How to Know if You Have Long Covid with Evan Hirsch - #127

How to Know if You Have Long Covid with Evan Hirsch - #127

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Hey everybody, welcome back to the EnergyMD podcast. I'm Evan Hirsch, the EnergyMD, where we help you resolve your chronic fatigue syndrome and long COVID so that you can get back to living the life that you deserve. So I'm really excited about today's episode, because today I'm going to be talking about how you know if you have long COVID.

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So if you're not aware, there's been this virus going around called COVID that started in about November 2019 and has been causing symptoms, whether it's an acute virus where you get a virus and it goes away or causing persistent symptoms where you get viral symptoms, runny nose, cough, fever, stuff like that, something that I'm just getting over. You can kind of hear it a little bit in my voice.

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but then symptoms that persist. So sometimes these symptoms go away for a little bit and then they come back and then they stay and sometimes they just stay. So that means you would get a virus and you'd get some weird symptoms maybe, maybe it's brain fog, maybe it's fatigue, maybe it's body pain, maybe it's sleep issues, maybe it's lack of taste and smell. There's over 200 different symptoms that COVID can cause.

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based on where it goes in the body. And then if it persists longer than four weeks, in general, it's going to have a hard time going away. And that's when it can be diagnosed as long COVID. That is also known as PASC or post-acute sequelae to SARS-CoV-2, that's the official name. So for us long COVID is...

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part and parcel of the work that we do because we've been specializing in chronic fatigue syndrome for the last decade. And chronic fatigue syndrome is caused by, what I now know is the toxic five. So this is a combination, these are the real root causes. So the adrenals, the thyroid, the mitochondria, those are also causes, but the root causes underneath everything are the toxic five.

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This is a combination of heavy metals, chemicals, molds, infections, and nervous system dysfunction or trauma. So that combination is what I have found is at the root of chronic fatigue syndrome. It just so happens, since we have been seeing people with long COVID, I've been applying my four step process.

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And we have seen resolution of their symptoms as well when we take them through this process, because the toxic five are also the causes of long COVID. The only difference is that COVID is a separate infection that we have to address. And when I talk about infections with chronic fatigue syndrome, we're talking about viruses like Epstein-Barr virus or cytomegalovirus. It could be bacteria or yeast or parasites.

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There's a number of them that we have to address. And we wanna make sure that we're not missing any cause. That's why we're making sure that we're addressing all of the toxic five. Now the toxic five will also cause deficiencies in the body. So deficiencies in adrenals, in thyroid, in mitochondrial function, in sex hormones, in vitamins, in minerals. So it really is this combination

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of the toxins that you're exposed to, and then the genetics that you have, and then the lifestyle habits that you practice. So oftentimes you can improve a little bit by optimizing your lifestyle habits. So this means making sure you're getting enough good food, which is generally means avoiding gluten, and dairy, and sugar, and alcohol, and focusing mainly on meat and vegetables. That's gonna be a low inflammatory diet.

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It means focusing your time on sleep, getting seven to nine hours of sleep a night. It means optimizing your movement. So when you're fatigued, oftentimes you cannot move as much as you'd like, but we are looking for the Goldilocks dose of movement. This is the ideal movement that you can do without feeling worse. And so that's food, that's sleep.

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That's movement, and then there's water, making sure that you're drinking three liters of clean water a day. So those are the lifestyle habits that we're looking for. So your genetics plus your lifestyle habits, and then the toxins that you're exposed to that end up contributing to a number of the deficiencies that you have, and that is oftentimes how you get your symptoms. So yes, when you start looking at your symptoms, you may see...

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You have adrenal gland dysfunction or sometimes called adrenal fatigue. You have thyroid issues. You might have mitochondrial issues because your energy is low. You might have sex hormone issues, not enough estrogen or progesterone. You might have vitamin or mineral deficiency. That is all true, but 95% of the time it's because the toxic five has caused those deficiencies. Okay. So then how do you know if you have long COVID?

