Treatment: Nicotine Patches (felt like time travel to sickness pre-Covid)
I’m quoted in Could Nicotine Patches Help Treat Long COVID Symptoms? on VeryWellHealth
https://www.verywellhealth.com/nicotine-patches-long-covid-treatment-8705089
The first wave of effects were mostly increased focus, decreased appetite, and the benefits that I think many ADHD people like me associate with caffeine, nicotine, or other stimulants.
The second wave of side effects were what are illustrated here, and really strange. It felt like a time machine to what sickness used to be like for me–like back when at the end of a college semester I would be very worn down and get a cold that’d put me out for a few days. It felt like that, not like my last year and a half of chronic illness.
The lasting changes I saw were a reversion to pre-second infection baseline in resting heart rate and HRV, as well as some cognitive improvements, especially in listening comprehension of audiobooks and television without subtitles.