The Antidote #4: subscriber milestone (!), EBV reactivation, and nicotine patches

Plus, a tried-and-true cure for hiccups and: the best holiday movies!

Dec 10, 2023

Welcome to The Antidote, the biweekly roundup post from The Tonic that is filled to the brim with goodies.

The Tonic is a light-hearted, 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.

If you’re new here, you should know that my posting schedule is generally once a week on Saturdays or Sundays, and I alternate between a narrative post and a roundup post, so as to get more resources out to you and also to manage my own energy levels (often referred to as spoons; speaking of spoons, I need a bit of a break, so I won’t be publishing any more narrative posts until the new year). Occasionally I post more than once a week, usually to announce an event or to push brief, timely info out to you sooner.

Big week here at The Tonic - we hit 500 subscribers!

I’m floored. My goal was to get to 500 by the end of year one, and here we are, in the middle of month five. THANK YOU to all who have subscribed!

The growth has felt very fast to me, but visually, it was a steady climb, reminiscent of the Cliffhangers game in The Price Is Right.

You can hear it, can’t you? If not, here, have a listen:

Hopefully I won’t fall off the edge anytime soon.

Wish list shout outs!

The appreciation for my work here keeps coming 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 Anna H. and Teri A. for your generous gifts!

If anyone else is interested in showing support, here’s the info. There’s something on the list for every budget, and anything you send will be very much appreciated.

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!

Okay, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover in this fourth issue of The Antidote, so grab your crampons and walking stick or power up your mobility devices and let’s go.

Webinars and other events

🖥️ For those of you who haven’t been able to attend the NIH’s ME/CFS Research Roadmap webinar series, here is a link to the recordings. I listened in on much of this week’s session on physiology and a good bit of it went over my head, but some of it was really fascinating. For those with limited spoons, I’d suggest viewing the recordings as opposed to attending live, since these sessions run from 11am-3pm EST. Next up is Less Studied Pathologies on January 5th and Circulation on January 11th and if you wish to attend live, you can register here and here, respectively.

👩🏽‍🎨 The Role of Artists in Justice Movements: A Virtual Conversation with Pato Hebert and aAliy A. Muhammad will take place on December 13th from 12-1:30pm EST. This event is funded by the CUNY LGBTQIA+ Consortium and presented in connection with Visual AIDS and the Day With(out) Art 2023: Everyone I Know Is Sick. More info and registration link can be found here.

🚶🏻 The Women’s Wellness Circle is holding a coaching call, Safe to Move, on December 12th from 12-1:30pm EST. In this session, they’ll explore building up movement in a safe and sustainable way, that is in tune with where you are on the journey of recovery from fatiguing illnesses. More information, including registration (note: there is a fee for this session), can be found here.

🏢 Here’s a recording of the webinar Long COVID in the Workplace by Pandemic Patients, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that works to relieve the harm caused by COVID-19 and post-COVID conditions.

Videos

👨🏾‍⚕️ Here is the first module of a video course created by Dr. Philip Macmillan, who writes the Substack newsletter

Long Covid Analysed

. It’s called Covid Long Haul - Infection and Vaccination, and is a great primer on the basics of long COVID.

🧪 Here is the link to this AMA interview: The latest long COVID research on symptoms, testing and treatments with Akiko Iwasaki, PhD.

🦠 Many long haulers are experiencing reactivation of latent herpes viruses. I for one keep seeing my Epstein Barr virus (EBV) nuclear antigen numbers increase with time, as well as having constantly high early antigen and other markers showing reactivation. I found this helpful video by Dr. Mobeen Syed (lovingly referred to as Dr. Been). Dr. Been is also a wonderful cartoon artist, and he explains difficult concepts using adorable artwork. Check out his YouTube channel called Long (COVID) Story Short with condensed videos of his longer talks geared toward medical students.

