u/BrennusSokol

46M, GERD for 30+ years, had HH discovered during endoscopy in ~2015. Things well-controlled for a long time, I wonder if core/ab exercises caused the HH to get worse a few months ago

I had been trying lots of acid reflux stuff: 1 Prilosec in the morning, 1 Pepcid before dinner, and lots of Gaviscon. And it was weird because it didn't seem to be helping that much

I also have been trying to avoid the classic GERD trigger foods. But I was finding I was having symptoms even with avoiding those. And a couple nights ago I had avocado (fatty) with dinner, but had no issues.

Last night I had little to none in the way of trigger foods, but DID do a pretty large meal, including with liquid volume, and I ended up having upper abdominal/lower chest pressure/bloating for hours, and heartburn overnight.

It really seems like the big meal / big stomach volume is the biggest factor.

.

.

Maybe someone can help talk me down or offer another perspective

So over the last 4-5 months, I had been making comments on this subreddit about how my brain fog and shortness of breath seemed much improved. And they really were.

But with some recent low sleep nights, and with a higher-exertion day yesterday (yard work, etc.) I felt shortness of breath and brain fog come back

One thing that's different about the last ~6 months is my activity level is lower (I can see it with my step counter... ~3,100 avg steps/day this year, 4,100 last year [and 6,500 pre-LC]). Partly this was winter time and the weather, partly it was because I had an inguinal hernia (now repaired) so I simply could not be as active

So the scary thought is: shit, maybe my "improvements" were just me being within a better energy envelope and my real, true baseline is not any higher

Long Covid for 2.75 years for me... so then I wonder... how long does this go on? Scary

tl;dr: stress hormones can mask fatigue and you can get used to symptoms and not even realize you're in a crash, so be sure to give yourself full permission to REST

Background:

46 year old male with long covid for 2.75 years, moderate severity (not bedbound, but not so mild as to be able to work fulltime or do hiking or other normal things I used to).

I've seen some slight recovery over the last few months (brain fog slightly better, shortness of breath noticeably better) but I'm still not out of the woods

Recent reflection:

So I developed an inguinal hernia in early Feb 2026. It sucked. Had to wait 2.5 months for surgery. And I completed the surgery about 3 weeks ago and am slowly getting back to normal physically.

But I think I was in a crash state for 3+ weeks because I was so nervous about the surgery, and dealing with the post-op pain and worry (did it work? how long to heal? etc.)

This afternoon I took a 30 minute nap. And I felt this familiar feeling I've had many times in the past where I can quite literally feel the sympathetic nervous system letting go and my muscles and mind relaxing. I picked up my phone and glanced at the time: 28 minutes. It took 28 minutes to get into that relaxed state. And I can feel my mind is sharper and cleaner now and my stuttering (a cognitive symptom of my LC) is reduced.

One crazy thing about LC is that: 1) you can have stress hormones mask fatigue and think you're doing better than you are, 2) you can have crashes that go on for so long that you get used to the symptoms (e.g. the brain fog) and forget what normal feels like

This afternoon I'm going to continue to rest, not do my part-time freelance job, and see if I can get back to a "relatively symptom-free LC baseline" state

I recently bought a Ducky One 2 RGB TKL RGB (Cherry MX brown) and I'm loving it. It replaces a previous mechanical keyboard that was giving me issues. Things I like about it:

• I love the keycap shape: previous one was DSA and this is Cherry style and that shape just agrees with me a lot more
• The RGB actually shines through the keycaps unlike previous board
• The RGB is easy to do basic controls from the keyboard itself so I haven't felt a need to install software
• The keys register crisply and firmly, previous board had chatty keys
• I believe it's all plastic, but the base feels heavy and solid

I'm on a budget and it wasn't cheap, so I was nervous about spending the money. But so far I am really happy with it. :-D