Is it Long COVID or Something Else

Millions of people around the world have what's known as long COVID. But what is long COVID? How do you know if you have it and most importantly, what can you do if you do have it? Jacob Teitelbaum, MD, is considered one of the nation's leading physician experts on post viral chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia and he is also the co-author of the new book You Can Heal From Long COVID. On this show, he helps listeners understand long COVID and describes his comprehensive treatment plan.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Any health related information on the following show provides general
information only. Content presented on any show by any host
or guest should not be substituted for a doctor's advice.
Always consult your physician before beginning any new diet, exercise,
or treatment program.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Hi everyone, and welcome to Five to Thrive Live. I'm
Carolyn Gazilla and I co host this show with my
good friend doctor Lisa Ulschuler. Today our topic is long COVID,
which is a complex condition that is more common than
you may think, as millions of people around the world
are struggling with it. But before we die into this

(01:00):
important topic, I'd like to thank our sponsors, beginning with
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(01:21):
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(02:03):
and it contains twelve probotic strains that are shelf stable,
so the refrigeration is required. Because of a unique three
year fermentation process, It's a very effective probiotic. Learn more
at doctor Ohira probiotics dot com. With me today is
doctor Jacob Titelbaum, who is considered one of the nation's
leading physician experts on post viral chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia.

(02:27):
He is also the co author of the new book
You Can Heal From Long COVID, which is our topic today,
Doctor title Bomb, thanks for joining me.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
Carolyn, always a pleasure to be on with you and
move the listeners. And for those of you with fatigue, pain,
and a host of other conditions, brain fog and the rest,
we're going to teach you how to tell what's going
on and how to make it go away and get
your vitality back.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Absolutely. So let's start with something very basic.

Speaker 3 (02:54):
What is long COVID, So basically the state and a
definition which is horrible. Is any symptom that persists more
than three months after long COVID. It's like calling it
car crash disease and not differentiating between a skull fracture
and the sprain thumb or a nose bleed. So, but

(03:16):
in real life, we're talking mostly about either post viral
chronic fatigue syndrome, which is where you have tired achy rain,
fog and often insomnia along with a mix of other symptoms,
or organ damage where you have known heart disease or
lung disease or stroke or other conditions. Most of these

(03:38):
are very very treatable, but the treatments are low costs,
so most physicians are not familiar with them.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
So what are the most common signs and symptoms of
long COVID? You mentioned brain fog, insomnia. I know that
there's a whole host of symptoms, So what.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
Are they, Well, there's over one hundred. Wow. Okay, So
the thing is that it's kind of like smoke from
a fire. The core issue is there's an energy crisis.
That energy crisis trips a circuit breaker in the brain
called the hypothalamus, and once that hits, that controls sleep.
So you have all kinds of trouble falling and staying asleep.

(04:18):
It controls your hormones, so you'll have symptoms of low
thyroid with tired ache, weight gain, cold intolerant, you'll have
symptoms of lower adrenal, especially being irritable when hungry is
the key and classic one. Although you can get light headed,
which has to do with the what's called pots, you

(04:38):
can have numerous other infections that can be unleashed because
of the covid. It Basically one of the way COVID
hides is to unleash latent infections like epstein bar candida.
It makes your immune system have trouble fighting day to
day infections. You'll see numbness and tingling, nerve pain. There's

(04:59):
just a host of symptoms. But again, if you have
a paradox this mix. If you're exhausted brain fog, you
probably got it. If you've got widespread pain and insomnia,
you certainly don't also have a post viral chronic critigue syndrome.
Or if you have the pain fibromyalgia, and if it
happened after COVID, we call it long COVID.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
I see, yeah, and I you know, I know about
the fatigue and the brain fog, and you know, headaches
and all of these others. It's it's really quite a
cluster of symptoms. So before we dig into your treatment plan,
and I know it's quite detailed, as your book is
quite detailed, what is your overarching medical view of long COVID?

Speaker 3 (05:40):
Okay, So basically it is an energy crisis and Besly
mentally took the circuit breaker that triggers a cascade of problems.
Our research, randomized of blind proceive controlled study showed that
ninety one percent of people improved with an average ninety
percent increased quality of life by optimizing energy production with

(06:02):
what we call shine, sleep hormones and hypotension or pods,
those ads, secondary infections, nutritional support, and just a little
bit of exercise as able not enough to trigger post
exertional malaise where you're wiped out for three days, but
enough to prevent the conditioning. There's also treatments now that

(06:24):
can directly help the brain inflammation, things like Little O
Snell treck zone, and our research on PEA. There's one
called healthy Information Response, which is very exciting showing that
it can reverse a lot of symptoms. There's so much
that can be done. You're restoring moment language.

