TLC Sessions - Living with Long Covid

Dr Nancy Klimas, Director of the Institute for Neuro-Immune Medicine, Nova Southeastern University, is an immunologist internationally renowned for her work in multi-symptom illnesses. In this week’s episode she explains her work, from HIV through ME/CFS and Gulf War Syndrome, that has led to her having insight and an amazing team to channel efforts into Long Covid research and treatment. In an insightful overview she describes her work in understanding the mechanisms (viral persi...

Dr Rob Wüst, Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Movement and Behaviour Sciences, is an expert cardiac and skeletal muscle metabolism and mitochondrial function. He and the team at Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, published the “PEM study” in Nature Communications, which investigated the muscular changes in Long Covid patients who experience post-exertional malaise (PEM), or “the worsening of fatigue- and pain-related symptoms after acute mental or physical exercise”. In this week’...

Dr Thomas Chelimsky, Professor of Neurology and Director of VCU’s autonomic laboratory, is a specialist in autonomic dysfunction and a vocal advocate for considering the mind and body as one cohesive system. He, along with his team at the VCU clinic, take a unique brain-body approach to treating Long Covid patients, with success.In this week’s episode he discusses the autonomic issues faced by Long Covid patients including migraine, which he believes is prevalent in c. 50% of patients, ...

Dr Andrew Klein, an anaesthetist at the Royal Papworth Hospital Cambridge, runs the Cambridge Iron Clinic where he treats people with Iron and B12 deficiencies. Since the start of Covid he has seen an increase in people with these deficiencies, many of whom have been diagnosed with Long Covid.In this episode Dr Klein talks us through the overlapping symptom sets that render people debilitated with all three conditions. He describes the various ways in which are body is not able to...

Physiatrist Benjamin Abramoff, M.D. is the Director and Co-founder of the Post Covid Assessment and Recovery Clinic at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. An Assistant Professor in Physical Medicine and Rehabilition, Abramoff used his expertise to co-author the study, published in Cell, that found that serotonin depletion is prevalent in Long Covid patients. In this week’s episode, Abramoff talks us through the findings of their study, the hypothesis of what drives the depleti...

Tim Henrich is a Professor of Medicine and expert in infectious diseases, focused on chronic viral infections at the University of California, San Francisco. He is another member of the titan Long Covid research team who have tracked patients since the beginning of the pandemic (LIINC study) and are making roads into understanding the mechanism of the disease and potentials for treating it.In this week’s episode he talks us through some of the exciting work that he is doing, alongside our pre...

A supplement to Episode 68 - Consultant Neurologist Steven Allder of Re:Cognition Health explains what tinnitus is and why we are experiencing it in Long Covid.Living with Long Covid? How was your week?Website - https://www.tlcsessions.net/Twitter - @SessionsTlc https://twitter.com/sessionstlcInsta - @tlcsessions https://www.instagram.com/tlcsessions

A supplement to Episode 68 - Consultant Neurologist Steven Allder of Re:Cognition Health discusses the way that injury to the brain causes anxiety and depression in Traumatic Brain Injury and could explain some of the mental health impact of Long Covid.Living with Long Covid? How was your week?Website - https://www.tlcsessions.net/Twitter - @SessionsTlc https://twitter.com/sessionstlcInsta - @tlcsessions https://www.instagram.com/tlcsessions

Consultant Neurologist Steven Allder of Re:Cognition Health has applied his wealth of experience investigating Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Functional Neurological Disorder (FND) to understanding the impact of Long Covid on the brain. In this week’s conversation we discuss inflammation of the brain of Long Covid patients which is visible using PET imaging; Allder believes this inflammation could be driving the neurological symptoms, and beyond, in a similar way to the impact of a bl...

Professor Andrew Shaw, University of Exeter, believes that he has devised a diagnostic test for Long Covid. His company, Attomarker, have developed a test which can reveal a gap in a patient’s antibody spectrum – their response to acute SARS-COV2 from a finger prick of blood. This gap, he says, has lead to a viral residue that causes the chronic symptoms of Long Covid. Their hypothesis is that the gap can then be filled, either with monoclonal antibodies, or with an appropriate va...

Imperial College Professor of Immunology, Danny Altmann recently published “The immunology of long COVID”, a fantastically comprehensive overview in Nature Reviews Immunology. In this week’s episode Altmann, to whom we first spoke in the summer of 2021, talks us through some of the highlights of the work he's reviewed - serotonin depletion, gut biopsy findings, anti-virals, monoclonal antibodies and T cell depletion, along with his impression of a wide range of issues facing Long ...

Dr. Amy Proal is the President and Research Director of PolyBio Research Foundation, a non-profit organisation that brings together some of the brightest scientific minds to research how infection-associated chronic conditions are studied, diagnosed and treated. Their work into Long Covid is bringing together some of the leaders in the field to accelerate studies and clinical trials to further develop understanding and treatment strategies for the condition. In this week’s episode...

Michael Peluso M.D., an HIV and infectious disease specialist at UCSF, has been studying Long Covid patients since April 2020 (LIINC Study). This, along with his history of working with HIV and other viruses, has given him the knowledge and methods to make some break-throughs into Long Covid pathogenesis, effects and, potentially, treatments. He, along with his team, has established that Long Covid causes T-cell and immune dysregulation and he has used multimodal molecul...

Eric Topol must be one of the leading voices in Long Covid advocacy. Cardiologist, scientist, author, editor-in-chief of Medscape, and founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, Topol has written about Long Covid in publications from The Lancet and Nature, to The Washington Post. As a clinician a large proportion of his patients are now Long Covid sufferers and he spends a huge amount of his time pushing for advancements in Long Covid treatment and prevention. ...

