Paxlovid Drastically Reduced Long Covid Symptoms
TDLR:
I do not have active covid. I took 5 Days of Paxlovid during a PEM crash and it has improved my symptoms by at least 70%. I am prescribed 5 more days. Wanted to share this with the group so they can try for themselves and to get feedback from anyone else with this experience, especially if this has helped with serious symptoms like breathlessness, heart issues, or pots, and to discuss the possible mechanism for this effect.
The Whole Story:
Infection/ V a x x Status
Previously healthy, muscular, little bit of a dad bod but the good kind, could run couple miles and bench 300+ on the same day no issues. Light drinker, occasional cigar or ecigarette a few times a year, no meds or diseases or medical history of any kind. 39M.
Covid the first time in 2020. I struggled with breathlessness, oxygen wobbled a little, but with God's help I recovered in about 2 1/2 weeks. No hospitalization. I am certain I caught it at least two other variants though I never tested positive, even when I was 100% sick with it and everyone else around me was testing positive. Never va x ed (not available early, not recommended after). In January of 2023 my entire family came down with covid (unknown variant) and I was asymptomatic. A week later I started feeling "weird" when I would drive, and my heart would skip a beat. This got worse, and then I started feeling breathless, which got worse until I stopped driving altogether and became basically homebound. I have had LC since, its drastically affected my family and finances (I have 5 young children).
Progression
I checked myself into the hospital early and have since been 3 more times. I have had a full workup. Heart is clean as a whistle, no calcium or fat, no visible damage, no lung damage, clear lungs (in fact, capacity and strength in top of my age group). No shunt. CT, CT w/ Contrast and Nitro all clear. Vasculature clear, Echo clear, Blood gas test normal, oxygen saturation good, Brain MRI perfect. At one point the doctors gave me a drug test since "its the only test I havent given you." Only biomarker that was out of wack was Troponin (signifies heart damage) it was steady between 80 and 120 across visits. Since it was stable it wasnt concerning to the cardiologists, but it was new for me.
Symptoms
1) Breathlessness is #1 by a huge margin. Sometimes not bad enough to worry about, sometimes so bad I fear for my life and it is scary severe. I get "waves" where my it feels like I am suffocating "inside." Lungs are working, but I feel like Im not breathing internally. 2) PEM only with weightlifting. But its bad for a couple days. Weird thing is: Walking makes me feel better. It's sitting that makes me feel the worst (or laying down in fetal position). For whatever reason that position flares my breathlessness and makes me have a "wave" of suffocation. I have walked 25k steps a day for weeks at a time without issue, and if I sit in a chair for a few minutes I begin to feel bad, and by 10 or 15 minutes I'm wrecked. I haven't sat down now for any length of time for a year. Imagine.
3) Brain Fog (comes and goes, mild, mostly short term focus and word finding), headaches, chest pain (short, stabbing, right where the heart is, with no increase in breathlessness). 4) Bladder Irritation, possibly from supps.
If my symptoms get bad I walk them off. Once I get "warmed up" they taper off.
Daily Supplements
Nattokinase, Lumbrokinase, Aspirin, Bromelain. NAD+, NAC, Ashwagandha, Creatine, Electrolytes, Nitric Oxide, Cordyceps, a few others I throw in that don't seem to change anything much.
I have also done about 30 Dives of Hyperbaric Oxygen at 1.7x (feels great to get oxygen, stabilizes good/bad day ratio so I have lots of medium days, helps brain fog, baseline improvement unsure)
I tried ldl apheresis in USA (1 session) but it didn't seem to help at all and was too expensive to throw money at.
The Crash
I had to take a 40m car ride to see someone, which wrecked me. So I walked around for a while to feel better. That person had a bench press, so I did 3 sets of about 135 for 30-40 reps just to help me get my blood flowing (this is lower than my warmup weight). This made me feel better right away, and I kept walking.
The next day I was sore (no weights in a year), and I crashed. Bad malaise, lungs felt tight, breathlessness, fatigue, brain fog, I just felt so heavy I was basically bedbound. By day 3 I was ready to try something new.
Paxlovid Got my prescription via telehealth. Was free from the pharmacy.
Day 1 Bad taste in mouth, and lots of bathroom time. I got out of bed though and felt like crash was over.
Day 2 Less bathroom, bad taste. Went to see friends for the first time in months. Mild day. Drove home myself for 20+ minutes, no effect from driving.
Day 3 Mild Symptoms. At night TERRIBLE insomnia, 1hr and 56 minutes of rest over 12 hrs in bed. Felt itchy all over with no rash.
Day 4 Mild day. But dragging through because of extreme fatigue from no sleep. But still 25K+ steps and Family time. I was shocked… no breathlessness, and no crash.
Day 5 Virtually Symptomless for 24 hours. Ate well, felt well. Everyone commented that I looked better and was more like myself than usual.
I called the telehealth doctor, he agreed to give me 5 more days. Ill pick it up tomorrow.
Interested in discussing:
1) Mechanism (Viral load/ Fragments/ Reservoir) or another possible effect (anti inflammatory, immunomodulation etc.
2) Similar stories (or your experience) For you was this permanent. Did it help baseline. Did you regress.
3) Implications - If a drug can make you feel better like this, then some subset of people can be "cured" or "treated" - and this isn't a permanent disease. What can we learn from these events that might give us therapeutic options.