Speaker 2 (06:45):
Yeah, so I want to get into shine. But I
also so you are an expert on chronic fatigue syndrome
and fibromyalgia, and that makes you an expert on long COVID.
Why is that? What's connection there?

Speaker 3 (07:01):
Well, the connection is that post viral post code FED
or long COVID is simply one of numerous types of
post infectious fibro miles and chronic fatigue syndrome. It's not
something different. I mean, it has its own quirks, but
this is something we've known about and have, i mean

(07:22):
almost fifty years of research on I had post viral
chronic critique syndrome that knocked me out of medical school
back in nineteen seventy five, left me homeless, and that's
kind of how I learned about it and learned about
it from my professors, so we have a lot of research.
We know how to treat this. And that's the problem

(07:42):
with you know why, it's important to make that connection
that long COVID is just post viral fibromylogia because it
opens up hundreds and hundreds of studies, right.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
And that almost makes it less overwhelming to me, because
it seems like when I'm talking to people, they're so
scared of long COVID and it becomes overwhelming. But when
they understand that this is something that we're familiar with
and that we can manage, it takes the fear out

(08:13):
of it. Is that what you're finding with your patients.

Speaker 3 (08:16):
Knowledge is powererk because they're going to doctors and doctors
many of them are sadly doing this, I don't know
what's wrong with you. So your crazy message, which is abusive.
It may help to realize lupus multiple sclerosis used to
be called hysterical paralysis, and it's just not acceptable anymore
for a doctor to do that. If your doctor gives

(08:38):
you and your family's impression, I don't know what's wrong
with you, so you're crazy please get up, tell them
thank you for letting me know right away one of
the idiots you are. I don't waste my time with you.
Walk out the door, slam it and go. Somebody to
call the police on this abusive bathtard. This is not acceptable.
People just one being heard to understanding what it is.

(09:00):
It's such a relief for them. You know that it's
almost as important to them as knowing how to get
well and get past it.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yeah, I would agree. So let's dig into shine and
I want to know the details about shine, what does
it stand for? And take us through each one.

Speaker 3 (09:20):
So the we talked about a circuit breaker that gets tripped.
A little almond sized area in the brain called the
hypothalamus control sleep. So although in the first year some
people find they're oversleeping, they're hypersalmally they feel like they
sleep all the time. Over time it progresses into trouble
falling and staying asleep because it's both. I will use milotonin.

(09:44):
I like a ten milligram sustained release because it tends
to keep people out all night. The EP one twenty
is ten milegram is what I use. There are many
herbs that can be very helpful I like to revitalizing
sleep formula. Carolyn, Do you have a sleep that's your favorite?

Speaker 2 (10:01):
Yes, And I'm trying to think of what we have
in it, but it is the pro Thriver's sleep. It
does have higher dose melatonin, and I'm interested that you
are using that melogram a model for the melatonin that
can be somewhat controversial.

Speaker 3 (10:17):
Can't it well? When I first started using melatonin over
thirty years ago, I told people, look, the body makes
equivalent of three tents of the milligramma day. We don't
know if there's problems with higher dosing. And it took
me about twenty five years and countless studies to find
that one, the higher dosing is okay. Two that does

(10:39):
not seem to be a feedback loop to be found
suppressing melotonin. When you take that and three melotonin has
a lot of other health benefits, including I think for cancer. Oh,
in terms of immune function. We know for diabetes the
melatonin drops of a one C zero point four percent,
which is big. You know, many other things to it.

(11:00):
Most people can treat their diabetes without medications just for
the met form. And so what I found is that
at this point I take ten moregrounds with myself of
the EPE twenty sustained release just because the research. I'm
just not seeing the problems with it. In the research,
I can see a lot of side benefits. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
So at the S and shine is the first letter,
and that's for.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
Sleep correct and we can get almost I can count
on my fingers how many people we've out of the thousands,
because a lot of you out there are going to say,
oh my god, there's no way I can get sleep.
I'm okay if I get four hours, not wake up exhausted,
you can get proper sleep. But you're going to do
better with starting with natural things and then if needing medications,

(11:46):
I will add tiny doses of things like flexial trouser
doe and Galba penton, but just tiny doses because you
get the benefits without the side effect. But getting that
sleep is critical, not just the energy production but the
pain relief.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
Yeah. So the age is for hormones.

