3 1/2 years of long covid with normalcy in sight finally
Figured I'd come back and give an update since it's been about 2 years since I originally posted about my experience with Long COVID.
I'm coming up on 4 years since I originally got COVID in August of 22 and about 3 1/2 years since everything really went to shit in March of 23.
It's honestly crazy going back and reading what I wrote 2 years ago because at the time I thought I was finally starting to get somewhere. I was, but I had no idea how long this recovery was actually going to take.
For anyone who didn't see my original post, I got COVID August 22, got better and thought I was out of the woods. October came around and I started getting these unbelievable headaches above my left eye that I'd never experienced before. December my pre existing SVT started acting up more. January I almost fainted at my ex girlfriend's house and could barely get myself up the stairs.
Then March 23 came around and basically opened the flood gates.
Brain fog, lightheadedness, exertional fatigue, headaches, palpitations, food intolerance, dissociation, tingling in my hands and feet, sensitivity to fluorescent lights and just this overall feeling that my nervous system had completely lost its mind.
I drive for Dominos for a living and during that first year there were days where walking up somebody's driveway or going up a flight of stairs felt like I just ran a marathon. I was 25 years old wondering how the hell I went from being able to live normally to having to think about whether walking up someone's driveway was going to cook me.
Eventually things started getting better but I made the mistake a lot of people probably make. I'd have a good stretch, think I was finally better, start working out or pushing myself again and boom I'd crash.
That's when I really learned what pacing was and stopped trying to fight my body every time it told me to slow down.
Fast forward to August 2026 and I'm definitely not 100% yet, but holy shit am I in a different place than I was.
I work normally. I walk thousands of steps during my shifts. I've been able to start testing the waters with the gym again. The crazy food reactions are nowhere near what they used to be. The palpitations have gotten significantly better and labetalol has done a pretty good job keeping my SVT under control.
I still get lightheaded sometimes. Fluorescent lights can still bother me. I still get random autonomic weirdness and my body definitely lets me know when I've pushed it too far.
And I still crash.
I'm actually going through a flare right now which is what made me think about posting this.
But the crashes are just...different now.
A couple years ago a crash felt like my entire body stopped functioning correctly. Now I'll get hit with fatigue, lightheadedness, sleep 10 hours, feel weird for a few days and slowly start coming back.
The intensity isn't what it used to be.
The duration isn't what it used to be.
And the amount of normal life I'm able to live between them is getting bigger and bigger.
That's probably the biggest thing I've learned through all of this. Recovery doesn't necessarily mean waking up one morning and everything is gone.
For me it's been my baseline slowly moving up while the crashes slowly move down.
Sometimes it's so damn slow you don't even realize you're getting better.
Then you read something you wrote 2 years ago and realize the things you were struggling to do back then are things you don't even think twice about anymore.
I've cleaned my diet up a ton. Processed food is almost nonexistent now. I prioritize getting 7-9 hours of sleep probably more than anything else. I've learned not to immediately go balls to the wall because I had 3 good days in a row. I've also gotten much better at recognizing when my body is telling me it's had enough.
I still have my bad days. This current flare has reminded me of that.
But it's nowhere near 2023.
It's not even where I was when I made my original post.
For the first time in a long time I actually feel like normalcy is returning instead of constantly wondering whether I'm ever going to feel normal again.
I have no idea if I'll eventually get back to 100%. I don't think anybody can answer that.
But if you would've shown the 2023 version of me where I'd be in August 2026, I would've taken this shit in a heartbeat.
So if you're early into this I can't tell you what your recovery is going to look like. Everybody seems to have their own version of this garbage.
All I can say is don't automatically assume that because you've been dealing with it for 1, 2, 3 or even 4 years that you've reached the best you're ever going to get.
I'm still improving.
It's just taken a hell of a lot longer than I ever thought it would.