In this video Dr. A outlines the often hidden or semi‑silent manifestations of long COVID and emphasizes that recovery is possible with the right approach. He begins by encouraging hope, noting that long COVID is a widespread condition but can improve with targeted care. The core of the presentation is a systematic walk‑through of six major warning signs that frequently go unnoticed: 1. Chronic fatigue driven by mitochondrial dysfunction – he explains how impaired oxygen‑carbon dioxide exchange and slowed mitochondrial activity lead to persistent tiredness, and mentions clinical strategies such as methylene‑blue, NAD⁺ precursors (NR, NMN) and other mitochondrial‑supportive agents. 2. Hormonal dysregulation – thyroid abnormalities (antibodies, reverse T3, T3/T4, TSH), adrenal cortisol imbalances (high or low), and reproductive hormone disturbances (testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, DHEA) can all blunt recovery and fuel inflammation. 3. Mast‑cell activation and heightened chemical sensitivities – post‑COVID patients may develop new or amplified reactions to mold, mycotoxins, metals, or environmental chemicals, compounding symptom burden. 4. Systemic inflammation and clotting abnormalities – elevated inflammatory markers (ESR, CRP, LDH, ferritin, alkaline phosphatase) and coagulation indicators (fibrinogen, D‑dimer) signal ongoing vascular inflammation and risk of micro‑clot formation that can affect eyes, kidneys, extremities, and the brain. 5. Neurological inflammation akin to traumatic brain injury – COVID can trigger brain inflammation that mirrors the effects of head trauma, leading to pain sensitization, sleep disruption, mood changes, and worsened cognitive issues. 6. Accessing appropriate care – he advises patients to seek clinicians experienced with chronic illness and long COVID, as they are more likely to understand the interconnected nature of these symptoms and guide comprehensive testing and treatment. Throughout, Dr. A stresses that these interconnected systems need simultaneous attention, and that systematic testing and targeted interventions can gradually restore function.
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A lot of people with long COVID can have a chronic fatiguing state. That's really common. That comes from a number of things. Welcome to my YouTube channel. I'm Dr. A. So let's dive into today's topic, which is silent or semi-silent symptoms of long COVID. The most important thing I want to take note of at the beginning is I want people to have hope because long COVID is a mass event in the world now. And there are ways to heal. There are ways to crawl out of the hole that you're in. And so there is hope. It just sometimes takes longer than you think it does because the problems are all connected and they all talk to each other. So they need some help in the world of chronic illness care. But I want to get into a few things to consider in this little deeper dive, looking at long COVID and why the symptoms might be either silent or you're disconnected from, I feel this way. I don't know why that's going on. my body. But I want to zero in on a few real big things here that I hear about daily from people. The first is a loss of energy. So a lot of people with Long COVID can have a chronic fatiguing state where maybe before they weren't the healthiest, but now they're just sort of really, you know, they just never feel rested. That's really common. That comes from a number of things. But one of the things that it comes from is a collusion between getting enough oxygen in, respiring enough carbon dioxide out, and operating the mitochondria on an even keel, the right speed. If your mitochondria are slower, you feel more fatigued, you feel more tired. This is very normal. So mitochondria are one big area that have to be looked at and supported. And a lot of times it's more of a clinical trial to give you things that may be helpful to the mitochondria. Okay. Those things could be mitochondrial priming substances. We use medically methylene blue. We use NAD, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, or precursors like nicotinamide riboside or NMN. We use other things for the mitochondria. There's tons of things to help them out, but you clinically give it a try and see if the body starts to work. Well, what else can affect your energy through the mitochondria? What if your hormone system gets messed up? So your thyroid can be very important because you can get new problems you've never had in your whole life before. And you need to look at these other inhibitory areas like thyroid antibodies, reverse T3, and then T3, T4, TSH, et cetera. And that's because your thyroid runs your metabolic rate, which is the speed of your mitochondria. So very important there. The next is your adrenal hormone output, and that is cortisol primarily that we look at as screening. Different cortisol tests can be done, but a lot of people with long COVID will either have very low or maybe elevated cortisol, and that needs to be sorted out with blood tests. The next thing is, which is not commonly looked at but should be, are your primary reproductive hormones. Testosterone, men or women. Estrogens, men or women. They're just tested a little differently. And then progesterone, men or women. Usually androgens like testosterone, you also check DHEA. Why do I say men or women? Because we both, males and females, use all of those hormones. We just use them in different ratios and stuff. If your androgens, your testosterone or DHEA or something, have crashed, male or female, you will not heal normally. We've known this Chronic illness medicine for a long time. It's very common for androgens to crash when you've been very sick. If your estrogen progesterone male or female, it's out of balance. Testosterone's down, estrogen's high. You become more inflamed, men or women doesn't matter, and the neurological inflammation will go