Speaker 3 (12:04):
Correct hormones and the hypotension. So many of you what
that control center controls the hormone systems. Also, thyroid is
decreased by half a quart as all is demonstrated to
be low not system cfs, but long COVID. You'll see
the reproductive hormones and hormones that hold on to as

(12:26):
salt and water all are low, but they're not low
enough for the tests to become abnormal. It's important, Carolin,
for people to realize what the normal arrange means for
blood tests. It just means you're not in the lowest
two percent of the population. Our highest culture standard deviations.
The normal range for shoe size is to be size
five and a half to thirteen. That doesn't mean that

(12:49):
a size seven is going to fit my foot, but
it does mean that the tests if I had a
size seven shoe would say some of the normal range
no problem, which is silly. It work. So we need
to treat the hormone symptoms based on symptoms using the
hormone adrenal for adrenal. If you get irritable and hungry

(13:12):
or hungry, to me, that suggests a drenal fatigue, and
I will give a dreana plex, which is a wonderful
mix to support adrenal function. Not just does it help
immunity and overall energy, but it beats It's much cheap
than the marriage counseling or divorce waars A lot of times.

(13:32):
You know, when we're in these relationship things, it's because
we get little blood sugar and we can become really cranky.

Speaker 2 (13:40):
What about the eye and shine? What's that stand for?

Speaker 3 (13:44):
So I would be infections briefly. Also, the other H
is for hypotension. Oh, when we stand up, the system
that sends blood from our feet back up to our legs,
gravity sends it down to our legs, called the autonomic
system isn't working. We'll get something called pots. POTS. There's
simple two simple home tests that are free that people

(14:06):
can do that are as reliable as until table tests.
It's very very treatable, but doctors just don't know how.
But it's pretty straightforward. We have free information sheets for
that kind of all that kind of stuff. So addressing
that if you stand up, if you lie down for
ten minutes, take your pulse, stand up, check a pulse

(14:27):
every minute or two. If it goes up by more
than twenty five meets a minute and you have fatigue
as one of your symptoms, I would presume POTS until
proven otherwise and then treat it. It's not hard, okay.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
And I want to remind our listeners that all of
this information is in doctor Tetebaum's book You Can Heal
from Long Covid. Okay, so infections, What would you like
to say about the.

Speaker 3 (14:52):
Eye, Well, what you're going to see is the immune
system is down and there's multiple different real of the
chronic line disease. Again, I don't like to make to
use the testing because I don't find the testing reliable
for that. What I'm going to look at is, I
think the most common issue is candida overgrowth. There's no

(15:13):
test to diagnosis is made based on if you have
chronic nasal congestion, post nasal driprier clearing the throat, or
irritable bowel syndrome. We have a lot of gas and
bloating on diarrhea constipation. I will presume candida and treat
that in this disease. The exception being that if the

(15:35):
gas has that sulfur remember in grade school, that's silent
but dead leavest that kind of small that suggests that
a small intestinal bacterial overgrowth that needs a different treatment.
But for the candida, there's natural things like the propolis.
There's a burd braine five hundred milligrams three times a

(15:56):
day is very good, and I'll use medications in the
compounded sinus space, but people find it not sinisidis and
irto moobil syndrome't go away, but a lot of other
symptoms go away with it. Chronic viral infections. If you
have chronic flu lag symptoms, I will go ahead and

(16:19):
go with anti virals. There's an anti viral protocol discussed
in the book that's medications fanther and Celebrates. And if
people are antibiotics sensitive, I'm going to give them the
long term antibiotics.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
And then how do you manage probatics when you when
you're using antibiotics, do you do a course of probatics
after it's done?

Speaker 3 (16:43):
Absolutely, And you know there's an argument to give a
probiotic along with the antibiotic or as the antibiotics that's
going to kill it. I don't think it does any
harm to give it, but certainly after the course of antibiotics,
I think there's absolutely people should be unfermented foods, a
good probiotic and post biotic things to help restore the

(17:05):
gut flora.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
Yeah, I would agree with that. Okay, So onto the
end in Shine, what is the end for.

Speaker 3 (17:12):
So nutritional support? One is this common sense you don't
have to have a diet. The strips you of all pleasure.
You want more salt. I'm not talking about added and
food processing. But use your salt shaker as much as
your body is craving because it needs that. You want
to cut down sugar. People do better with a high

(17:33):
protein diet. Some people find milk and gluten allergies or
an issue that's small percent, maybe ten percent. So I
say to look for at the end, but mine overall
good multi vitamin, multi nutrient support. So I'll use it
multi vitamin such as clinical essentials to aday, but other nutrients.

