The Tonic goes on hiatus

Plus, the Antidote #52: COVID's ongoing toll, women's health myths, lots of fighting back (hell yeah), and blinding headlights

The Tonic is a lighthearted, heavily resourced newsletter for folks interested in learning about long COVID, ME/CFS, and other health conditions. Come for the info; stay for the whimsy. Or vice versa.

If you are new here and curious about my long COVID origin story, check out my Health Rising blog post, My Long COVID Disability Journey. If you are interested in the tools that have been helping me in my long COVID recovery, please check out the Recovery Tools series tab on my Substack site. (Please start with part one, as it includes an important disclaimer about how highly individualized recovery tools can be with a heterogenous illness like long COVID).

The Tonic will always be free to read - Amy is so happy you’re here! However, if you are valuing the experience and are able, please consider a show of support by upgrading to a paid subscription. If that’s too much to bite off at the moment, you can also make a one-time contribution through Buy Me a Coffee. Any help is appreciated! Anyone who does gets a 📢 in an upcoming post. Thank you!

Time for a break

Folks, I’ve wrung my hands over this quite a bit for the last few months, but I’ve landed on a decision: your girl needs a break.

It’s (mostly) for a good reason: my recovery is going well and I’m working more and more. This has involved much more screen time most days than I’ve been used to, and while that has kicked up a few niggling long COVID symptoms, it’s also re-introduced my previously resolved chronic migraine problem and that has been no fun at all.

And so, extracurricular screen time will have to be shelved for the time being while I do the smart thing and pull back certain activity so I can move forward on others that need to be prioritized (umm, making money).

I said above that increasing work was mostly the reason, and that’s true. Another contributing factor is that engagement around here has been down a bit, and that is dampening my motivation to keep pushing through with content, especially when I’m a bit tired and life is calling in other ways.

My open rates, which used to hover near 50%, are now around 35%. The number of new subscribers has slowed. From what I can surmise from other Substackers, open rates do tend to go down over time and with a greater number of subscribers (I’m not entirely sure why, other than people’s attention is pulled in so many different directions that it’s hard to always hold it). I have also seen that with some of the changes Substack has made to its algorithm, many, many Substackers who have been here for years are seeing a dramatic drop in the number of new subscribers. There was a magical time here when I averaged nearly 100 new subscribers a month; now I’m lucky if I get 20.

I tend to average maybe 20-25 likes on each post and about half of that in comments (not counting my replies to comments). I know that 85-90% of my readers are viewing my posts via email and not in the Substack app, and so one will just not get the clicks for likes and comments that one otherwise would in an app. But this means I really have no sense of how many people are meaningfully engaging with each post. Open rates are about people opening your post or email; they don’t tell the story of readers actually reading what you have to say.

On occasion, I get a new paid subscriber or a reader giving me a one-time contribution through Buy Me a Coffee, and they will most often include a brief note about what my words here have meant to them. These often take me by surprise, because they are the names of people who have not engaged in the comments section of my posts or via email, so their notes remind me that I do have readers out there and they are paying attention and finding information/hope/inspiration in my words. And I have taken these notes to heart every time.

But again, this is pretty infrequent. And without a more regular sense of who is engaging or how many are, I’ll be honest, it is hard to maintain motivation. The motivation in that case has to come from within, and I currently do not have the spoons to keep the fire lit most weeks. There are more and more weeks where the thought of sitting down here to put a post together feels more like a chore than a joy, and that, my friends, was another realization I had to come to terms with that is prompting this break.

I want to see if the joy has a chance at coming back. So this hiatus is something of an experiment, and I’m going to try as much as possible to remain outcome independent. The Tonic may live to see another day, or it may ultimately sail into the sunset. I’m not fully ready for the latter, but if that day comes, there will be another post about what it has meant to be here, in community with 35% of you (🤣).

