First-person testimonial from Romy, a cognitive neuroscientist in Switzerland, describing severe long Covid and POTS after catching Covid in May 2022. She details debilitating symptoms (unable to walk, read, or listen), discovering the Gupta Program online, an early emotional shift toward calm and hope, and very gradual physical recovery marked by six-week improvement windows and later milestones (reading large books, one-hour walks, returning to skiing).
Chapters
I'm Romy and I live in Switzerland. And yeah, my life before I got long Covid was just kind of a normal life, I would say. Like, I was working full time. I'm a cognitive neuroscientist. So, yeah, having like quite intellectually stimulating work. And then in my free time I would do a lot of things in the mountains, like skiing, ski touring, cross country skiing, hiking, and just had a normal social life. I caught Covid in May 2022 and I would say it was like, it wasn't a mild infection, but it was also not a severe infection. I was in bed for like two weeks or so. But the problem was I continued working from bed because it wasn't too bad. Like, I felt I wasn't back at 100%, but I guess I didn't quite understand what was happening in my body and kept working. But then I just kept basically, yeah, crashing. So I think my worst time was really like July, August 2022, when I could, like, I mean, honestly, like, I was barely functioning. Like, I could only whisper with my partner. Like, I couldn't have a loud voice, like, and only talk to him for like 20 minutes and then needed a break and I could, I had really severe pots. Like I couldn't really get up or walk anymore. I couldn't do my own meals for like six months. My. My partner was doing meal prep for me and I couldn't listen to audiobooks, I couldn't read. Like, I couldn't look onto my phone really. I was just like, for a few months I was just really staring at the wall and knowing that I have to be really careful now to not just keep crashing more. Because I'm a researcher, I also try to look for causes. And then I think I watched like videos from. I don't remember. Like, was a guy in the UK who had long Covid and who made like these YouTube videos. And in some, maybe even in the comments somebody was mentioning the Gupta program and it. How it made so much sense to them. The first changes really were of emotional and emotional stability kind of nature. There was like a time where I was physically still very sick, sick, but I was just chill. Like, I was just like going into this kind of relaxed and really hopeful mode filled with love and gratefulness. And that was really like a shift when I noticed, wow, even if I'm not physically better yet, like mentally, I'm like in such a different place and I'm such a good place. And obviously, I mean, there were ups and downs and there were days that were really dark and where needed to borrow hope from other people. And these success stories actually, like, helped me so much, like, hearing that other people went through exactly the same. And so I think then I think I noticed, like, very gradual physical changes as well. But they were very slow in the beginning, so slow that I really had to tell myself, you know what? Like, we just keep doing it, and after six weeks we're allowed to look back and see whether something has changed. And I felt these windows really were like six week periods when I felt like very, very small, like, improvements. And then I think after about six months, or maybe even a bit more than six months, maybe eight months or so, like, the improvements really became quicker. And then the summer last year, I felt I made like, more rapid improvements and then it was more exponentially, I felt like. Because then I also was able to do more, like, physical activity again. I could start, like, very slowly with like, exercise, very paced. And I felt that was a positive feedback loop almost that my system kind of, yeah, really understood it's safe to move and like, gained energy from that additional movement again. And then at some point, that was also a big milestone, I could read again. And then even like last year, like, I read, which is like a huge book, and I was like, this is actually like my kind of proof that I'm like 100 again, that I can read these big books and like, just be reading for hours. Because, I mean, I couldn't, like, yeah, look at a page. I mean, it's like, it was insane. And it. Another milestone, I think, was when I was able to go for a walk for an hour without a break. That felt like, very, like. I was like, wow. I mean, that's quite advanced. I mean, then the big milestones really were going skiing again, going cross country skiing, going ski touring again.
