sovietknuckles [they/them]

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Joined 4 years ago
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Cake day: July 26th, 2020

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  • For recovery from long COVID, one user from r/covidlonghaulers who recovered thought in 2022 that long COVID is result of too much glutamate, and more recent studies support that hypothesis (for example, see this review). Normally, your body is supposed to convert glutamate to GABA, but under this theory, long COVID patients struggle to convert all of their glutamate, resulting in brain fog.

    That poster thinks that magnesium and iron are key. From a 1-year follow-up after that:

    • Magnesium, in various forms (see their follow-up post for details). The form of magnesium that crosses the blood-brain barrier most easily is magnesium threonate, but it’s patented by a bazinga company that licenses its patent out to to supplement companies, so this form is far more expensive than other forms of magnesium. Other magnesium supplements are probably fine.

    • Iron, if you’re iron-deficient. A ferritin lab will tell you this.

    Even if you’re doing everything right, it will probably take months and months at the very least to recover, though hopefully you’ll notice a difference sooner than later.

    They also suggest DLPA as a shorter-term crutch, since magnesium and iron take longer to help regulate your glutamate.