Month: March 2023

Self-Care When Exploring Long Covid Symptoms

I mentioned in a previous post that I had thought initially that the peripheral neuropathy that I was experiencing was a symptom of Long Covid.  However, as explained in a previous post, I had discovered on investigation with my doctor that there was a structural explanation for these symptoms.  In that post, I encouraged persistent exploration of symptoms with our medical practitioner because our assumptions about symptoms may be misleading.

Self-Care in the face of disinterest or denial

One of the problems in discussing Long Covid with doctors is that there is no general agreement amongst medical practitioners as to what constitutes this condition (or even that the condition exists at all) yet doctors readily accept “fibromyalgia” as a condition.  Fibromyalgia, like Long Covid, involves a set of symptoms  such as muscular pain, cognitive disturbance and fatigue and, in common with Long Covid, symptoms vary with each individual.  In one sense, today’s patient experience with Long Covid diagnosis and treatment is similar to the experience of Lyme Disease sufferers who are faced with ignorance or denial.   This experience is eloquently described in case studies by Allie Cashel in her book, Suffering in Silence: Chronic Lyme Disease in the Age of Denial. 

In her book, Allie also recounts her own experience with Lyme Disease and other chronic conditions.  She strongly encourages patients experiencing any form of chronic illness that is typically denied by the medical profession to persist in sharing our symptoms with our doctor until we achieve a satisfactory outcome in terms of adequate diagnosis and effective treatment options.  Interestingly, she also shares her story and advice in one of the “stories shared for health” on the Healing Story Collaborative platform.  Her storytelling, which includes practical hints on how to approach your doctor with difficult symptoms, is presented in her recorded conversation with Val Walker, Being Fair Reporters: Self-advocating about Chronic Illnesses with Doctors.  Sometimes, self-care may require finding a medical practitioner who really listens and demonstrates that they do the necessary medical research and are across chronic health conditions such as Long Covid.

Reflection – my story to date

Previously, I discussed healing through storytelling as a way forward to recovery from chronic illness or disability.   This is in addition to qualified medical treatment that may take the form of medication and/or physical intervention.  As identified earlier, the problem with chronic illnesses such as Long Covid is that they contribute to a sense of isolation and can lead to depression, anxiety and other mental health issues.  Suzy Bolt’s Programme, Rest, Relax, Recover, addresses the emotional and psychological aspects by providing social support and healing modalities such as mindfulness practices, breathing techniques and group discussion.  In line with the healing power of storytelling, I am continuing my own story of exploration of my chronic symptoms such as peripheral neuropathy.

When searching for a medical practitioner who could help me diagnose my symptoms and suggest appropriate treatment, I came across a local doctor, David Eaton, who has dual qualifications as a General Practitioner and as an Occupational and Environmental Physician.  The breadth of his qualifications was a clue for me in terms of his willingness to explore complex, chronic symptoms and openness to the potential influence of Long Covid.  I have since discovered that he has several special interests that are relevant to my situation:

  • Musculoskeletal medicine, physical impacts of ageing and sports injuries
  • Skin conditions
  • Diagnosing and managing chronic and complex medical conditions.

David initiated a comprehensive investigation of my symptoms including blood tests.  Through David (via X-Ray and CT scan) I acknowledged a structural explanation of my ongoing experience of peripheral neuropathy in the form of spinal degeneration (including spinal stenosis and arthritis).   

The diagnosis of my symptoms is ongoing.  Compounding my current health situation is a group of symptoms that I have assumed are a consequence of Long Covid.  Gez Medinger in his Long Covid Handbook identifies three sets of Long Covid symptoms experienced by people categorised as experiencing mild disease but not hospitalised when suffering Covid initially (my experience as well).   The three sets of Long Covid symptoms that Gez identifies can be categorised loosely as: (1) increased intolerance to foods, (2) cognitive and physical exhaustion (including brain fog), and (3) increased heart rate (palpitations) and associated health issues.  I still experience unexplained symptoms of post-exertion malaise (Category 2) and increased intolerance of certain foods (Category 1 – what was previously experienced as “food sensitivity” is now being experienced as “food allergy” with the attendant aggravation of symptoms (changing from mild to severe).

David was aware that research has supported the observation that Long Covid can increase intolerance to specific foods.  He has also demonstrated that he is continuing to research the emerging literature on Long Covid – a criterion that is very welcome when seeking medical assistance with chronic and complex health conditions in our pandemic era.  David also reinforced the three elements of the health triangle – physical, psychological and social – and their interdependence.