One way or another, I plan to be back here by April(ish). Until then, I will be pausing paid subscriptions and focusing on ramping up work, finishing up my therapeutic coaching training (culminating in my first ever trip to the UK!), and trying to keep some sense of balance. The goal is to maintain this newfound, gentler wave of nervous system regulation, where stress and overwhelm and the subsequent return to a parasympathetic, rest-and-digest state can gently pendulate in a realistic, more reasonable way. In this way, I hope this break serves as a model for those of you still making your way through these illnesses and, hopefully, your recoveries.

See you on the other side, my friends.

COVID, Long COVID, and ME/CFS

☠️ COVID’s ongoing toll: M (is) Living with Long Covid with a piece titled How many is too many? that should be on the home page of every news site. Why are we so numb to this unrelenting, tremendous loss of life? Supporting info: COVID Continues to Take a Toll, Especially Among Older Adults, Study Suggests.

👶🏽 The COVID generation: the neurodevelopmental consequences of in-utero COVID-19 exposure. This may take years to become fully evident, and society at large may never connect the dots.

💪🏽 ME/CFS and muscles: are we dealing with an acquired muscle myopathy disease?

😷 Surgical masks: are fairly useless at protecting anyone, which we’ve known this for a while now, and yet healthcare providers continue wearing them (when they wear one at all). They should be swapped for respirators, says a group of experts advising the World Health Organization (WHO).

📉 Masks and harm reduction: a compelling post by Jess Steier, DrPH on what happened when she posted about masks and why the discourse is failing us.

Resources

👵🏼 Older adults with long COVID: check out this link for info on a clinical trial involving computerized cognitive remediation of LC symptoms for older folks.

🩸 Menopause care: Let’s Talk Menopause is hosting this webinar Taking Control of Your Menopause Journey: Getting the Menopause Care You Deserve in 2026 on January 23rd at 12pm ET. More info and register here.

Health miscellany

⬇️ Cortisol and inflammation: 8 Foods That Can Help Lower Your Cortisol Levels and Make You Feel Calmer and 8 Powerful Herbs To Fight Inflammation Naturally.

🍎 America’s healthiest states: a map.

🍹 Dry January: Dr. Lucy McBride asks if you’re just kicking the can down the road by only cutting out alcohol for one month.

👨🏽‍⚕️ Doctors Without Borders: Israel has banned them and other aide NGO’s from Gaza. Also, a doctor on returning to Gaza after 665 days in an Israeli prison.

🤬 Government fuckery: by now you’ve likely heard about the changes the current administration made to the vaccine schedule. And RFK Jr.’s new food pyramid puts meat and dairy on top — and it doesn’t add up. Then there’s the Trump administration halting $10 billion in social service funding to 5 Democratic states. And this: The EPA is changing how it considers the costs and benefits of air pollution rules, meaning it will no longer include calculations on the costs to human health, but will only measure economic impacts (because: money matters more than people, and that is not really news). Lastly this week, Trump bill may result in over a million missed cancer screenings. They operate in the land of opposites: make America great/healthy again while they actively dismantle things that are great/healthy.

💪🏾 Fighting back: this might be the first time I’ve encountered more examples of fighting back than fuckery, and well, isn’t that cause for hope? (isn’t it?). First up, the monks! Buddhist monks walk across the U.S. on peace mission. Next, vaccines! Medical groups' challenge to Kennedy-backed vaccine policies can proceed, US judge rules. And Vaccine Integrity Project will conduct independent review of HPV vaccine (which has basically wiped out cervical cancer as a thing, but you know: women. So.) And there’s this: Kennedy's new vaccine schedule ignored by major healthcare providers, and thank goodness they are thinking for themselves. And then, some excellent rulings (thankfully some parts of the judiciary appear to be working…not looking at you, SCOTUS): Ruling: Trump administration cannot slash NIH research funding. And judge orders HHS to restore $12 million in funding to American Academy of Pediatrics. And judge blocks Trump effort to cut Head Start funds over words like ‘race’ and ‘women’. And locally, Wyoming Supreme Court keeps abortion legal, strikes down pill ban. And there’s this: lawsuit dismissed after Trump admin quietly restored tens of millions to Planned Parenthood (side rant: how much money has been wasted by this administration’s rash moves to cancel funding and fire people that they’ve then rolled back and restored/rehired? Just more proof that he has always been a terrible businessman, because this has to be wildly inefficient and costly. But the media noise from the ‘bold’ actions is louder than that of the restorations, and maybe he’s banking on that to sway a largely uninformed electorate. End rant). Lastly this week, federal employees file complaint against ban on gender-affirming care. Let’s hope they are heard.

