Yeah, it could be something other than long-covid, but I'm entertaining the possibility based on my experience and correspondence of symptoms. It could also be depression which has also been shown to impact cognition.

I feel like in my case, there was improvement and then slight decline. I have been taking 5htp daily which seems to help in general, but don't know if that general assistance is addressing what I'm assuming may belong covid.

I do notice benefits regarding my specific cognitive issues whenever I interact with something serotonergic, but am wondering if there would be more benefit from working with more phenethylamines.

One love

One of the common symptoms of long covid is depression. So, there you have an extra correlation which may impacts it all.

Phenethylamines would be an interesting route? Like in micro- or macrodosing?

It may be that it accelerated and increased lifelong depression.

I was actually thinking a little of both. What do you think?

One love

Void, having covid five times is pretty nasty, glad you are finding your way through it. I picked it up in Jan '22 and it knocked me over for 6 months barely able to leave the house. I was walking an hour a day at that time and feeling on top of the world. The next day I was floored, chair bound and it felt like my brain had been removed. The smashing depression was not much fun either, but it did go.

You symptoms are much like mine were, not only no energy and sleeping day and night, but I couldn't think. I'm an author and I couldn't even read a paragraph from one of the books I needed for my research let alone write a sentence.

Then in June an ex patient of mine dropped in and we chatted about covid and his recent heart surgery. he said that he turned to herbs for treatment rather than take the meds his doc recommended. he said he hasn't looked back. So I asked what he took and did my research and ordered my herbs. Within three days of boiling, cooling and drinking my herbal tea I began to pick up. But, it still took me another year and a half before I could think about writing again.

Two weeks ago my wife and I went with our kids and grandkids to a south pacific island resort for Christmas. It was lovely the first few days, lots swimming and happy hour was great but half way through we all got covid, damn!

The heat and humidity made my wife and I almost pass out on our way home. The airport was not airconditioned and the 4 hr wait to fly out almost killed us. I must say that this second (or maybe more since I didn't test previous periods of unwellness) was no where near as bad as the 1st, thank the gods, but it hasn't been much fun. I tested negative a few days ago and have been feeling OK, but the humidity where I live, sub tropics, has really hit hard. So much for trying to save a few dollars on turning the aircon off early, i can't even sleep without it now.

There are two major positive take-outs from this nasty experience: after 6 months of long covid I started exploring alternatives, like mushrooms, now I grow my own; soon after discovering shrooms I explored marijuana for fatigue and sleep, OMG it worked. Now I am sleeping like a babe and meditating with a combination of the two, low dose and microdose are what works for me. In many ways I am grateful for what came out of my covid experience.

As per the article, I've read it and others that point to the importance of our gut microbiome to our immune system including serotonin production. I'm vegan and eat very well mostly avoiding vegan junk food, though I do love it. The only time during these two years have I got the trots was from eating massive amounts of watermelon, mangoes and papaya to get over this 2nd dose of covid.

When i had covid, all i could do is sleep. The first two days i tried taking a walk, but where i can normally walk for hours, i was totally worn out after maybe just ten or twenty minutes. I then realized that it was probably best to just go with it and not drain my body from any other drop of energy needed to fight off this virus.

It was discovered very early on during the pandemic, that people who exercise heavily, like athletes or marines, where much more likely to get very sick from the virus.

I can totally imagine heat to be absolutely unbearable when you've got covid or when recovering from it. It made me feel quite stuffy already without any tropical heat or moist.

Hi Dragonrider, covid is nasty stuff isn't it, that feeling of being smashed with fatigue after exercise they call 'Post Exertion Malaise', it's common with chronic fatigue sufferers too. Anyone who exercises a lot and tries to use that as a way to break through their post exertion malaise must really hit the wall at times.

Covid has impacted so many people who are now having to go to work and operate as before but the darn virus just won't go away. Who knows what the long term effects on society will be.

As per serotonin production, 95% of which occurs on the bowels produced by our good bacteria, it must surely be reduced in people with covid. I think that the depression can't just be because we feel so unwell and can't do anything, I'd say low levels of serotonin probably contribute to it.