Unfortunately, many patients experience an unwillingness of their doctor to acknowledge the existence of Long Covid or to make the effort to explore the growing research and anecdotal evidence of its existence and pervasive health impacts. 

As I grow in mindfulness through mindfulness practices and reflection, I can continue to challenge my assumptions, gain increased insight into my habitual behaviours, adopt appropriate self-care techniques and move to develop a new personal narrative that reflects my current situation of chronic disability.  In the process, I hope to gain the acceptance that Alexia Chellun describes in her song Allowing:

I’m allowing everything to just be
As it comes to me

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Image by iqbal nuril anwar from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

Healing through Storytelling

A challenging medical diagnosis can turn your life upside down, make you question your self-image and increase feelings of isolation, particularly if it prevents you from actively engaging with your social or sporting network.  Dr. Annie Brewster M.D., who experienced these challenges when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2001, found that medical practitioners lacked understanding and compassion for her situation – they were ill-equipped to help her deal with the internal fallout that accompanies a chronic illness diagnosis.  Annie is now Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School while actively engaged as a practicing physician in Boston at the Massachusetts General Hospital.

Annie, who had been quite athletic, found that her sense of identity was challenged by her diagnosis.  She discovered that by storytelling – writing her own story addressing her identity confusion, accompanying anxiety and resultant trauma – she was able to move towards recovery reframing her identity, restoring her own power in the healing process and building resilience to handle uncertainty and fear.  She recounts her story, and offers storytelling techniques with co-storyteller and journalist Rachel Zimmerman, in their book, The Healing Power of Storytelling: Using Personal Narrative to Navigate Illness, Trauma and Loss.

Healing through storytelling

Through her book, Annie helps chronic sufferers to process their challenging emotions, create their own healing story, reframe their identity narrative and reconnect with people close to them as well as the wider supportive community.  She encourages us to utilise whatever medium we are comfortable with – whether art, music audio, video or writing – to share our healing journey and accompanying story.  The techniques she and Rachel offer can help us in that process. 

Inspired by her own positive experience of healing through storytelling, Annie created the Health Story Collaborative which acts as a platform for people to share their stories of health challenges and recovery.  The Collaborative offers a medium for overcoming the isolation of chronic illness and is “patient-centered and research based”, drawing on the research providing evidence of the therapeutic power of storytelling.  The Health Story Collaborative enables people to share their stories of illness and healing and offers multiple modes for doing so.  There are videotaped Healing Stories Sessions (accessible to anyone), as well as Audio Stories (available for public consumption).  You are encouraged to share your story of illness and recovery and the options also include music, art, poems, written stories or alternative media.  Some of the more helpful stories are featured on the collaborative blog.

Storytelling about my own diagnosis of a chronic disability

I have recently started writing my memoir, inspired by Jeff Brown’s online course, Writing Your Way Home.  One of my motivations has been the opportunity provided by storytelling to work through my personal experience of trauma.  Almost simultaneously, I have received a diagnosis of spinal degeneration resulting from “wear and tear” over my 76+ years.  A contributing factor was a serious car accident when I was 12 years old, with the undiagnosed injury aggravated by playing competitive and social tennis over 65 years. 

I am now confronted by the challenge of rehabilitation and the loss of my capacity to play tennis, cutting me off from the game I love and my social tennis network (one of my few social activities).  I can relate especially to what Annie calls the need to “integrate a traumatic health event into a new and evolving identity”.  I have to reframe my identity from my self-image of a fit, competent tennis player, which has been an integral part of my life to date.

Reflection

Ash Barty has provided me with inspiration and encouragement through her own life story.  She has also made me realise again why I loved the game of tennis.  I’ve been reading Ash’s memoir, My Dream Time – A Memoir of Tennis and Teamwork, which could alternatively be called Developing Resilience through Adversity (as she documents her multiple injuries, mental health challenges and recovery strategies).  Ash, the smiling assassin, who achieved World Number 1 WTA singles ranking for 114 weeks, shares openly her battle with negative self-messages, including the inexplicable negative self-talk about “not being good enough”.  