(17:57):
It's funny. We had a recent study. We had one
hundred eight eight people with CFS and five miles who
had at least a fifty percent decrease in function. And
these people are pretty crippled, and we gave them a
special kind of ginsen called HRG eighty red ginsing and
over sixty percent improved. You have an eighty percent increase

(18:20):
in stamina. Quite dramatic. And what I would say for
that is I would use that brand. But they have
tablets or capsules. Get the chewable tablet because it'll cost
about a quarter as much and just one half to
one tablet a day for most people, taken every day
or as needed. That's what I think. If I have
a busy day and I need more energy, I'll just

(18:41):
take a half a tablet of that. You'll be amazed.
For anybody who wants more energy. The HRG eighty is
a really good way to go. Coenzyme Q ten again,
they also have waste to increase absorbtion in this a
natural thing called cameosorb, but I would use a chewable
coke ten and that has camels orb many nutrients. There's ribos,

(19:07):
which in two of our studies increased energy quite dramatically.
The licorice cazandro rodola. There's all kinds of herbs that
traumatically increase energy. So for most people, if they want
to double their energy with three simple things that I
haven't taken, multi vitamin design becomes magnesium I haven't take,

(19:30):
the HRG eighty regiencing, and something called smart energy system
that has ribos and five other herbs. In the two
in the studies we did those latter two there's white
energy system increased stamina over eighty percent on average. I mean,
these dramatic ways to create healthy energy for anybody it's

(19:51):
not hard to do and it's not expensive. It's just easy.

Speaker 2 (19:56):
Yeah, those adaptogenic herbs are so powerful. Regien seing the
same as panics gin sing or is it different.

Speaker 3 (20:03):
Well, the regiencing has to do with whether it's boiled
or out before, but most chincing. Unfortunately, I stopped using
gen sing about thirty years ago because the price. It
has to be the wild gencing, and then the price
went up to about eight hundred dollars a pound, and
that's in countries where there was more than people made
each year, and it got hunted pretty much to extinction.

(20:25):
And what we were getting was farm gencing that didn't
have any of the active components. But it was a
few years ago they founded a special acropolically grown one
where they can stimulate what the plants see in nature
when you do the analysis, that has the same levels
of the keys and cinesides. And suddenly we had gencing

(20:47):
available again. But that's for gincying. I'm very picky. I'm
just going to use the hr G eight zero regiencing.
But I'm pretty energy sensitive and I still remember the
first time I took it. I'll try this and it's
like the gen sing has just sought us these days.
But I tried it. I can feel manager to go
up within seconds and.

Speaker 2 (21:09):
Before I leave nutrition. It's interesting that you have no
problem with salt. Is that controversial? Like so you're like,
take that salt shaker and add salt to your food.
It seems like you're controversial.

Speaker 3 (21:23):
Well, we have these myths that we were raised within medicine,
and it's funny. All the science in the world is ignored.
We have the myth chocolate is bad for you. No,
it isn't. It's a health food. Yes, there has no
recent thing in terms of some of the heavy metal,
so don't get contaminated ones. There's something butter is bad
for you. No, it isn't. It's a myth that eggs

(21:46):
are bad for you and raise cholesterol. No, they don't,
you know, And salt unless you have heart failure. You
know how much salt If you take a super high
salt diet versus a super low salt not sustainable diet,
how many millimeters do you think that will raise their
blood pressure to have the high salt diet. Okay, if

(22:10):
you're black, three milimeters hypertension is not assault excess. It's
a potassium deficiency. So it's a controversial. Yes, does the
science support me? Yes? Do they still? Then take the
numbers and say, well, over five hundred million people that

(22:30):
one if you do, if you have the adrenal fatigue
and the pots and you do a salt restricted diet,
you'll crash and burn, all right.

Speaker 2 (22:43):
So yeah, So let's go on to the final letter
E and shine. What does the E stand for.

Speaker 3 (22:49):
It does not stand for the greatest exercise programs or
the whip people with a stick and make them try
to do so much at their bed ridden with PEM.
It means just enough to prevent the conditioning. So see
what feels comfortable to you. You'll find that after you've
been on the SHINE protocol for ten weeks, energy production
skyrockets and then you can slowly increase by fifty steps

(23:12):
every two three days, and then your body will condition
instead of crashing.

Speaker 2 (23:19):
Yeah. I would agree with that. It's your protocol is
so comprehensive and very involved pain. Yeah. Well, I actually,
as we move through this, how do you prioritize for
the patient because there is a lot here.