Long COVID and ME/CFS articles

🧑🏼‍🤝‍🧑🏽 Here’s a CDC Data Brief that shows that in 2021–2022, 1.3% of adults in the U.S. had myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). That’s around 3.5 million adults. For comparison’s sake, just under one million adults in the U.S. have MS, yet it receives vastly more research money from the government than ME.

👩🏻‍⚕️ Dr. Ruth’s Newsletter this week was chock full of fascinating links to various long COVID studies. She included this image from one of the studies discussed in this press release by the Radiological Society of North America, showing which parts of the brain light up in long haulers with problems in these areas:

🌱 Another compelling piece by Cort Johnson over at Health Rising: The Nicotine Patch Long COVID, ME/CFS and Fibromyalgia. Have any of you tried nicotine patches to help with your symptoms? I am seriously considering it. Let me know if you have or if you’re considering it too after reading this article.

Miscellany

🏥

elizabeth grey

wrote a gut-wrenching Substack post about the realities of navigating acute and significant illness in the U.S. with our screwed-up maze of a for-profit medical system.

Elizabeth Grey Writes

Pneumonia, on a Friday Night in America

It’s a Friday night in the United States of America, and I won’t know I’m insured until Monday at 9 am. This is unfortunate because I’m seriously ill. It’s important to know a few things about me. I’m in an upper middle-class economic bracket. I have a great deal of medical literacy. I’m white. Although not wealthy, I ha…

2 years ago · 10 likes · 4 comments · elizabeth grey

🙇🏻 New England Journal of Medicine reckons with its racist past and complicity in slavery.

♿ Did you know? (I didn’t). Disabled doctors make 20% less than non-disabled doctors annually, according to this study. Per hour, they tend to make 13% less, even when accounting for differences like race, gender, and whether the doctor is a surgeon or not.

😮‍💨 How to get rid of hiccups FAST, by brilliant dreamboat Dr. Andrew Huberman. I’ve now done this twice and both times it worked instantly. AMAZING.

💦 Can Habit Stacking Help with Your Health Goals? (Habit stacking: “You take a habit you already perform regularly and naturally, and you attach a new, positive behavior to it. This creates a routine that you will start to not think about.”)

Now stick around for…

🥳 The After-party 🥳

Added resources, joy, tomfoolery, and buffoonery

😂 What I’m going to tell disability the next time they ask what a typical day looks like for me (and they ask that a lot):

👔 This was a fun read: The Man Who Invented Fifteen Hundred Necktie Knots

here’s one of his designs, called “The Desiderata”

🎄 The 65 Best Christmas Movies of All Time, according to Vanity Fair. I don’t love when they put movies on these lists that have, like, one Christmas scene, or a vague holiday backdrop. <Sigh>. But Office Christmas Party made the cut, and if you haven’t seen it yet, leave here now and go watch it (warning: it’s a bit raunchy at times and your gut will hurt from laughing). It’s a perennial fave here in The Tonic household. I’ve also recently re-watched The Holiday and The Family Stone (an underappreciated choice, I must say; great cast, solid acting, genuine warm fuzzies in places), both of which made the list.

🤦🏼‍♀️ Buffoon of the week: This piece of work named Rosemary Hayne, who THREW A BURRITO BOWL IN THE FACE OF A CHIPOTLE WORKER. The judge gave her the choice of 180 days in jail, or 30 days in jail and 60 days working in a fast-food restaurant. She chose the latter.

🏆 Winners of the week: It’s no secret that we’re big fans of Dancing with the Stars here at The Tonic. The winners of season 32 were crowned this week: young up and comer with major RIZZ (that’s young people-speak for charisma), Xochitl Gomez and her partner, Val Chmerkovskiy taking home the Len Goodman Mirrorball Trophy. They were one of four couples who could have taken the top prize; there was some truly amazing dancing this season. It’s inspiring to see people learn to become dancers basically from scratch and to see how far they go. Congrats to Xochi and Val!