on, etc. So you want to have not just your thyroid and adrenals looked at. You also want to take a look at your reproductive hormones as well. They all need help, probably, especially the longer that you've been sick. The other way you can look at these things I'm talking to you about is these might be areas to turn over rocks. And look under if you've gotten some help with your long COVID, but you're not getting where you feel like you need to go. Other things that can affect your energy beyond just your mitochondria slowing down would be an increase in sensitivity, maybe exposure, but sensitivity to toxicants in your body, toxins. See, a lot of people didn't have any trouble before COVID and now they're more sensitive to mold mycotoxins or chemicals in their environment or metals. So they'll have a mast cell activation that starts after or with long COVID, multiple chemical sensitivity, all that stuff. That's another big thing. People say, why is this going on at the same time? It's because those things are sensitivity levels that your body either gets symptoms to or doesn't. So mast cell activation can either not be present before COVID and then present after, or present at a low level you don't notice, and suddenly your body's just reacting to everything. It's another reason it can really drag you down and make your case much more complex, because now you have chemical sensitivities, mast cell activation, all of those things that you don't want. Right? Another thing that normally is looked at if you're getting checked out for long COVID, but really you should make sure it was, are the inflammatory markers in your vascular system and just globally in your body. So some of these that we see that will trend up would be sedimentation rate and/or the C-reactive protein, the CRP, LDH, lactate dehydrogenase, common thing on chemistry panels to look at. Sometimes alkaline phosphatase will go up. And then also other things that previously we only associated with You know, clotting and other inflammation to be like fibrinogen, and then the D-dimer. Those can go up in people. They should just be ruled out, check, make sure. And then there's other global inflammatory markers like ferritin can go up, et cetera. We normally look at all of these with somebody just as a baseline to make sure we're not missing that. Oh gee, you know, their fibrinogen is elevated, their D-dimer is elevated. We need to watch, make sure they're not having microclots or macroclots. Need to do something about that till we get the inflammation down, and then those things go back to normal. So a lot of those things are surrogate markers that we're winning with long COVID when those other inflammatory labs go down. And you might say, well, how could that affect me and the way I feel? Well, there's a number of ways they can affect you in the way that they feel, but the, the most dangerous thing that we are concerned about is the clotting spectrum. Obviously, if you get a big clot like a pulmonary embolism or some other thing, you'll be in the hospital. You know that right away. But there's a lot of papers coming out now on microclotting. And so microclotting can go on and it might slowly affect areas where there's very sensitive vasculature. Your eyes are one area, your kidneys are another area, terminal blood vessels, fingers, toes, you know, feet and hands, stuff like that. Lots of areas, maybe even the brain. So this is why I always check all of these inflammatory markers, including the cardiovascular ones, because if somebody has elevated general inflammatory markers, but the cardiovascular ones are elevated, we need to give them things to make sure that they're not going to clot or they have the least chance of clotting until we work on the bigger issue of the long COVID syndrome, get the inflammation to go down. And so the nervous system obviously controls everything. The nervous system, we need to understand, and this is in the neurology literature, this is not just some idea out there, COVID can affect the nervous system the same way a head trauma does. And so neurologists writing about this will say COVID and long COVID can be the same neurological pathology as a traumatic brain injury. But people don't realize it because they didn't hit their head. They had COVID. That is not good because traumatic brain injuries affect everything in your body. They create chronic illness, they create all sorts of stuff, and they're very slow to treat often. So if you're getting frustrated, we, we all understand that. But the traumatic brain injury part of COVID as an event is something that often gets overlooked. We, we don't think about how inflammatory that is and how Deregulating. So that then can lead you to changes in sensitivity of pain. You can get more pain. It can throw your sleep off. It can make you more anxious or depressed. Or if you have a little, you know, OCD or inattentive issues, it makes it worse. Sometimes anything your brain does, it may get worse. But your brain also helps you control other stuff we talked about, like your metabolic rate and your hormones. So if the feedback is messed up between your peripheral system helping your metabolic rate, whether it's through hormones or other nutrient Manipulation, et cetera, and your brain is involved in that, you could see that harming your brain is gonna have a big downstream effect. And in my experience, getting the neurological inflammation healed up and, and back on track is one of the core things you have to do. But it's very slow for, for some people with long COVID as well. I wanna remind you that although it may take some searching, it may take some looking around. If you're not getting the help you need with long COVID, find people who are chronic illness oriented in the healthcare space. They'll understand the language of chronic illness better, and they'll understand the language of what creates long COVID better, and you can be helped.
