I went to the neurologist today (Page 3 of 7)
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Originally Posted By arowneragain: @Mach These are the three articles I shared with the neurologist: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-15565-0 https://connect.uclahealth.org/2022/08/24/hbot-a-potential-treatment-for-those-with-long-covid-19/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8806311/ Originally Posted By arowneragain: Originally Posted By Mach: do you have links to the research? @Mach These are the three articles I shared with the neurologist: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-15565-0 https://connect.uclahealth.org/2022/08/24/hbot-a-potential-treatment-for-those-with-long-covid-19/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8806311/ Thanks. I am going to bring this to my neurologist Is insurance going to cover that for you or are you going to have to pay out of pocket. |
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Originally Posted By Mach: Thanks. I am going to bring this to my neurologist Is insurance going to cover that for you or are you going to have to pay out of pocket. We don't have traditional insurance. We are part of a health sharing ministry. We'll ask them if they'll cover it but I don't know yet how they'll respond. As long as it's within reason we'll do it. |
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Originally Posted By arowneragain: We don't have traditional insurance. We are part of a health sharing ministry. We'll ask them if they'll cover it but I don't know yet how they'll respond. As long as it's within reason we'll do it. Thanks for the information documenting your journey. I had covid in January 2020 before anyone really knew what Covid19 was. My wife picked it up from a Chinese couple at the laundromat while we were in AZ. Thought it was the 'flu. Anyway, I have had "long covid" since. Breathing issues, brain fog and vertigo. Maybe HBOT will become an accepted treatment soon. good luck in your pursuit |
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Originally Posted By arowneragain: Another test result: I have low vitamin D levels. I doubt that fixing this makes a radical change, but I’ll certainly try. Had the MRI today. Now I wait for results. Do not ignore the D level. Of these "anti mRNA" docs I've followed for almost two years, maintaining Vitamin D levels is stressed. Apparently more so with people with olive to dark skin. Not sure what color you are. :) Apparently, the more tropically flavored the skin, the more those tropical type folks need sunlight in North America. I know I've increased my sun exposure this last year since i came down with what they said was Delta. The fog stayed with me hard for six months. Started to get more back to normal mid summer, but i spent a lot of time in my new boat.  I'm 12 months out now and would say my concentration is about 95% of old normal. Try some more exercise and sun. |
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Originally Posted By Flysc: Do not ignore the D level. Of these "anti mRNA" docs I've followed for almost two years, maintaining Vitamin D levels is stressed. Apparently more so with people with olive to dark skin. Not sure what color you are. :) Apparently, the more tropically flavored the skin, the more those tropical type folks need sunlight in North America. I know I've increased my sun exposure this last year since i came down with what they said was Delta. The fog stayed with me hard for six months. Started to get more back to normal mid summer, but i spent a lot of time in my new boat. I'm 12 months out now and would say my concentration is about 95% of old normal. Try some more exercise and sun. I've been supplementing it every now and then (which is a nice way to say I don't always remember to take that pill, but I do at least 2-3 times per week) and taking a multivitamin every day which has some D in it. So I think I'm helping that. Also, I do spend a fair bit of time outside. White as a sheet, but I do go out a lot. |
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Originally Posted By arowneragain: I've been supplementing it every now and then (which is a nice way to say I don't always remember to take that pill, but I do at least 2-3 times per week) and taking a multivitamin every day which has some D in it. So I think I'm helping that. Also, I do spend a fair bit of time outside. White as a sheet, but I do go out a lot. A lot of factors affect how your body absorbs the D, as well as what form you get it in. |
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Sigh. Hospital called me back. The higher-ups denied the treatment because it isn't FDA approved. The techs would do it, our health sharing ministry would cover it, but the hospital management won't allow it because it isn't FDA approved for long covid. This just affirms my contempt for the FDA. |
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Well...maybe not. Just got off the phone with a doctor (an actual doctor) about an hour away. He has the proper chamber and is willing to do it. Waiting on his office manager to return the call to get into my details and their details and be sure this will work, but he does have a proper (2+ ATM) chamber. |
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Neuro approved the referral. I had my consult with the HBOT clinic yesterday. Had a looooong chat with the doc about covid and HBOT and....things. Seemed to be a kindred spirit. Waiting for a call from their main office to set up a date to start treatment. He was up front with me that they'd struggled to find/keep staff since covid and his current 'dives' in his giant multi-patient chamber were full. They're trying to add a second dive. But staffing it is difficult. But I'm on the wait list. Baby steps. |
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 Hyperbaric oxygen therapy to treat long COVID  Using Hyperbaric Oxygen Treatment to treat long covid |
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Originally Posted By arowneragain: It's 2/24 and they still haven't scheduled me. That's the only update I have right now. ETA: but I called and asked. They've hired the new technician they needed. They hope to schedule me next week.  Hopefully it provides you some sort of relief. |
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Thanks for the well-wishes. There's not much to tell. It was a neat experience but I can't say there was much to it - a few pre-dive tests, crawl into the chamber with several other people, sit there and read a book while the chamber pressurized, then don an oxygen helmet and try to read my book for the next ~1.5 hours with a couple of breaks from the helmet (not the chamber). Done. Drive home and try to catch up at work. But I wasn't expecting anything else. It typically takes 10-30 visits to see results. Going back tomorrow.
