Long Covid: Comprehensive Insights and Expertise in Dallas

There isn’t a single test or blood work to tell you have long covid.  Many of the symptoms from long covid overlap with several other conditions, but if your symptoms became worse or started after you had a covid 19 infection or had a covid 19 vaccine or booster, it is most likely from long covid.  Taste and smell abnormalities are somewhat specific to long covid.

12 points or higher and you have long covid according to this one study

Thaweethai T, Jolley SE, Karlson EW, et al. Development of a definition of postacute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection. JAMA. Published online May 25, 2023. doi:10.1001/jama.2023.8823.

There are several hypotheses on what causes it. We still don’t know if it is one or more causes. Some believe its direct damage from the covid-19 virus; others believe it’s from the cytokine storm that covid-19 virus creates.   There is some new evidence suggesting chronic inflammation around the olfactory nerve epithelium.  One possible mechanism is the dysautonomia or autonomic nervous system dysfunction that maintains the chronic inflammation.  This one explains most if not all of the symptoms exhibited.  While it goes by many different names: Long Covid or long hauler’s or post-acute covid syndrome (PACS), they all refer to the same constellation of symptoms.

Certain symptoms appear to occur from a low vagus nerve/parasympathetic tone, while other are more related to the high sympathetic nervous system tone.

Any condition that has damaged or continually damages your nervous system, especially the autonomic nervous system can put you at risk for developing long covid. Diabetes, preexisting POTS, Lyme disease, Rheumatoid arthritis, Lupus (SLE), are just some of the conditions that can put you at risk.

When the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is kicked into overdrive, it’s out of balance with the parasympathetic and vagus nerve tone. This is most likely due to the initial cytokine storm that can occur during the acute COVID-19 infection.  At the same time the vagus nerve of the parasympathetic (PNS) is thickened and suppressed.

This part of our nervous system handles all of the automatic functions that we don’t even think about such as digestion of food, stimulating the acid to be released in your stomach, regulating the diameter of your lung airways, breathing rate, heart rate, pupil size, sweating, and much more.  It also directly and indirectly helps maintain body temperature, regulate your immune system, and control inflammation.  It has 2 components: the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) and the sympathetic nervous system (SNS).  They work like a see-saw with each on either end.  Both are active at all times, but what actually happens depends on which one is in the driver’s seat or in control.

It helps to maintain your heart rate and breathing rate even if it’s not in control.  It controls your blood pressure.  Its main purpose is to protect you from harm and stress, the so-called fight or flight.  Best examples are if you almost got run over by a car or being chased by angry bees or dog, perhaps even during and after a heated argument.  Its function is to create the best possible conditions to either fight or run.  These could include dilating your pupils to allow light to enter the eye, increasing your heart rate and force of heart pumping, dilatating your airways to allow for harder and faster breathing, and supplying more blood flow to muscles of your arms and legs.  What does the SNS sacrifice to do all of this?  It shunts blood away from your digestive tract so that you won’t be digesting anything.  You won’t secrete anything: tears or saliva.  You will sweat though. 

Your body is meant to have the PNS in the driver seat most of the time. PNS allows your body to heal and take care of maintenance. SNS is like a wrecking ball to our inside, or better yet, a bull in a China shop (although, I can’t think of any time I would want that).  It’s great for short term when needed but not 24/7. You are being exposed to epinephrine (adrenaline) and cortisol all day long.  You will not only be on edge and have anxiety, but you will also have a difficult time shutting down to go to sleep.

The parasympathetic (PNS) is responsible for body maintenance and building new tissue, healing, controlling inflammation, and your immune system. This is your fun and relax system.  Keep the heart rate slow, reduce how fast you take breaths.  Digest all that food you ate.  The vagus nerve leaves your brain and travels throughout the body following the carotid artery and then the aorta.  It helps regulate most of digestive organs including the gallbladder.  It also controls the pacemaker of the heart or the sinoatrial node.  It even helps to decrease blood glucose by getting it turned into glycogen and stored in your liver. 

The vagus nerve is part of our parasympathetic (PNS). It modulates the immune system and inflammation. When it’s not working like it should, we see autoimmune conditions sprout up. We see chronic inflammation of nerves, muscles, and joints.

Initially this happens because of direct damage from the covid-19 virus to the supporting cells of the nerves of your nose and tongue, however this tends to heal within a few weeks after recovering from the virus. The smell and taste problems may spontaneously resolve after a few weeks, or they may turn into a lasting effect. The abnormality is fueled by stress and illnesses because both increase sympathetic drive.

There have been many different treatments proposed, but the ones that appear to be most successful and reliably reproduced are the stellate ganglion block and the external ear vagus nerve stimulation.  There are many other treatments for other symptoms of long covid.

It is a group of nerves located on each side of your cervical-thoracic vertebrae (the bones in your neck and chest part of your spine).  Signals from the brain stop there before going to the rest of your body.  Information for this ganglion is also relayed to the rest of the body including the face, brain, head, neck, arms, and chest.  You have one of these on each side of your neck.

It is shaped with points similar to a star so it was called a stellate.  It is similar to the word stellar.

It is a way to interrupt the signals going in and out from the stellate ganglion by numbing the ganglion with a local anesthetic such as lidocaine, ropivacaine, or bupivacaine.  This is performed under live ultrasound guidance at least in practice, but it can also be performed with fluoroscopy or live x-ray guidance.  This procedure is an injection but it is tolerated very well even awake.  We also block the C3 or C4 area which contains the superior cervical plexus and the sympathetic tract or road to the brain.  This is not technically part of the actual SGB, but has been shown to improve results by Dr. Eugene Lipov, MD.