts off melatonin production in the daytime, but also ramps it up at night, which helps you get deeper more healing sleep and also has important anti-inflammatory effects.

The near infrared (NIR) wavelengths which penetrate clothing have specific healing benefits - people pay upwards of $500 for NIR panels, but you can get the same intensity of NIR light from the sun for free (even in the winter months when bundled up though there will be some attenuation).

It’s important to note that beneficial wavelengths are blocked by glass and sunscreen, so go outside for your sun without sunscreen and when you’ve been outside about half the amount of time it would take your skin to just start turning pink you should cover up the rest of the time.

Fasting & Diet

Many people have benefitted from fasting, which helps trigger autophagy, a method by which your body clears out unnecessary or harmful junk like the spike protein - either intermittent fasting or a single prolonged fast - e.g. one individual did a 5 day water fast to resolve his symptoms.

Intermittent fasting can be done in different ways and can include skipping a meal or two every day thereby shortening your eating window to as little as 1-8 hours, or doing longer water fasts 1-2 days a week.

You can find more resources on fasting, including Tom Bunkers observational study in Long Haulers at his website and Dr Mobeen Syed also gave a very informative and popular 2+ hour talk on the different levels of autophagy and how to trigger it with fasting and supplements at the free Long COVID Reset Summit.

Other recommended dietary changes include removing inflammatory foods from the diet, eg trying the autoimmune paleo protocol, or trying a “low histamine” diet, since histamine can trigger symptoms for some, or just avoiding specific foods that you know trigger symptoms or don’t sit well with you.

Supplements

Dr. Syed Haider @DrSyedHaider

Most effective Long COVID or Vax injury supplement?

The supplements, especially the herbal products, often have multiple beneficial effects, but I’ve tried to arrange them somewhat.

Let me know in the comments below or by email if there’s something that benefitted you that’s missing below.

Microclots / Misfolded Proteins

1. Nattokinase:  2000 FU (100 mg) per day OR Lumbrokinase

2. Serrapeptase: 10 mg (20000 units) three times a day.

3. Bromelain 90 mg daily

Vascular Health

1. Vitamin E 20 IU daily (as alpha-tocopherol)

2. DHA/EPA Omega 3 fatty acids 4 g per day

Autophagy / Antiviral / Immunomodulation

1. Spermidine: (follow instructions on the product)

2. Resveratrol (500mg twice daily). 

3. Curcumin

4. Nigella Sativa

5. Dandelion

6. CBD

Antiviral / Immunomodulation

1. Vitamin C 500mg-6000mg twice daily - generally aim for 20% less than the amount that triggers diarrhea, gradually decreasing over time if diarrhea occurs again (chronic high doses have been associated with the development of kidney stones, so the duration of therapy should be limited)

2. Vitamin D 5,000-10,000 IU daily

3. Vitamin A 10,000 IU (as retinol)

4. Vitamin K2 100-200 mcg daily

5. Zinc 50mg daily

6. Monolaurin 1000mg 3x a day

7. NAC (n-acetylcysteine): 600-1500 mg/day

8. Herbal Protease Inhibitors

9. Liposomal Glutathione 1000mg daily

10. Carbon 60 Fullerene

Microbiome

1. Sodium Butyrate 1000mg morning and evening (supports microbiome) 

2. Prebiotic Fiber

3. Bifidobacterium Infantis

4. Vitamin C deserves mention here as well (see dosing above)

Mitochondrial Energy Optimizers

1. Methylene Blue (MB)

2. Pyrroloquinoline quinone

3. Co-Q10 400 mg daily

Nitric Oxide Boosters

1. L-Arginine 1-2 grams twice daily

2. Alpha Lipoic Acid

NAD Boosters

1. NMN (may be banned by FDA soon)

2. Flush Niacin - start at 50-250mg every night with meals for 4 days then titrate up as tolerated until symptoms are resolved: every 4 days increase by 50-250mg until you reach 2000mg a day, remain there for 2 months then increase by 250mg daily every 2 weeks until you reach 3000mg a day. Can cause flushing (many insist you need to flush for the benefits), which gets better over time, and taking aspirin 30 minutes before Niacin can help with that. 

   Note: If you feel worse with niacin you may need to also supplement with methylcobalamin 500-1000mcg daily and methylfolate 15-30mg daily.