🕊️ Cancer survival rates: an astounding report of progress from the American Cancer Society, despite all the fuckery. Seventy percent (70%) five-year survival rate for all cancers combined. Wow.

5️⃣ Five women’s health myths: debunked by doctors.

🤤 Can’t get motivated? This brain circuit might explain why — and it can be turned off.

🏋🏼‍♂️ How fit do we really need to be? Experts explain whether there’s such a thing as too much fitness. Chronic illness really loosened my grip on my workout beliefs (though I recommend just reading this article instead).

7️⃣ Seven health effects of loneliness: experts say it’s epidemic in the U.S. Read more here.

Inspiration & Recovery

🥲 A little non-recovery inspo: Father-daughter dance inside notorious prison changes lives of inmates.

🪞 Who Is Coming To Save You? A little motivational kick in the rear by Dan Buglio.

🤔 CFS vs. Long Covid: What’s the difference? And does it really matter? An excellent video by Coach Junior from CFS Recovery.

this actually happened to me a few weeks ago and it was definitely disorienting

🗽 Statue-esque: Her 1951 walkout helped end school segregation. Now her statue is in the U.S. Capitol.

📺 Streaming superlatives: The 100 Best TV Episodes of the Century, except that this list doesn’t include the penultimate episode of This is Us, which was the single best episode of television I’ve ever seen, and yet includes episodes from the Kardashians, Love Island, and Top Model. There is simply no justice in this world!

🔦 Blinded by the light: How Bright Headlights Escaped Regulation — and Blinded Us All. (My pro-tip: when headlights from an oncoming vehicle are blinding you, look ahead and to the right, at the white line on the edge of the road. This allows you to still see what’s coming but to not be looking directly into the ridiculously bright lights that aren’t actually someone’s brights).

🌋 Science in pictures: the best images of 2025. Click on this link; you won’t be disappointed.

🌃 NYC lore: I found this one interesting and enjoyable. Walking the Upper West Side: How a Dolphin Led Me to a Scandalous Story.

🤦🏻 Buffoon of the week: so many buffoons, so few posts…but this week, Jeanine Pirro caught my eye (she was once was the District Attorney where I live before her descent into right-wing windbaggery), after yet another high-profile defeat as the U.S. Attorney for Washington D.C. Her focus since being appointed to the role by Trump has been pursuing harsh penalties against individuals accused of attacking federal officers or threatening the president; she has failed multiple times. This time, it was trying to prosecute a man accused of pointing a laser at a Marine helicopter Trump was in. The jury acquitted the man after 35 minutes of deliberation. (For a good time, check out YouTube videos - like this one - of Cecily Strong as Pirro on SNL - 10/10).

🏆 Winner of the week: we have a repeat winner here, folks. It’s MacKenzie Scott, ex-wife of Jeff Bezos of Amazon infamy (and I’m only classifying her that way because it makes her wealth redistribution efforts more poignant - a real f-u to capitalism). In addition to the many tens of millions she has given to a variety of groups serving disadvantaged populations, she has now given $45 million to the LGBTQ+ youth program The Trevor Project. You may recall that our awful administration cut funding to the LGBTQ+ national youth hotline, which TTP runs and which provides life-saving counseling services to these young people. (side note: I wonder if MacKenzie thinks her marriage to Bozos was worth it so that she could single-handedly give away half of his obscene haul. No matter, we applaud her!).

🐈‍⬛ 💩 And finally, it’s this week’s Cat Dump. This one needs no explanation. I’ll let you decide who arrived on this chair first.

Like anything you saw here? 👇🏽

**Disclaimer: Although I AM licensed to drive and to practice social work, I am NOT a licensed medical professional. You should not rely on any information contained in this newsletter in making medical, health-related or other decisions. Please consult a doctor or other health professional.