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Glad to see you handled the pressure so well. This could be a barometer of your overall health. It sounded like a pleasant atmosphere with your fellow patients. Did you exercise any psi powers in there? (I guess John Kelly didn't ask you any questions.) |
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Originally Posted By Brisk: Glad to see you handled the pressure so well. This could be a barometer of your overall health. It sounded like a pleasant atmosphere with your fellow patients. Did you exercise any psi powers in there? (I guess John Kelly didn't ask you any questions.) How was today? (No bad jokes today, I promise.) |
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Originally Posted By Brisk: How was today? (No bad jokes today, I promise.) It was.....a breeze?   But seriously, nothing to report. I was told to expect it to take 10-20 visits or more before I see any results, and the results I see, if any, won't likely be noticed during treatment. On a lighter note, the clinic is in a big metro area with a nice walking sidewalk accessible from the parking lot. I jogged/walked over a mile before treatment this morning. I was the big goofy guy on the sidewalk jogging sideways to keep his CCW from falling out of his jogging pants. Note to self: they're not really *jogging* pants if you're CCW. 
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Not much to report. Now comes the boring phase; treatment 5x/week but no obvious improvements yet. Time will tell. The doc and staff are pleasant. The other patients are nice, and they all seem to have worse issues than I. I don’t pry, some are more open than others about their issues, but I’d say I’m the least….burdened?…..person getting treated. It’s a bit humbling. It’s ~1:35 of really good time to catch up on my reading every day. It’s hard to complain about that. |
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Originally Posted By darkd0r: Good luck! If you see fish swimming by, they put you in the wrong chamber. Haha dang dude LOL..... I just LOVE the humor here hahaha... Glad to see you are getting the treatment & I hope it helps ! 
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I should update this. I quit treatment after 22 visits. The clinic is a stressful environment. I am - as I explained to the doc before we even started - the sort of person who gets anxious at the doc's office. To make a very long story short, the longer I was there, the worse it got, because the clinic isn't a calm environment, some of the staff (in 22 visits there were 8 different attending physicians, best I could count, and about that many techs - these people have major staffing problems) were really high-strung in ways I won't go into here, but suffice to say that the final straw was that they hired a new staffer, full-time, who was the sort of personality I'd never, ever seek healthcare from on my own. I simply reached the point where going there, to what should have been a relaxing experience, was becoming very stressful. So I called back one afternoon and explained why, and that I wouldn't be back. And I didn't have to explain much - the person who took that call understood very well. I won't name the clinic or elaborate on the drama. I'm not mad at them. But after spending over a year pursuing this treatment, I didn't quit casually or without a great deal of thought. Do I feel any better? I simply do not know. All of my symptoms are subjective in nature. But, yes, now that I've been away from there for a week, there are signs that I am getting better. I didn't expect immediate results and didn't expect that results would happen immediately after enough visits to produce eventual results. My experience is encouraging, to me, but nowhere close to being conclusive. I will update this thread in the future - again, I wasn't expecting immediate or even rapid results. Would I encourage others to do this? Perhaps. Time will tell. |
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Well that sucks. I was hoping it would have a profound healing effect for you. I completely understand you leaving due to those issues. I got the bends from a depressurization event in the F-15 and had to get re-compressed for 5.5 hours in a dive chamber with the navy. I developed tingling and numbness in my entire upper body in the chamber and was told I was going to either convulse from O2 toxicity and would have to have 1 or 2 syringes of Valium stuck directly into my heart muscle to stay a live, or die in the chamber from decompression sickness in the next 2 hours because the treatment wasn't working and there was nothing they could do to help me. Needless to say it was a long 2 hours during which I ended up having O2 toxicity but didn't convulse. 3 atmospheres in a pressure chamber has real risks associated with it. I don't think I would have even tried in some civilian low budget doctors office with revolving staff and a lack of emergency options. |
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Originally Posted By Mach: I don't think I would have even tried in some civilian low budget doctors office with revolving staff and a lack of emergency options. The frustrating thing is, if they removed two staff members, the entire clinic would have been very well-ran. But had they removed those two, it couldn't have been ran at all a large part of the time. It's really a post-covid staffing problem and I won't criticize them for doing the best they could with what they have. But I certainly wouldn't endorse them, either. |
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| Have you looked into acute acidosis? There are some studies coming out that point to this being the root cause of all these systemic issues (brain fog, tiredness, soreness, stomach issues, hives). You should test your lactic acid levels and see if they are high. |