I can relate deeply to what Ash describes as the pleasure she developed in playing tennis – enjoying the game for its own sake and finding “love in the marriage of movement and timing and speed and strength and guile and nerve” (the willingness “to go for your shots”).  I found sheer enjoyment in my competence at tennis and my ability, even in my seventies, to surprise my opponents with unpredictable shots (such as a backhand half volley drop shot, a shot down the line or a half volley backhand lob).  I would often mentally record the competent shots that I played and still to this day can replay some of them mentally as if on videotape.  I undertook this process of recall and replay of my best tennis shots to build my sense of self-efficacy in playing tennis.

It is interesting that Ash talks about her slice backhand as her competitive advantage.  In her words, the slice backhand produces “ an unpredictable low bounce” and is created by hitting the ball “with enough angle and speed to generate a fade”.   Ash, through her slice, changed women’s tennis game at the elite level.  In the mid 1970’s, I used to employ a slice backhand as my main attacking shot when playing competitive tennis … and I would follow it in to the net to complete an attacking volley as my opponent would have to hit the ball up to clear the net.  However, over time while playing social tennis, after my competitive tennis days were over, I stopped using my slice backhand – for unknown reasons at the time.  On reflection, I discovered that what had got in the way of my using this particular shot was a form of cognitive blind spot – I had unconsciously begun to view it as “not a real shot”.  Ash’s resurrection of the slice in women’s tennis made me realise that I had unwittingly discontinued a shot that gave me a competitive advantage.

Ash at one stage in her book talks about “acceptance” – everyone is imperfect and “we’re all unique, all fallible and all with our own foibles”.  It is the nature of being human that we are prone to making mistakes and subject to life-changing mental and physical challenges.  We need to acknowledge the fragility of the human condition, accept what we can’t control, and act on what we can change for the better.  Mindfulness can help us to develop resilience in personally challenging times.

As I grow in mindfulness through reflection, meditation, writing and storytelling, I hope to develop a new narrative about my evolving identity, grow in self-awareness, and strengthen my courage to undertake the necessary, ongoing rehabilitation.  Life’s challenges can “make or break us” – mindfulness can help us to remain grounded, develop resilience and explore creative options.

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Image by Chen from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

Trauma Recovery: A Program for Resetting Your Nervous System

Alex Howard recently provided a five-part series titled Decode Your Trauma which is designed as an introduction to his groundbreaking online coaching approach incorporated in the RESET Program.  He also provides a free three-part video series to help people to reset their nervous system after the experience of trauma.

Alex is a world-renowned health specialist noted for his work in integrative medicine, his therapeutic work and his entrepreneurial projects.  He has created a real life YouTube Series, In Therapy with Alex Howard, where your are able to join him as he works with patients in therapy sessions.  Alex is also the Founder and Creator of The Optimum Health Clinic (OHC) – an integrative medicine clinic providing support to patients in more than fifty countries, especially those suffering from “fatigue-related conditions”.

The principles and practices of the Optimum Health Clinic – incorporating approaches such as mindfulness, developmental psychology and NLP – have been encapsulated in a Therapeutic Coaching Program led by Alex.  It draws on the extensive experience and research of the OHC practitioners who have worked with thousands of patients.

Alex has also established Conscious Life – an online video platform designed to help people unlock their potential through courses, workshops and interviews with the world’s leading health and wellness experts.  Through Conscious Life, Alex has hosted two of the world’s leading online conferences, the Fatigue Super Conference and the Trauma & Mind Body Super Conference. 

The ECHO Model of Trauma

In his video presentations Alex describes his ECHO model of trauma which has four components (the name reflects the fact that experienced trauma has its echo in our day-to-day lives):