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So if you have had a viral illness, even if it's really mild, because the research actually supports that the more mild symptoms you have, the more likely you are to get long COVID. So if you had a virus and you had symptoms that started after that virus, and this is all since November 2019, then it's possible that long COVID is in your differential. Now,

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Generally, you're going to have some of the other symptoms that we talked about as well. Fatigue or basically an exhaustion that's not relieved by rest, oftentimes leading to what's called post-exertional malaise. And this means that after you exert yourself, you feel more tired. You may have sleep issues. You may have body pain. You may have brain fog or a hard time thinking. And you may have mood issues. You may have issues with taste and smell.

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So these are some of the symptoms that you might have. So any sort of new symptom that you've experienced since a virus that has been persisting for longer than four weeks must be considered for long COVID. So if this is you, if you've been suffering, I highly recommend that you contact us or work with somebody who understands the Toxic Five, because unfortunately this is more than my functional medicine, natural medicine, and

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integrative medicine training provided me. Now I'm a medical doctor, I'm an MD, I went to medical school, I did a family medicine residency program, and I never learned any of these things. I did not learn about the Toxic Five, which really is at the root. And then when I came out of residency, and I started practicing functional medicine, learning integrative medicine and all those, I also did not learn it.

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And then I went into environmental medicine and I learned about heavy metals. But then I had to do separate trainings on infection and separate trainings on chemical toxicity and separate trainings on mold toxicity and then separate trainings on nervous system dysfunction. And each of those, essentially I did a master's degree on in order to be able to understand chronic fatigue syndrome and now long COVID. So we do have on our website at energymdmethod.com.

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A quiz on long COVID will also drop the link below and in the show notes so that you can take that quiz to see if you have long COVID. And if you are interested in our help, we have a course as a lower cost option that can walk you through our four step process. Or you can get on a free 20 minute call with me to see if I can help you. I'll review some of your history. I will let you know if I can help you, if I believe I can help you or not.

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If I can't, I will refer you elsewhere. But that 20 minutes will give us a chance to see if we're a good fit to work together. And if we are, you can go ahead and join one of our one-on-one programs. Everything is on our website. So the pricing and the different programs we offer, we try to be very transparent so that you know exactly what you're getting into. The other thing that's really important to consider is that when you're working with a practitioner,

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You want to make sure that they're specializing in the condition that you have. So if you have long COVID, you believe you have it, you do the quiz, and it seems like there's a high likelihood that you have long COVID, then you're going to want to make sure you work with somebody like me who specializes in long COVID because there are a lot of nuances to it. So one of the things I forgot to mention was testing. Some people may be thinking, well, what about blood testing or urine testing?

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Are there tests available for long COVID right now? And the answer, unfortunately, is no. The testing that is currently being explored is looking more at inflammatory markers that people believe are specific to long COVID. But oftentimes when you have long COVID, your immune system is dysfunctional. And so if you're looking at the immune system's reaction to COVID,

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you're not going to get a positive response. This is also a reason why when you get a virus and you test yourself to see whether or not it's COVID and it's not COVID, you tell everybody, I don't have COVID and that may not be the case. Part of that is also because the variants that you currently have when you have an acute virus is probably not the variance that is being tested for.

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in the laboratory test because this virus mutates so quickly. So unfortunately, the testing is out and you have to go by history and symptoms. So hopefully this was helpful for you. If you have any questions, please drop them below and I'll see you in the next episode. Thanks so much for paying attention and being here today. So if you have chronic fatigue, long COVID or mast cell activation syndrome and you're looking for help.

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Check us out at energymdmethod.com. We have a program for almost every single budget and we're here to help.

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Sharing all the experts I know and love and the powerful tips I have is one of my absolute favorite things to do. Thanks for being part of my community. Just a reminder, this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. It is provided with the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. Thanks for listening and have an amazing day.