NYMPH AND WOODSMAN WELLNESS: My Experience with Long Covid

Harvesting St. John’s Wort earlier on Dutchman Peak this summer.

I am 53 years old this year and feeling better in my body, my mind and more in balance with my emotions than I felt in my early 20’s.  It has been a long and bumpy road with lots of 2 steps forward and 1 to 3 steps back. 

I’m writing this post as a testimony to my experience with Covid-19… to an illness that many of us are quite baffled by.  

I’ve now had 2 rounds of Covid.  After my first bout of Covid I found myself not recovering and in a physical, mental and emotional decline. I can’t say with certainty that I had Covid. We didn’t have testing available in our area at the time, though I was quite ill with flu-like symptoms conforming to Covid. 

My discussions with others who have lingering symptoms or chronic illness after Covid confirm conventional medicine’s inability to strategize a response to a diversity of symptoms (in a diversity of people).  The symptoms can seem to go on for months or now it seems even years, and if not addressed could turn into a lifetime of chronic illness and fatigue.  

In February 2021 after I had Covid-like symptoms in Dec 2020, I was asking myself: 

Why did this illness hit me so hard?

Why does it take so long to feel better?

Am I ever going to feel “normal” again?

How do I recover?  

How do I get back to a balanced body, mind and emotional state?   

Now it’s late summer 2022 and I’m facing round 2 recovery (positive test this time), so what to do?

First a little background on myself and round 1…. because…well… I am shall we say… unique in certain health and wellness ways… like you are probably unique in your health and wellness ways, too.

Ponderosa Pine Pollen supports the immune system and promotes vitality.

I have quite a laundry list of neuro/muscular issues, digestion sensitivities  (compounded by a healthy dose of feedback anxiety) caused by genetics, H. pylori bacteria, a case of dengue fever, a dose of ciguatoxin and an easily inflamed vagus nerve.  For 3 years prior to getting my first dose of Covid I had been managing my chronic health issues fairly well through diet, lifestyle changes and massive doses of CBD.  My body was feeling better than it had since my late 20’s. 

My new feeling of wellness came to an abrupt and confidence-shattering end in December 2020.  I contracted flu-like symptoms which ran into a months long journey of healing and self-awareness exercises that I hope most of us don’t have to ever go through, though the nature of human mortality says we all will.  My hope is that we can all learn from each other by: telling the story of our experiences with this disease, its long term impacts on our health and wellbeing and how we can not just heal ourselves but come out of the other side healthier and in better balance than we had going in.

Round 1:

My first bout of Covid set off a fire storm of symptoms related to nearly every chronic issue I had been dealing with.

At the height of my illness I felt like I had the flu, 2 months later I felt I was descending into a type of madness.  Multiple bodily systems (horribly imbalanced digestion, inflamed neurology, brain fog, fatigue, anxiety and emotional instability) were struggling massively all at the same time.  

By February 2021 I began to experience an anxiety feedback loop which was compounding my emotional, mental and physical state.  Nowhere to go, nobody to help…what do I do?  

I was locked into a feedback loop that felt like the beginnings of madness.  I had to use all of my tools to intervene.

It took a month to rebalance my digestive system and with that I finally felt my mind-body-emotions settle. After 3 months I was able to clean up my blood and with that I was able to begin to shake the brain fog I’d been feeling.  It was 6 months of concerted effort to regain my sense of smell/taste.

Finally after a year and a half I feel 110%. Better than when I came down with the Covid.  Suffice it to say I did not want to go through that depth of body, mind and emotional balance regeneration again….though I knew I could do it.  I did learn a new sense of self confidence….and humility (a strange dichotomy) around my body, mind and emotional awareness.  I knew I’d be knocked down again and I also knew that I had new tools to employ in support of my body, mind and emotional state.