  • Events – these are the significant life events that created a trauma response in our mind and body.  They can be quite overt such as the categories of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) – “abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction”.  Alternatively, the traumatising events can be more covert and subtle such as disrespect of your heritage or where significant others disown your lineage (a situation that Ash Barty describes in her memoir, My Dream Time – A Memoir of Tennis & Teamwork).  Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey put the spotlight on the traumatic events in our life when they ask, “What Happened to You?”
  • Context – Alex described “context” in terms of whether our three core emotional needs were met or went unmet.  He describes these as a need for boundaries, safety and love. In the absence of boundaries in our early childhood we can suffer from the “need to please” – where we can’t say “yes” or “no” appropriately and where we make our own needs subservient to the needs of others.  Where a sense of safety was missing owing to a violent or turbulent/unpredictable home environment, we can find that we have difficulty in self-regulating.  Where love was missing – reflected in aspects of our early home life such as the lack of presence, interest, nurturing, respect and/or care – we can feel we need to overcompensate to earn love (to always achieve or accomplish something visible and significant).  Bruce and Oprah explore these emotionally deficient contexts by asking, “What didn’t happen for you?”.
  • Homeostatic Shift – “homeostasis” in this context refers to the human capacity to maintain equilibrium in the face of an external, fluctuating environment.  Alex highlights the fact that both the physical body and emotional body are constantly seeking to maintain a “stable internal environment”.  However, trauma can upset our internal balance and lead to emotional dysregulation.  This can be reflected in maladaptive stress responses or what Bruce Perry describes as a “sensitised stress response”.   Alex draws on the Polyvagal Theory of Dr. Stephen Porges to highlight potential maladaptive responses in the form of “fight/flight” or “freeze” responses.  He indicates that “to switch off the maladaptive stress response we have to get the nervous system back to safe and social” – described by Stephen Porges as the “ventral vagal” state involving social connection, openness, and groundedness.  Bessel Van Der Kolk describes the “homeostatic shift” in terms of the “visceral imprint” resulting from traumatic experiences.
  • Outcome – the outcomes from traumatic events and the resulting disequilibrium can take many forms – dysfunctional communication and relationships, anxiety and depression, addiction, sleep deprivation, mood swings and various physical health issues.  Negative self-stories and a distorted worldview can underlie addictive behaviour and other maladaptive stress responses.

The RESET Program

Alex developed the RESET Program after more than 20 years of therapeutic experience working with traumatised people.  The Reset Model involves recognising our mind-body disequilibrium, exploring how this is being created, stopping thoughts that are harmful and replacing them with positive energising thoughts, facing up to challenging emotions to heal from them, and transforming our relationship to ourselves (both mind and body).  The program employs multiple healing modalities including mindfulness, EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), somatic experiencing and the S.T.O.P. process.   In the final analysis, the Reset Program is a pathway to achieving what Stephen Porges described as the “safe and social” stress response.

Reflection

I can relate strongly to Alex’s ECHO Model of trauma, having experienced multiple traumatic events in my early childhood and adult life. My early childhood context involved “household dysfunction” as well as separation anxiety.  I feel that at times I have over-compensated for the absence of love in periods of my early life and engaged in other maladaptive stress responses.  I discussed some aspects of my early childhood trauma in an earlier blog post, Reflections on Personal Trauma.

I have progressively drawn on mindfulness practices such as meditation and Tai Chi to regain my equilibrium and build emotional resilience.  As I grow in mindfulness, I am increasing my self-awareness, understanding my habituated responses, improving my emotional regulation and learning to deepen my relationships.

I found Alex’s five-part Decode Your Trauma series enlightening, thought-provoking and energising.  He draws on his personal experience of trauma as well therapeutic experience of helping numerous people heal from trauma.  His sincerity and keenness to help are manifested through his presentation style and his sustained efforts to explain complex concepts in simple terms. The free, three-part video presentation on his website is well worth viewing as an aid to self-reflection.

Alex is also the author of the recent book, Decode Your Fatigue: A Clinically Proven 12-Step Plan to Increase Your Energy, Heal Your Body and Transform Your Life.

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Image by John Hain from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

Assumptions Can Mislead Us About Long Covid

We make assumptions about many aspects of our lives, including about the motivations of others when they do something that has an adverse effect on us – but more often than not our assumptions are wrong.  In this era of Long Covid, it is easy to assume that we suffer from this condition, particularly if we are experiencing multiple symptoms that persist months after a Covid infection.  The Mayo Clinic, for instance, identifies a wide range of symptoms that could be attributed to Long Covid.   They suggest that seeing a medical practitioner in the first instance is important to ensure that we eliminate other possible explanations of our symptoms. They also provide suggestions about what information to record about our symptoms before we visit the medical practitioner.

I have been experiencing peripheral neuropathy (pain in my ankles and numbness in my feet) for some time after an earlier Covid infection. When I listened to Gez Medinger, co-author of the Long Covid Handbook, during the Long Haul & CFS Summit, I began to attribute all my symptoms to Long Covid.  Gez had outlined a range of Long Covid symptoms that aligned with what I was experiencing.  However, having done more research about peripheral neuropathy, especially listening to the video podcast of Dr. Shanna Patterson, a leading neurologist, I was keen to explore my symptoms further.  Shanna explained that there were potentially multiple causes for neuropathy, including structural issues.

