Not sure if this has been mentioned, but there's a new term "long haulers" which describes people who allegedly contracted this virus and came down with a large number of long-lasting symptoms. They're getting a bit of flack on SM from those with a clue about the manipulations around this virus, but I wonder if they're actually being honest rather than hysterical.
"How long does it take you to get back to normal? That's an open question," Dr. Anthony Fauci told NBC News.
www.nbcnews.com
Maybe this ties into what the Cs said about the original intent of the original strain of the virus - to make people more controllable - and these cases are people who contracted this strain and did not mutate it within their own bodies. After all, the only way I can think of that any designed virus could realistically make people 'more controllable' would be by compromising their health in these more subtle, but nevertheless significant, ways
I am sharing an essay written by Lissa Rankin, MD, who left her job in conventional medicine in 2007.
She is addressing the Covid "Long Hauler" issue, so I have added it to this Thread.
Moderators please move it if there is an alternate thread.
A bit about Lissa:
Lissa began experimenting in her
integrative medicine practice with what really helps resolve symptoms in people with chronic illness who have failed to improve with either conventional medicine or alternative medicine.
All roads led to the same conclusion:
People who are not responding to other treatments often have untreated, unhealed trauma, and treating that trauma can sometimes lead to seemingly miraculous radical remissions.
Is Long Covid A Trauma Symptom?
When I read the
statistics that say 1/3 of people who recover from Covid wind up with psychological and/or neurological symptoms, and when we realize that
10-20% of Covid survivors wind up with long Covid, I think it's valid to consider
whether long Covid could be a trauma symptom that might respond positively to trauma treatment as part of a comprehensive treatment plan.
We already know that
pathogens can incite a physiological event that can trigger autoimmune-like responses. Post-viral illnesses are nothing new, although
they reveal a massive blind spot in the way conventional medicine approaches such symptoms.
From what I've read about long Covid, it behaves like an autoimmune disease, almost like chronic Lyme, which is also incited by infection with a pathogen but whose symptoms can linger after the infection has been treated.
From my trauma-informed point of view,
autoimmune disease is often a response to situational, developmental, or collective trauma, a point of view mirrored by family practice doctor Gabor Mate, MD in When The Body Says No.
This is not to suggest that long Covid is solely a psychological/ psychiatric disease, in that it's not "all in your head."
It is infection with the virus itself that acts as the inciting trigger, and the damage done to the body is real.
But it may not be the virus itself causing long Covid symptoms, as Covid tests are negative in long Covid patients.
The virus is gone- or perhaps it's more accurate to say that it's hiding-
but an immune system hyperactively stimulated by the physiology of the long physiological distress caused by trauma may do the rest.
Is this because of the trauma of having Covid itself?
Maybe.
Certainly, getting infected with a potentially lethal virus during a global pandemic and then surviving that virus is a trauma worthy of treating, in and of itself.
But I have a hunch that those who suffer long Covid symptoms had presetting untreated trauma and or unrecognized chronic stress before becoming infected with Covid.
Add to preexisting trauma the psychological and physiological stress of having Covid, especially if people were
isolated, terrified, and alone in the ICU, and
this will amplify and re-traumatize preexisting trauma.
As a doctor and somewhat of an expert on trauma and its impact on the physical body, I'd be interested in seeing an assessment of childhood trauma scales (situational and/or developmental) of long Covid patients.
My suspicion is that their preexisting trauma burdens may be high, which puts their immune systems at risk of overzealously activating after Covid infection.
Especially considering the collective traumas many Covid patients will have endured, such as systemic racism, colonization of the Indigenous, the stress of preexisting chronic illness, the social isolation and loneliness common among the elderly, and the impact of poverty and financial injustice on the nervous system, it would make sense that the population of Covid survivors would be at higher risk of the long term sequelae of long Covid, if it is indeed related to trauma.
As Somatic Experiencing founder and trauma therapist
Peter Levine, PhD said, "Trauma is perhaps the most avoided, ignored, belittled, denied, misunderstood, and untreated cause of human suffering."
If this hypothesis is true, then
effective trauma healing work may be a necessary and highly effective part of any comprehensive and holistic treatment plan for long Covid, one that should not be overlooked or treated solely with medication.
I'm not suggesting trauma healing should be the ONLY treatment; conventional medicine has treatments likely to help as well.
I'm just saying we should not treat just the symptoms without also treating what may have predisposed the patient to long term sequelae in the first place.
We already know from the study of rheumatoid arthritis patients and their positive response to Internal Family Systems (IFS) trauma treatment that trauma healing can improve some symptoms of that particular autoimmune disease.
And anecdotally, as I discovered from a decade of researching Sacred Medicine,
conditions like chronic Lyme, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and dysautonomia respond positively to trauma treatment when other medical treatments often fail.
Will treating trauma cure long Covid?
We don't know yet, but given the prevalence of long Covid and the public health crisis its impact is having, it's worthy of further scientific study.
Methods of effectively treating complex trauma include Internal Family Systems (IFS), Advanced Integrative Therapy (AIT), and Somatic Experiencing, among others.
Techniques like EMDR or Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) can also be used for trauma symptom relief and can be helpful when added to other complete psychotherapies, such as IFS, AIT, Somatic Experiencing, and Jungian psychotherapy, but in my opinion, should not be considered complete trauma treatment on their own, as they may not get to the root of the earliest iteration of a current trauma symptom.
It is my hope, as an advocate of healing during a great public health crisis, that the medical system not make the mistake it usually does- neglecting and ignoring the impact of trauma on the origin of and treatment of physical disease.
To treat long Covid, we must at least take a complete trauma history (including developmental trauma, which is harder to screen for) and ensure that long Covid patients who carry a high trauma burden get the effective treatment they need- ideally without expecting them to pay out of pocket for trauma treatment.
Until we offer this kind of truly holistic and trauma-informed treatment, we are failing to tend to our most vulnerable and need to take a hard look at our values, not only in the medical system, but as a culture.
If you or someone you love is one of those long Covid patients,
please know that many people in my inner circle, including When The Body Says No author Gabor Mate, MD, IFS founder Richard Schwartz, PhD, Harvard psychiatrist and author of CURED Jeffrey Rediger, MD, AIT founder Asha Clinton, PhD, the Somatic Experiencing team, and others on the cutting edge of the link between trauma and disease are comparing notes and working together to heartstorm solutions to this massive public health crisis.
In the non-profit
I am spearheading, Heal At Last, we are also aware that creating affordable, accessible, safe, scalable, effective, community-based trauma treatment and spiritual healing are desperately needed right now, especially for long Covid survivors, but
also for others with chronic illnesses that conventional medicine doesn't know how to treat. We are working on it.
We care about you.
You matter.
Your suffering matters.
We carry you in our hearts and are so sorry for what you're going through.
