Ted Wampole lost his taste and smell to long COVID. Ashok Gupta says brain-retraining techniques can reset the nervous system and has treated about 100 long-haul patients, though he acknowledges a clinical trial is needed. Geisinger's CMO warns the approach could create false hope without proper evidence.
About 100
Mark Hiller, Eyewitness News Healthbeat
Wilkes-Barre
Eyewitness News Healthbeat reporter Mark Killer is live in Wilkes Barre to explain. Mark. Good evening, Nick and Candice. Many of these long haulers often lose their sense of smell and taste. But can the brain be retrained to help recoup those lost senses? A chronic illness researcher I spoke to says yes.
So it's so intermittent, which is kind of really weird.
Nearly five months after recovering from COVID 19, Ted Wamphole still struggles to fully.
Regain his ability to taste and smell.
I was out with some friends and I and I had a sip of beer and it tasted great. And by the time I had the second sip, it was gone.
Although he says the taste and smell.
Seem to be coming back stronger lately, he'd like to accelerate that.
People talk about therapy that you can try to, you know, teach your, your, your olfactory scent how to work again.
I just wanted to cry out, why can't someone just fix this for me?
The chronic illness researcher and director of the Gupta program claims he can.
These systems in the brain can be reduced, can be switched off through various specialized brain retraining and neuroplasticity techniques.
Ashok Gupta says his program has helped.
Patients cope with such conditions as chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, and food sensitivities. He believes it can do the same for Covid long haulers.
We found some very unique techniques that are able to train the brain to no longer believe that, that the virus is present or that we are in imminent danger. And through those processes, we're able to reset the nervous system and immune system and get somebody back to health.
I think we have to be cautious about things like that.
Geisinger chief medical officer Gerald Maloney fears.
Without a proper clinical trial, neuroplasticity to treat Covid long haulers could too easily create false hope.
So if you said that to me right now and I said, well, you know what? Here, take this home and smell it three times a day and you'll get better. And you do get better. Did that really do it or were you going to get better anyway?
For now, Wampol hopes time proves to be the fix for his ability to taste and smell.
At that point, I think that's all. Unless somebody has a better idea. That's a proven method.
Gupta says he's treated about 100 Covid long haul patients with his neuroplasticity techniques. And while he claims good results, he admits a proper clinical trial is needed to back up the evidence. He plans to carry one out in the near Future with the Helpbeat Live in Wilkesbury. Mark Hiller, 2822 Eyewitness News.