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Originally Posted By arowneragain: The frustrating thing is, if they removed two staff members, the entire clinic would have been very well-ran. But had they removed those two, it couldn't have been ran at all a large part of the time. It's really a post-covid staffing problem and I won't criticize them for doing the best they could with what they have. But I certainly wouldn't endorse them, either. |
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Originally Posted By dacoolest: Have you looked into acute acidosis? There are some studies coming out that point to this being the root cause of all these systemic issues (brain fog, tiredness, soreness, stomach issues, hives). You should test your lactic acid levels and see if they are high. I might do that, but I have none of the bolded symptoms. |
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Originally Posted By Ascendent: Please read. Very interesting. |
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Originally Posted By Ascendent: Please read. Fascinating. Fwiw I supplement vitamin c daily. Started about 2 weeks ago. Should have started a thread about it. I spoke with someone who had done a round of high dose vitamin c and their brain fog cleared up. |
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Originally Posted By arowneragain: Fascinating. Fwiw I supplement vitamin c daily. Started about 2 weeks ago. Should have started a thread about it. I spoke with someone who had done a round of high dose vitamin c and their brain fog cleared up. How high a dose do you take? I know vitamin C is nearly impossible to overdose.... |
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Originally Posted By arowneragain: Fascinating. Fwiw I supplement vitamin c daily. Started about 2 weeks ago. Should have started a thread about it. I spoke with someone who had done a round of high dose vitamin c and their brain fog cleared up. Originally Posted By arowneragain: Originally Posted By Ascendent: Please read. Fascinating. Fwiw I supplement vitamin c daily. Started about 2 weeks ago. Should have started a thread about it. I spoke with someone who had done a round of high dose vitamin c and their brain fog cleared up. That article saved my life last year when I was struck down from J&J with microclots and a pulmonary embolism. I had long covid for an entire year before. Rouleax effect was so severe with me that my hands turned blue and the skin start stripping off as it died. ETA; If you can't get the IV treatment, use the liposomal Vitamin C for better absorption. Following this thread, will be praying for you mister. |
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I'll update the thread once more. Now that I've had several weeks to process things, I don't think the HBOT made any significant impact on the brain fog. Headache's still here. Can I think a bit clearer despite the headache? Maybe. It's hard to say. Would it have helped a year ago? Would it have helped a milder set of symptoms? Maybe. Did it help me in other ways? Probably, though it may takes years to see that and I may never make the connection between the treatment and some future health improvement. I will continue to look for other treatments. Currently taking a bit more vit-c but that doesn't seem to be doing anything. This was just released in December of this year. Looks promising. May mention it to the next doc I visit: https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/potential-new-treatment-for-brain-fog-in-long-covid-patients/ |
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One other thing I should mention: It is well-known that HBOT causes a temporary shift in eyesight for some (most?) patients. In my case, my left eye (normally about a -2.5x prescription) shifted another diopter or more, to a ~-3.5x. In the time since treatment it has went back to more or less what it was pre-treatment. My right eye is normally a -4.5x prescription. I think, before treatment started, it had shifted to perhaps a -5.0 and I needed to update my prescription. I bought a temporary set of glasses and guesstimated the right eye at -6.25x. That was insufficient; it was probably closer to a -7.5x. Now that I'm several weeks post-treatment my eye has improved to the point that I can use the -6.25x lens as 'reading glasses'. With the -6.25x my right eye focuses well at around ~20 inches, perfect for computer screen use, or shooting pistols. My old -4.5x lens focuses around 10 inches now. I suspect (my case is of course n=1) that there might be a pattern where the worse (in degree and duration) your eyes are, the worse they are impacted by HBOT. Again, my left eye is back to normal. My right eye is still ~2 full diopters worse than pre-treatment. This has left me unable to enjoy shooting sports. I'm very glad I stopped treatment when I did, at least in the sense that I'm eager for my eyes to stabilize and allow me to update my prescription and get new contact lenses. Again, this is a minor but well-known side effect of HBOT. My left eye is back to normal, my right eye is very slowly improving. I'm not particularly worried about it, just a bit annoyed by it. |
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I've had various long Covid symptoms for 2.5 years, a month ago I started taking a 600mg N-Acetyl Cysteine supplement and my brain fog has got a lot better, I have more energy, I am getting much more stuff done around the house, and I'm not forgetting as much. Don't know if it will help you but may be worth trying for a month or two. |
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