Investigating peripheral neuropathy – an on-going symptom

I undertook an X-Ray through a referral by my medical practitioner and discovered that I did have a structural problem in my lumbar spine – degeneration of several discs and potential spinal stenosis.  The structural problems in my spine more likely began at age 12 when I was involved in a serious car accident (before seat belts were available) – our family car rolled multiple times after being hit in the side by another car and then went over a 3 metre embankment, landing on its hood.

From what I have read, tennis (especially the service action) can aggravate spinal injuries.  This was made patently obvious to me in 1997 when a disc in my lower back collapsed, leaving me with severe sciatica for 18 months (finally rectified through multiple natural health modalities such as osteopathy, physiotherapy and hydrotherapy).  I was able to resume playing tennis after these lengthy treatments once I adopted some modifications to my tennis game (especially my serve).

However, now the wear and tear on my spine is so severe that I am unlikely to be able to play tennis again without causing further irreparable damage.  Despite this loss of my favourite sport, I am grateful that I took my doctor’s advice and that of experts like Shanna, and investigated my peripheral neuropathy, rather than just assuming these particular symptoms were caused by nerve damage as a result of Long Covid (even though this could be a contributor).

Reflection

I have not fully comprehended what it means for me to give up playing tennis which has been so much a part of my life for over 60 years.  Tennis has been my escape from the pressures of daily life and a means of developing mindfulness and the associated competencies of paying attention, being in the present moment and visualisation.  Tennis has been a catalyst for savouring my competence and accomplishments. It has also facilitated reflection on my blind spots and managing mistakes.

To manage this current challenge to “letting go” of my self-image as a fit and competent tennis player, I will have to turn to my mindfulness practice.  As Frank Ostaseski reminds us in his book, The Five Invitations, that in the face of loss and grief, we have to let go of the identities that we have become attached to.  He emphasises the preciousness of life and the impermanence of everything.

As I grow in mindfulness through my daily practices, I hope to readily accept the loss of my capacity to play tennis, let go of my related identity, redefine who I am, accept the impermanence of everything and learn to savour the preciousness of life.

Alexia Chellun in her song Surrender also encourages us to “let go” and surrender our fear while opening up to harmony and our higher being.

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Image by Aritha from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

Mindfulness: A Pathway to Long Covid Recovery

Gez Medinger, creator of more than 90 video interview podcasts on Long Covid, strongly recommends visiting your medical practitioner if you have symptoms related to this emerging  illness. He also suggests that any medication should be supplemented by whatever way you find useful to calm your autonomous nervous system.  He argues that there is no recovery from Long Covid without calming the mind and body because the illness is a form of inflammation affecting multiple parts of our human makeup (as reflected in the more than 200 systems identified as being associated with Long Covid).  The illness creates pain because of over-activation of nerves in multiple parts of the body (the body goes into a fight/flight response).  Dr. Deepak Ravindran, pain management expert and Head of a Long Covid Clinic, encourages the use of gentle mind/body practices such as Tai Chi to aid the management of pain and overall recovery. 

After interviewing yoga teacher Suzy Bolt in one of his podcast interviews, Gez strongly advocates her course, Rest, Repair, Recover Programme, as a pathway to recovery from Long Covid.   Suzy’s Programme incorporates yoga, breath techniques, meditation and other mindfulness practices.  She also provides a community of people who are currently experiencing Long Covid or have recovered from it and who readily provide supportive relationships by sharing their own experience of what works for them and offering encouragement and inspiration.  The three different levels within the Programme cater for everyone, irrespective of their physical limitations or mobility issues.

Evidence of the effectiveness of the Rest, Relax, Recover Programme (incorporating mindfulness)

Of particular note, is Suzy’s interview with a course participant Joe Iddison and world famous cardiologist, Dr. Boon Lim.  In the video interview, Joe talks about his recovery journey from Long Covid with the aid of Suzy’s Programme and Boon’s medical advice.  Joe had experienced multiple Long Covid symptoms including PoTS, brain fog, fatigue and insomnia.  Boon recommended Suzy’s Programme because of the many reports he had been receiving from his patients who had recovered from Long Covid with the aid of medication and the Programme.   He indicated that he meditated a number of times each day in his busy cardiac practice.