I did get vaccinated…after having Covid…though I did not get boosted.  I didn’t think being boosted would help significantly with a virus changing so rapidly and I didn’t want my immune system jacked up from too much input.  I hoped the next round wouldn’t be as bad and that what I had learned around self care would get me through the next wave and out the other side better than before.

Round 2:

St. John’s Wort is excellent for the nervous system.

When Becca tested positive I knew it was only a matter of time for me.  So far Omicron has not seemed as impactful as my original run with this virus in early 2020.  Not really flu-like symptoms for me.  It started with a massive headache that went on for a number of hours with no relief…in retrospect with how I felt I think I had some brain swelling.   After the headache I was laid out for 2.5 days in bed with massive body fatigue…exhausted.  I felt so much better after 2.5 days… still I am taking it quite seriously and easy.  On day 3 I did get a tickle in the throat but that went away quickly.  

What are the tools I learned from round 1 to support my body, mind and emotional state and to get me moving through round 2 and out the other side healthier than when I went in?

I have empowered myself and done all that is in my power to not let Covid run away with my body, mind and emotions again.

To begin with:

#1 - I got an Ayurvedic assessment of my body type… it helped greatly when changing my lifestyle, reseting my bodily systems and maintaining high vibrational health.

#2 - Back to basics with an anti-inflammatory diet.  What’s that mean for my body type?  No eating after 8pm (at least 12hrs of fasting every day), no gluten products, no refined sugars or sweet beverages, no dairy, no meat or alcohol.  A good dose of water with my tinctures followed up with hot cup of Dandy blend and a breakfast of oats w/ hemp nut, a few raisins, ginger, cardamom, a few chopped walnuts, chia, pumpkin seed, coconut milk and oat milk.  Prior to lunch and dinner another dose of healing tinctures in water and then a meal of whole grains (lots of red lentils for me), cooked veggies and all of it well seasoned with ginger and curry. 

#3 - Healing herbs and wellness goods In support of my mind, neurology, digestion and that keep my blood clean and support my liver.  As alluded to above, before every meal I’ve been taking a mix of:  Oregon Grape, Red-Belted Conk, Lemon Balm, Tulsi, Pine Pollen, Elderberry, Yarrow, Motherwort, and a big dose of St. Johns Wort.  Other recommendations for treatment and recovery (which are combos of the above) would be Mellow Mood, Root of Wellness, Seasonal Resilience, Elderberry Elixir, and Woodland Warrior. For more information on all of these herbs, check out our Plant Profiles page.

#4 - Lots of rest…I stayed in bed for 2.5 days for round 2.  My back doesn’t like this amount of horizontal time so during the day and before bed I took CBD, California poppy, goldenrod and pedicularis.  I am privileged enough that I can take life very easy when I want to and so for a solid 4 days I did nothing.

Tulsi is an adaptogen that supports whole-body wellness.

#5 - I slowly increased activity levels and monitor as I went.  For me this meant that by day 4 I was back to doing a few hours of sedentary (computer) work each day.  At day 7 I started to do an hour or three of physical work each day….gotta get up and moving, get the circulation going.  It’s now day 13 … I’m back to my usual 5 or 8 hours of physical work/play outdoors each day.

As day 13 comes to a close I feel nearly 100%.  I am having a headache now and then and I think they are more than likely from our regionally persistent wildfire smoke, not lingering Covid. 

I have not had the lingering brain fog, loss of taste, neurologic, digestive or emotional imbalance that I had with round 1.  

I’ve even been able to bring back some special snacks and I am eating fish and poultry again (no red meat though) where during round 1 it was nearly 4 months of veganism. 

All in all it’s been a much easier process this time around.  I hope if you experience Covid, long Covid and/or a round 2 bout that you have some tools to fall back on and it goes as easy as it has for me/us (yes Becca’s doing much better now too).

Be well and stay well.

In love and beauty.

Seth

P.S. Please do your own research before taking herbal medicines. We are not “medical professionals” and must state that the above information is for educational purposes only.