Speaker 3 (23:40):
Yeah, I'm going to tend to start with a good,
multiple simple nutrient things because the clinical essentials, the HRG
eighty regencying, the smart energy system, and then something for sleep.
Start people with that if they have pain, because low
energy causes one that causes muscles to get locked in

(24:02):
a shortened position, so the muscles start to hurt. Number two,
the chronic pain triggers what's called brain pain or microgle activation.
If people have severe pain, I'm going to go after that.
And most pain can be effectively treated. There's a wonderful
herbal mix called Curemen. Again, there's the standard pain medications

(24:26):
are Ayberprofen intolerinol, and the Iyberprofen is toxic. I mean,
there's fifty thousand deaths a year in the United States
and that family of medication and says that they advertise,
so we don't care about that research. But the natural
remedies and the head on studies, they're as effective as
the medications beside benefits. So I mean, we could do

(24:48):
a whole show on the different kinds of pain and
how to make them go away. Using a lot of
natural stuff and even some prescriptions. If you use wisely,
almost all pain can be effectively treated. It's kind of
like the oil light going on in your car saying
something needs attention. You can smash the oil light out
or cut the wires, which is a medical approach. You

(25:10):
can put oil in the car, and the oil it
goes out to give your body what it needs, the
pain goes away.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
It's such a good point because pain has a ripple effect.
And when you're talking about sleep and you're talking about well,
I can't concentrate, or some of these other you know, fatigue.
You know, it seems like if a person is in
chronic pain, it's going to have an effect on the
entire body in so many ways.

Speaker 3 (25:37):
God, yes, it's chronic pain is unhealthy, and the chronic
pain is far more toxic than the pain medications. The
good news is that you don't need usually the toxic
pain medications. There's natural remedies that effectively treat pain.

Speaker 2 (25:54):
Well yeah, yeah, better.

Speaker 3 (25:57):
To be in to take the medication than to be
in pain.

Speaker 2 (26:00):
Yeah, absolutely, And you mentioned a good one. You know,
Kurcuman is just the research on the pain and releaving
effects of Kurcuman. So I want you to be able
to let people know where they can find out more
information about you, where they can get your book. And
I know that you have a lot of support information

(26:21):
because this is a lot to cover and it's hard
to do in thirty minutes, So go ahead and fill
people in how they can get more information.

Speaker 3 (26:28):
Yep, this was to give you a flavor of what's
out there. But for those of you with chronic fatigue
for any COSSE or long COVID or CFS or fibromyles,
you can email me and here's my email address. Got
a pane of paper fatigue F A, T I, g
U E and doc at gmail dot com. So fatigue

(26:49):
dot at gmail dot com. You can ask for the
long COVID information sheets, CFS, fibro mile Joe. I'll send
you the sheets for all of that and pots. If
you have shortness of breath asked for that. If you
have organ damage from the COVID, just note that you
have organ damage. If you can't afford any treatment right,
let me know that. You know, costs are an issue.

(27:10):
Also you how to get well on low budgets you know,
and if you have shortness of breaths, I can send
information she send that you know this. We're happy to
send all those if we we'll just be feel free
to share it to get the information out there. My
books for most of you, how to Heal from long COVID.
If if you have long COVID, go find that on Amazon.

(27:33):
If you have CFS and five mile or fatigue or
pain from other causes, then my book From Fatigued to Fantastic.
We'll guide you wonderfully on that. But I want to
add one last thing, Karen. If you get well so
you can go back to what made you sick in
the first place, we will have done nothing for you.

(27:57):
It's important as part of getting well to learn say
no to things that feel bad to you. This is
called authenticity and setting boundaries. And you don't need a
mental excuse why. Once you learn and your psyche trust
you that you will say no to things that feel bad.
That traumatically supports healing from pretty much any illness.

Speaker 2 (28:19):
Yeah, that's a that's a great way to end. And
what is your website? Where would you like people.

Speaker 3 (28:23):
To go to find www dot end fatigue dot com,
so e and like Nancy D like David fatigue dot com.

Speaker 2 (28:33):
And fatigue dot com. And the email again, thank you
for letting people contact you this way is Fatigue doc
at gmail dot com. Well doctor title bom. Thank you
again for joining me. This has been very informative, always.

Speaker 3 (28:49):
A pleasure and a lot and be well everybody.

Speaker 2 (28:52):
Absolutely so that wraps up this episode of five to
Thrive Live once again. I'd like to thank our sponsors
pro Thrivers, Well Sleep Formula immused post biotic to give
your immune system that extra boost, cognizance of cooling to
help enhance memory, focus and attention, and Doctor oher is
Award winning shelf stable probiotic. This has been great. May

(29:13):
you experience joy, laughter and love. It's time to thrive everyone.
Have a great name, Ja