I MAY be on the road to recovery

45 year old male. Healthy and active lifestyle precovid, worked out, ate healthy enough. I am a type 1 diabetic, but no one knows if I got one of the very first rounds of Covid in late 2019. The timing works out. I was diagnosed with diabetes in late 2021 after 6-9 months of trying to figure out what was going on. I’m about 3 1/2 years into LC and got a known positive during omicron. My main issues are cfs/pem (general weakness),brain fog, RA pain type symptoms,and gut issues. My looonnnng symptom list has dwindled down a lot with time. I don’t suffer from histamine type stuff (although might not be true after you read below).

My lung and cough issues I think just went away with time. If I get a cold the feeling comes back and it takes a lot longer than it did precovid, to recover from pulmonary issues.

Onto what seems to be working:

1. First thing I noticed, is my cardiologist put me on metoprolol to control my PEM and resting heart rate. This was not a massive change but it was super noticeable. I just felt less physically taxed and stressed all the time. I noticed a change within about a month. Did wonders to both keep my heart rate down and brought my blood pressure way down also. I never had blood pressure issues before but it was becoming an issue with LC. I was able to actually walk for more than a block without feeling like I had just ran a marathon once I started this.

2. Biggest change. Switched to eating only 1 meal a day. Not gonna lie. This sucks. Being insulin dependent diabetic I ate pretty health before. What changed first was I noticed I felt crappy and tired after I ate. I knew some of it was probably food sensitivities so I really minimized any of that first. Didn’t help. So I stopped eating. I would do small 24 hr fasts multiple times a week. I noticed I felt just a tick better once my body got over feeling hungry and in fight or flight. I moved to 1 meal a day. With LC I now have a lot of food sensitivities I didn’t before or didn’t notice and non obvious things are an issue. For example, pork, legumes/beans, broccoli, bell peppers, I really have to watch quantity. Garlic is a no go. Dairy more or less a no go. All of which I love. So bummer. When I do eat, I pretty much eat whatever (minus food sensitivity) and how ever much I want (or as much my stomach can handle).

The change has been pretty major on the CFS/PEM. I think between minimizing food sensitivities, losing extra weight (I wasn’t overweight but carrying around an extra 10-15 lbs vs being super lean, I’m at like 8% body fat right now), and fixing gut issues have all played a major role.

I started very light weight lifting again and started doing very light body weight calisthenics. No way I could do that a year ago. Also I’m not crashing like I did before. A crash before was like a 7-14 day ordeal. Now it’s at most a day or I actually recover a bit if I lay down and take a nap. My sleep has as gotten more consistent and better in general.

My brain fog has also gotten better. Granted I did have to change how I think and how much I tax my brain. But things are better.

Supplements: I can say for sure a year ago they weren’t doing anything. Now they may be helping with some positive movement but not totally sure. I take all the majors ones that have been talked about on Reddit. Glutathione, NAC, Quertcin, NGK, etc. I’m giving it another month or two to see if I notice a jump. If not I’ll probably drop the supplements. I can post it here if you guys want the list.

Things feel like they are compounding in a positive direction for the first time. Hope this helps some of you!