Vitality101 Newsletter

Hello Reader,

Most people with CFS, fibromyalgia or long COVID experience dizziness or disequilibrium. This tends to fall into several categories:

1. Lightheadedness on standing. This tends to be associated with POTS (orthostatic intolerance). Basically, when you stand up, gravity sends blood to your feet, and it stays there for a while.
2. Dysequilibrium on standing or when you've been walking around for a while. This dizziness feels more like you're on the deck of a boat, resulting in poor balance.
3. Vertigo. This is when you, or the room you're in, feel like you or it is spinning in a circle. This is less common and suggests infectious triggers.

Fortunately, none of these are especially dangerous. New research shows that the disequilibrium can be treated as well as the POTS. Here are simple at home tests you can do to tell which type(s) you have and how to treat them.

Do You Have Asthma? I Have a Favor to Ask

If you or a friend of yours has asthma, I'd like to ask you to try something and let me know if it helped.

I’ve observed that when a person is having an asthma attack, placing a heating pad over the chest may help improve breathing. I suspect this could be due to a reflex arc occurring between the chest wall muscles and the airways in the lungs, which results in helping them relax.

But I don’t know if this is an unusual quirk or if it's just something common in asthma. So I'm looking for feedback. If you or someone you know has asthma, please try this, or ask your friend to try this, during an asthma attack and let me know what happens—either way, whether it helped or didn't. And if it does help, how long it took. If you find out, please let me know by emailing me at FatigueDoc@gmail.com.

BTW, taking an herb called Boswellia (500 mg 3x day) or preferably BosMed 500 mg twice a day for a few weeks can also help asthma. You can find both at most health food stores or on Amazon.

Question to Dr. T on Nicotine Patches for Long COVID

Question:

I read your book You Can Heal From Long COVID and I'm hopeful of finding relief after almost 6 years. However, I was surprised that nowhere did you mention nicotine as possible treatment. I have used nicotine gum and it seems to help. The idea is that it removes spike proteins. But my sense is that perhaps it is just a stimulant. Do you have an opinion on the use of nicotine patches or gum to assist with long COVID recovery by removal of spike proteins?

Thank you—Kimberly

Answer:

There are several hundred different treatments that can help in small groups, but the focus of my book is treatments that help the largest percent of people with long COVID.

There are many neurotransmitter deficiencies and issues in LC. Acetylcholine is one, and the nicotine does stimulate these receptors. But it is controversial as to whether nicotine eliminates or displaces spike protein.

Do you have a question for Dr. T? Visit Ask Dr. T at our website and send it to us (if a generally helpful question, we may ask for your permission to publish it here anonymously).

Dr. T’s Facebook Support Group — Now 1,100 Strong!

People are already sharing experiences, learning together, and getting answers in our new Facebook Support Group—come join the conversation.

Featured This Week

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Optical Illusion: These Spheres Are the Same Color

The spheres below are all the exact same color. Don't believe me? Scroll down to the next image.

Here's the same image with all the colored stripes changed to white, revealing that each of the spheres is the exact same beige color. The skewed perception is caused by a phenomenon known as the Munker-White illusion.

(Image credit: David Novick)