"I finally got my life back!"

Another day watching life pass me by, thought Cindy McDaniel, 58, as she lay in bed. Unable to focus on a book, TV or her phone, the once-active mental health counselor spent weeks doing nothing

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"After having COVID during Christmas of 2020, I developed long COVID that left me with such unbearable fatigue that taking a shower and brushing my teeth forced me back to bed for hours from exhaustion," recalls Cindy.

Too tired to function

"On top of the excessive tiredness, I had such a heavy layer of brain fog that I couldn't concentrate on anything! I felt like there was a thick coating in my head, making it hard for thoughts to form or make any sense.

"The fatigue grew so severe, I became bed-bound for months, and my husband had to take care of me and the household. We had to rehome our puppy to a wonderful friend in California, which was so hard, but my husband could not take care of him and me and his job. Depression seeped in as I grew more and more sad that the fatigue and fog were slowly stealing every part of my life.

"For more than four months after recovering, the inability to do anything offered few options beyond lying in bed, looking out the window. I developed severe anxiety because of my health, which, teamed with the fatigue, landed me in a constant state of hypervigilance and exhaustion. I only slept a few hours a night, waking up frequently with nightmares.

"My primary care physician offered no treatment. She simply said, 'There's nothing we can do to help you.' Unwilling to accept that this was how I'd feel for the rest of my life, I consulted a functional medicine doctor, who prescribed off-label treatments like hyperbaric oxygen therapy, low-dose naltrexone, antidepressants and more to combat my long COVID and restore my energy levels. While her efforts validated that how I felt wasn't all in my head, nothing she prescribed sparked a recovery, so I stopped the treatments.