Suzy herself had recovered from extreme symptoms of Long Covid and her capacity to launch and manage her Programmes with the aid of other professionals, bears witness to the power of her approach.  She stressed the value of her Programme in helping people deal not only with the physical side of the condition but also the mental and emotional side.  Long Covid can negatively impact your role, self-identity, work and home activities (including caring for children) – some people, for example, are so ill that they cannot get out of bed (and you can see them participating in Suzy’s Programme from their bed).  People, too, experience fear and anxiety as a result of the uncertainty and lack of understanding of the illness (from doctors, family, bosses, colleagues and friends).  Mindfulness has been shown to help people manage their anxiety.

While participating in the Programme in real time is desirable for the community connection, the Programme’s effectiveness can also be realised through accessing the resources provided after the activities have been completed live.  Suzy offers an on-demand version of the Programme, at a reduced rate, for people who cannot attend live because of family or work commitments or time differences (the Programme is offered according to the UK time zone).   Joe attests to the effectiveness of the on-demand Programme because that is the version he used for his recovery from extreme Long Covid symptoms.  He indicated in the interview mentioned above that he undertook one activity per day drawing on the Programme’s resources (e.g., yoga, breathing techniques, meditation or listening to the group discussion).

Developing a positive mindset

A key element in the Suzy’s Rest, Relax, Recover Programme is the power to create hope in participants.  This is generated through Suzy’s positivity, the community support and the video testimonials and education provided by participants and medical practitioners.  A key element in recovery from Long Covid is a positive mindset because this determines whether or not you will make the necessary adjustments to your lifestyle to aid recovery.  Debbie Geraghty, for example, shares her recovery story and emphasises the importance of being positive and tapping into something that you love such as dance, creativity, and/or connection.  

Deepak Ravindran, Long Covid and pain management expert mentioned earlier, has written a book, The Pain-Free Mindset: 7 Steps to Taking Control and Overcoming Chronic Pain, which is available in Paperback or as an e-book.  Deepak also mentioned in the interview with Suzy that he has obtained funding to support his patients to be able to do seated Tai Chi.

Reflection

The inability of many doctors to understand the nature and complexity of Long Covid has left their patients confused and uncertain.  Gez Medinger commented during the Long Haul & CFS Summit that the specialization of medicine has contributed to this.  He stated that many medical practitioners are “inadequately equipped” to take on Long Covid because it is a “multi-system, multi-factorial, multi-organ” condition.  Too often, a medical practitioner will focus on a particular symptom that they know how to address but fail to identify the root cause of the overall debilitating condition.  There are clearly exceptions to this, including Dr. Deepak Ravindran and Dr. Boon Lim.

It is important, however, to establish whether other factors (such as nutrient deficiency, undiagnosed cardiac illness or structural problems) are causing and/or contributing to our emerging symptoms.   Leading neurologist, Dr. Shanna Patterson, in a video interview podcast for the Foundation for Peripheral Neuropathy, emphasised that scientists are reluctant to attribute peripheral neuropathy to Long Covid without supportive scientific evidence (because there are many possible causes of this condition). 

However, individuals who are suffering from other identified Long Covid symptoms report experiencing peripheral neuropathy in the form of numbness, pain or tingling in their arms, legs or feet.  Shanna encourages people to explore different forms of diagnosis with their doctor to determine the type of neuropathy involved and to identify appropriate treatment options.  She indicated that blood tests, for example, can highlight whether diabetes, thyroid problems or vitamin deficiency is contributing to the neuropathy.

As I have experienced peripheral neuropathy and a mild form of post-exertion malaise, I have recently approached a medical practitioner who is very experienced and qualified both as a  General Practitioner and an Occupational and Environmental Physician.  I have undergone a series of tests for my current condition under his guidance.  I have simultaneously registered for the on-demand version of Suzy’s Rest, Relax, Recover Programme (the timing of the live sessions does not suit people living in Brisbane, Australia). 

I have a firm belief that as I grow in mindfulness – through breathwork, meditation, Tai Chi and other mindfulness practices – I will be able to calm my autonomous nervous system, develop confidence and hope and facilitate my body’s self-healing properties.  I look forward to engaging with the training provided by Suzy and her professional colleagues and learning from the experience (and success) of others who have suffered from Long Covid.  Suzy reinforces the view that breath is “the bridge between mind and body” and that we can slow both our mind and body by consciously slowing our breath.  Suzy’s YouTube Channel, with free resources such as podcast interviews with leading experts and sample classes, is located here.

Alexia Chellun’s Healing Song is very apt at this point as it incorporates the mantra:

“My body, mind and spirit are healthy”.

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Image by Zhu Bing from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.