Long Covid
Long Covid, and its shorter-lived twin, Lingering Covid, are leftovers from Covid infection. Why are they so different from other infections in their after-effects?
Long Covid is an autoimmune illness. What that means is that Covid infection can trigger a cascade of events that causes the body to attack its own cells. Let’s look into how that happens.
There are two major types of immunity: Innate and Acquired. Simply stated, Innate Immunity is the immune system we’re born with, and Acquired Immunity is the more specific immunity that targets more persistent infections.
Our Innate Immune System is always monitoring all of the tissues and cells in our body, filtering through them constantly, looking for cells that are behaving abnormally. When the Innate Immune System detects a cell that’s been infected with bacteria or viruses, it secretes substances that kill the entire cell and its contents. Thus the Innate Immune System does not specifically kill the intruders, it kills the entire infected cell.
If there are a lot of infected cells in the area (like your throat in the case of a budding cold or flu), this process repeats itself thousands or even millions of times. In the process of killing all of those cells, debris gets dumped into the bloodstream. Your Acquired Immune System then begins the process of making antibodies to the invaders. The issue here is that the debris contains not just DNA from the offending bacterium or virus, but also your own DNA.
During an overwhelming infection, your Acquired Immune system makes antibodies to the offending virus or bacterium that caused the infection, but also can make antibodies to the fragments of your own DNA that were destroyed in the early phases of the infection. That could be from any of the tissues that were infected, including throat, lungs, digestive system, heart, brain—you get the idea.
These newly-made antibodies then ‘flag’ their targets anywhere in the body. Antibodies, however, don’t kill their targets, though they may hinder their function. The flagged cells get destroyed when the body produces high levels of chemical messengers called cytokines (SIGH-toe-kinz), usually in response to a future immune provocation.
Let’s take a step back and look into cytokines. There are many different cytokines, or chemical messengers, in the body. But let’s just look at 2 types: pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines.
Pro-inflammatory cytokines are chemical messengers that ramp up inflammation in most if not all tissues in the body. They are usually secreted in response to an infection or other intrusion in the body. These cytokines travel rapidly throughout the body, sounding the general alarm that a serious threat is afoot. This has the protective effect of mobilizing immune system resources to quickly resolve an infection. Under ideal conditions, this happens quickly, often within hours, and then anti-inflammatory cytokines are released to quiet the inflammation and restore the body’s equilibrium.
In people with a generally-increased level of inflammation, the ‘flagged’ tissues are continuously targeted and destroyed, long after a Covid infection has resolved. This increased inflammation is often caused by undiagnosed food allergies or sensitivities. This often leads to an incomplete resolution of the infection, with resulting impaired function of various tissues and organs within the body. These tissues often need assistance to help fully resolve the Lingering or Long Covid.
This syndrome is not just a new development of the pandemic. Post-Viral Syndrome, with symptoms of fatigue and malaise, has been around for centuries. Covid infection tends to produce a higher incidence of this syndrome, and of course is now known as Long Covid.
In my practice, I treat Long Covid with tools such as Cranial Osteopathy, targeted nutritional supplementation (including Chinese Herbs), and dietary modification with excellent results.
For more information, please contact our office.
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