The Antidote #12: adjustment periods, hypermobility, and exercise
Plus, nursing home sexy time, human composting, and (feline) criminal minds
Welcome to The Antidote, the biweekly roundup post from The Tonic that is filled to the brim with goodies.
The Tonic is a lighthearted, heavily resourced newsletter for folks interested in learning about long COVID, ME/CFS, and other chronic illnesses. Come for the info; stay for the whimsy. Or vice versa.
I will generally post once a week on Saturdays or Sundays: a narrative post when my energy allows and resource roundups (The Antidote) at all other times. Occasionally I post more than once a week, usually to announce an event or to push brief, timely info out to you sooner.
Adjustment period
Well friends, the stress of round-the-clock post-surgical kitty care caught up to me this past week and I’m in something of an adjustment period (I’ve been embracing this term, a la Miguel Bautista, over crash, flare, or even dip, because I’m choosing to view this situation as one that will ultimately strengthen me once I come out of it). We were instructed to keep our girl Zira in a single room and to try to keep her from jumping on things so her large incision (it goes from her neck to damn near her kitty-kitty) has a chance to heal. Here she is in her beatnik jumper, judging the f**k out of you:
So, I had been in this room with her for a solid week, pretty much round the clock. The things that I think really caused this AP are the diminished amount and quality of sleep I was getting on this couch, the fact that I was waking up a few times a night to guide her tiny bottom over the litter box walls, and the fact that I took a few stressful falls that first week, landing on my extremely frozen left shoulder both times (one caused by my freakishly large feet and the other by POTS/getting up too quickly).
In short, I was in fight-or-flight for most of the week, and my body paid the price. I began having widespread pain again and my fatigue went from a 5/6 out of 10 back up to a solid 8. It’s been a bit disheartening, after months of progress, but check out this video if you want to see why Miguel Bautista calls them adjustment periods and why how we respond to symptoms makes all the difference. I feel confident that I’ll come out of this soon and be back to my hard-won baseline from a few weeks ago.
Wish list shout out!
Gifts? Yes please! Many of my readers have chosen to support my efforts here via the Amazon wish list in lieu of paid subscriptions (which could jeopardize my disability benefits). A big Tonic THANK YOU this week goes to Cassie B.
I must say, I think my favorite part of this whole wish list endeavor are the notes y’all include with the gifts. They brighten my day each and every time 🌞.
If anyone is interested in showing support for The Tonic, see below for the info. There’s something for every budget and any help is appreciated. (Note: please be sure to include a note with your gift(s) so I can include you in the shout out!)
The Tonic is free to read - Amy is so happy you’re here! There is no paid subscription option here like with other Substack newsletters. However, if you are valuing the experience and are able, please consider a show of support by sending a gift of health, wellness, or joy from this Amazon wish list. Anyone who does gets a 📢 in an upcoming post. Thank you!
Keith C. Ellis, Ph.D., a medicinal chemist, developed CircuGuard, an herbal triple anticoagulant therapy, after a research deep dive into Long COVID led him to the microclot issue as front and center. Here is a bit more from a recent post of his. You can read his posts for more information on each ingredient in CircuGuard and why they are effective replacements for the pharmaceutical versions.
Here is a video of a woman who is having great results so far. I have been using it for over a month and I’m tolerating six pills a day with no sensitivities. Within the first week, my brain felt clearer than it has in a long time. As mentioned above, I’m not feeling the best this week, so time will tell if CircuGuard is helpful in the long run for me. I’m monitoring the clotting in my fingernails over time to see if that resolves too; I plan to try CircuGuard for at least three months.
If you also want to try CircuGuard, Keith is offering a special one-time code to readers of The Tonic. Get 10% off when you use the code TONIC10 at checkout.
Now onto the miles and miles of links.
COVID, Long COVID, and ME/CFS
🧘🏾 A lot of long haulers have been newly diagnosed with hypermobility or one of several subtypes of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. A new study now shows that people with hypermobility may in fact be more prone to long COVID. Also: whether people with ME/CFS and joint hypermobility represent a disease subgroup.
🏦 Inside a push to create an NIH office for post-infection chronic illness.
📈 This graph shows a startling spike in disabilities among U.S. women between 2020 and now. Gee, I wonder what could have caused this?
🦠 Really interesting article on how immunologists had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with the pandemic to witness the immune system respond to a novel virus. This quote really struck me, because I and so many other long haulers never developed the antibodies to C-19 that were being tested and this was used to dismiss and gaslight us in those early days. In fact, many of us found out our cytokine levels were off the charts:
Many people had overwhelming reactions to the virus. In others, though, there was no evidence of B cell and T cell activation; their immune systems were creating antibodies that targeted cytokines, the proteins the immune system uses to send instructions to its component parts. “The fact that a viral infection could provoke de novo antibodies against the molecules your immune system uses to communicate with itself … that’s devious,” Wherry said.