TDLR:
I do not have active covid. I took 5 Days of Paxlovid during a PEM crash and it has improved my symptoms by at least 70%. I am prescribed 5 more days. Wanted to share this with the group so they can try for themselves and to get feedback from anyone else with this experience, especially if this has helped with serious symptoms like breathlessness, heart issues, or pots, and to discuss the possible mechanism for this effect.
The Whole Story:
Infection/ V a x x Status
Previously healthy, muscular, little bit of a dad bod but the good kind, could run couple miles and bench 300+ on the same day no issues. Light drinker, occasional cigar or ecigarette a few times a year, no meds or diseases or medical history of any kind. 39M.
Covid the first time in 2020. I struggled with breathlessness, oxygen wobbled a little, but with God's help I recovered in about 2 1/2 weeks. No hospitalization. I am certain I caught it at least two other variants though I never tested positive, even when I was 100% sick with it and everyone else around me was testing positive. Never va x ed (not available early, not recommended after). In January of 2023 my entire family came down with covid (unknown variant) and I was asymptomatic. A week later I started feeling "weird" when I would drive, and my heart would skip a beat. This got worse, and then I started feeling breathless, which got worse until I stopped driving altogether and became basically homebound. I have had LC since, its drastically affected my family and finances (I have 5 young children).
Progression
I checked myself into the hospital early and have since been 3 more times. I have had a full workup. Heart is clean as a whistle, no calcium or fat, no visible damage, no lung damage, clear lungs (in fact, capacity and strength in top of my age group). No shunt. CT, CT w/ Contrast and Nitro all clear. Vasculature clear, Echo clear, Blood gas test normal, oxygen saturation good, Brain MRI perfect. At one point the doctors gave me a drug test since "its the only test I havent given you." Only biomarker that was out of wack was Troponin (signifies heart damage) it was steady between 80 and 120 across visits. Since it was stable it wasnt concerning to the cardiologists, but it was new for me.
Symptoms
1) Breathlessness is #1 by a huge margin. Sometimes not bad enough to worry about, sometimes so bad I fear for my life and it is scary severe. I get "waves" where my it feels like I am suffocating "inside." Lungs are working, but I feel like Im not breathing internally. 2) PEM only with weightlifting. But its bad for a couple days. Weird thing is: Walking makes me feel better. It's sitting that makes me feel the worst (or laying down in fetal position). For whatever reason that position flares my breathlessness and makes me have a "wave" of suffocation. I have walked 25k steps a day for weeks at a time without issue, and if I sit in a chair for a few minutes I begin to feel bad, and by 10 or 15 minutes I'm wrecked. I haven't sat down now for any length of time for a year. Imagine.
3) Brain Fog (comes and goes, mild, mostly short term focus and word finding), headaches, chest pain (short, stabbing, right where the heart is, with no increase in breathlessness). 4) Bladder Irritation, possibly from supps.
If my symptoms get bad I walk them off. Once I get "warmed up" they taper off.
Daily Supplements
Nattokinase, Lumbrokinase, Aspirin, Bromelain. NAD+, NAC, Ashwagandha, Creatine, Electrolytes, Nitric Oxide, Cordyceps, a few others I throw in that don't seem to change anything much.
I have also done about 30 Dives of Hyperbaric Oxygen at 1.7x (feels great to get oxygen, stabilizes good/bad day ratio so I have lots of medium days, helps brain fog, baseline improvement unsure)
I tried ldl apheresis in USA (1 session) but it didn't seem to help at all and was too expensive to throw money at.
The Crash
I had to take a 40m car ride to see someone, which wrecked me. So I walked around for a while to feel better. That person had a bench press, so I did 3 sets of about 135 for 30-40 reps just to help me get my blood flowing (this is lower than my warmup weight). This made me feel better right away, and I kept walking.
The next day I was sore (no weights in a year), and I crashed. Bad malaise, lungs felt tight, breathlessness, fatigue, brain fog, I just felt so heavy I was basically bedbound. By day 3 I was ready to try something new.
Paxlovid Got my prescription via telehealth. Was free from the pharmacy.
Day 1 Bad taste in mouth, and lots of bathroom time. I got out of bed though and felt like crash was over.
Day 2 Less bathroom, bad taste. Went to see friends for the first time in months. Mild day. Drove home myself for 20+ minutes, no effect from driving.
Day 3 Mild Symptoms. At night TERRIBLE insomnia, 1hr and 56 minutes of rest over 12 hrs in bed. Felt itchy all over with no rash.
Day 4 Mild day. But dragging through because of extreme fatigue from no sleep. But still 25K+ steps and Family time. I was shocked… no breathlessness, and no crash.
Day 5 Virtually Symptomless for 24 hours. Ate well, felt well. Everyone commented that I looked better and was more like myself than usual.
I called the telehealth doctor, he agreed to give me 5 more days. Ill pick it up tomorrow.
Interested in discussing:
1) Mechanism (Viral load/ Fragments/ Reservoir) or another possible effect (anti inflammatory, immunomodulation etc.
2) Similar stories (or your experience) For you was this permanent. Did it help baseline. Did you regress.
3) Implications - If a drug can make you feel better like this, then some subset of people can be "cured" or "treated" - and this isn't a permanent disease. What can we learn from these events that might give us therapeutic options.