🔬 From The Sick Times: Want to enroll in a Long Covid clinical trial? This new project helps track them.
🧪 Also from The Sick Times: HIV may increase the risk of Long Covid. Why aren’t major advocacy groups addressing it?
😷 This is promising: New Monoclonal Authorized to Prevent COVID in Immunocompromised People (no such option has been available since FDA revoked the authorization of Evusheld last year). Note: requires a free MedPage Today account to read.
👨🏻⚕️ Also from MedPage Today: Be Wary of Flawed Diagnosis Criteria for ME/CFS
💔 Heartbreaking indeed: children and Long COVID. Losing years of an active life at such a young age is just devastating, IMO.
♋ There is no evidence that COVID-19 vaccines cause cancer or are associated with a greater risk of developing cancer.
👩🏻💻 Have some ideas about how might we design and implement innovative solutions to improve the lives of those with Long COVID today? HHS is hosting an innovation sprint―the Long COVID Healthathon―to crowdsource and accelerate digital solutions to support those living with Long COVID today. Solutions can come from industry, academic, non-profit or government (or, it seems, from individuals as well).
🧠 Have you been considering trying a brain retraining program to recover from Long COVID or ME/CFS? Here’s a useful brain retraining resource page from Positively COVID.
Webinars/podcasts/videos
♿ Here’s one on Long COVID and applying for disability. Not super helpful for someone like me who is so far into the process, but helpful for newbies.
💪🏽 An IG interview on getting back to exercise with long COVID:
Health miscellany
🏥 I have been silent thus far here on what’s gone on in Israel and Gaza, but this is a health newsletter after all, and what we are seeing is a medical travesty: Medical crisis in Gaza hospitals at ‘unimaginable’ level, aid agencies say. (If you’re a subscriber who chooses to leave me over this, so be it. No one can convince me that this is an either/or situation. Piling atrocity upon atrocity doesn’t make any of it right).
🫀 Types of POTS: Q&A with a specialist.
🦋 For those of us with thyroid issues: Why the Hesitancy in Recommending Combination T3/T4 Therapy?
🥼 From the NIH Director’s Blog: Immune Checkpoint Discovery Has Implications for Treating Cancer and Autoimmune Diseases.
🏢 Here’s a piece from Science on why we should be mandating indoor air quality in public buildings.
💩 Oh crap! A liquid-only diet before a colonoscopy is unnecessary?
😰 There’s a good reason they’re called ‘gut’ feelings: instincts and emotions can start in the brain, the gut, or both.
😞 I’ve been texting and talking with my childhood bestie, who just lost her sweet mom last month, about grief. I sent her this article that we both found very interesting: Grief made me lose my balance. Here's how I learned to walk forward again.
☕Now they’re coming for my beloved decaf? 😩
Now stick around for…
🥳 The After-party 🥳
Added resources, joy, tomfoolery, and buffoonery
🍳 The Healthiest Way to Prepare an Egg.
❤️🔥 Let the old people shag, you repressed windbags! Love and Sex in the Nursing Home? Ethicist Says, 'Why Not?'
⚰️ This is the way I’m going out: The ultimate green burial? Human composting lets you replenish the earth after death.
♻️ Ugh, I haul plastic bags and wrap to the grocery store every month or so to be recycled, but after reading this, it seems my efforts are in vain: Amazon says its plastic packaging can be recycled. An investigation finds it usually isn’t.
🏆 Winner of the week: Check out Ashwath Kaushik, the 8-year-old boy from Singapore who recently bested a chess grandmaster. Amazeballs!
🤦🏼♀️ Buffoon of the week: The “man” that the brilliant
calls Shitty Hitler or Agolf Shitler takes the win this week for posting a video of a truck showing a hog-tied Joe Biden. If Kathy Griffin got canceled for what she did, why can’t he?? It’s the same fucking thing. Oh, right: that winning combination of patriarchy and fascist cult.🐈⬛ 💩 And finally, it’s this week’s Cat Dump. The which-shorthair-is-guiltyAF? edition.
WHAT IS THAT IN THE BOWL?
Glad Zira is healing, I’m sure somewhere (really) deep down she is grateful to her mom for sacrificing her own health.
And in another round of are we related, I have been committed to earth burial ever since I heard of it through the urban death project kickstarter. Love that for us
Amy, I do hope that your absolutely gorgeous cat can take a moment to drop the attitude and appreciate how lucky she is to have you.
Take good care of yourself and best wishes that you pass through this AP (seems so less traumatic than "a crash" - all for less trauma) as quickly as possible.