Harlan Krumholtz, cardiologist and Professor of Medicine at Yale University, is attempting to move the needle when it comes to patient-centric care in Long Covid and beyond. Working closely with immunologist Akiko Iwasaki, Krumholz not only looks at the heart when it comes to his research into Long Covid. Together this Long Covid power couple are trying to design studies and trials considering the patient first and foremost. In this week’s episode we discuss his latest studies: the LIST...

Credited as being the founder of functional medicine, Dr Leo Galland has spent the past 40 years trying to create a patient-centred version of healthcare. Using pharmaceuticals, supplements, lifestyle and complimentary therapies he has drawn on his vast knowledge of patients and holistic healing, to create a comprehensive protocol for Long Covid patients. Designed to remove any active virus, rebuild our natural stores and repair the misfiring of our cells, Dr Galland’s method has been e...

Researcher Vicky van der Togt and virologist Dr Jeremy Rossman have spent the past 2.5 years trying to help Long Covid patients and research via their organisation Research-Aid Networks. Their latest paper, published in Frontiers, hypothesises that it is an acid-base disruption that drives the symptomatology of Long Covid. In this week's episode we discuss the impacts of dysregulated pH, how you can rebalance it and the results that they have observed. Further research in t...

Dr Wes Ely, a pulmonary and critical care doctor, has built a remarkable resource for Long Covid sufferers within the Critical Illness, Brain Dysfunction and Survivorship Center at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, of which he is co-director. A professor, using his knowledge of his clinical knowledge and his extensive research into debilitating brain disease, he has developed care strategies and support for large numbers of Long Covid patients and helped many...

Molecular Virologist, Bhupesh Prusty, promised to reveal more when we last spoke, four weeks ago. Here he presents what he believes to be a biomarker for Long Covid, explaining the mechanism, its similarity to ME/CFS, what his research and findings have proven, and how we might take this research forward to develop further understanding and treatment strategies.Living with Long Covid? How was your week?Website - https://www.tlcsessions.net/Twitter - @SessionsTlc https://twitter.com/ses...

Lavanya Visvabharathy, a T cell immunologist at Northwestern University, Chicago, has led extensive studies into Long Covid, but we learned that some of those studies, despite their merit and rigour, were proving hard to publish in top tier medical journals. In this week's episode we lift the lid on the process of scientific publishing, talking through the challenges that Visvabharathy has faced trying to publish Long Covid research, the peer review process and the political landscape o...

Dr Jim Jackson, research professor of Medicine and Psychiatry at Vanderbilt University Medical Centre, does not believe that Long Covid is all in your mind, but he has found that treating the brain, as if it has a brain injury, can help Long Covid recovery. In this week’s episode Dr Jackson explains his clinical experience of the neurological impact of Long Covid from brain fog to anxiety, PTSD to OCD. He discusses the power of cognitive rehabilitation (which should be viewed as p...

Dr Raouf (Ron) Gharbo has spent many years treating those with brain injury and autonomic disorders using Heart Rate Variability (HRV) metrics. Physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist, and Director of Autonomic Rehabilitation at VMU Health, Dr Gharbo this week explains the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, the metrics he uses to diagnose conditions - with Long Covid now being one of his primary focuses - and the power of sleep and breathing in regaining function a...

Dr Bhupesh Prusty believes that he has found 'the switch'. A molecular virologist from the University of Würzburg, Germany, he has turned his work looking at ME/CFS to look at Long Covid, and believes that viral reactivation in both diseases could hold the key. It’s this viral reactivation that, rather than causing a detectable elevation of something in our blood, is causing a depletion in our bodies. This could be the biomarker we’ve been seeking and he believes that redres...

In this week's episode we receive no-nonsense, practical advice from Prof. Jack Lambert, a consultant in infectious diseases at the Mater Hospital in Dublin. He has been monitoring long term recovery following COVID-19 since he saw the first patients in Ireland in March 2020. He has used his knowledge of chronic conditions caused by other infectious diseases - Lyme disease, Ebola, HIV, Hepatitis C - to develop a protocol to treat Long Covid patients. Using LDN (Low Dose Naltrexone...

If you’re looking for an overview of all of the research into Long Covid, this Nature review, undertaken by Patient Led Research Collaborative (PLRC) under the guidance of the cardiologist Dr Eric Topol, is a great place to start. A collation of the findings from almost 300 biomedical research papers on Long Covid, it sets out the major findings, mechanisms and recommendations that have been researched to date.In this week’s episode we had the pleasure of speaking to Lisa McCorkell and ...

Akiko Iwasaki, a Professor of Immunobiology and Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at Yale University, with a particular interest in mucosal infection, is making gains in Long Covid research. Her work with Dr David Putrino (interviewed in Episode 47) revealed several findings that move us closer to identifying a bio-marker; her work with Michele Monje of Stanford University looked at the chief mechanisms that may be driving the neurological features of Long Covid; now, in collabor...

Dr Ziyad Al-Aly is chief of research and development at the Veteran Affairs St. Louis healthcare system and a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis. Direct access to both Long Covid patients and the Veteran Affairs health care records enables Al-Aly to have led some of the most impactful research and studies into Long Covid. From the long term neurological outcomes and the risk of diabetes, to the impact on the heart, Al-Aly’s studies paint a serious picture of t...

Dr Benjamin Natelson, professor of neurology and director of the Pain and Fatigue Study Centre at Mount Sinai, has been studying the mechanisms, effects and management of chronic fatigue for almost half a century. In this week’s conversation he explains how he has used his knowledge to study and treat those with Long Covid. The recipient of multiple grants, his interest in the immunological and infectious causes of chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia enables him to approach Long Covi...

What if there were an activity tracking app designed to monitor and aid recovery from chronic illness, instead of pushing fitness goals? That is exactly what Long Covid sufferer Harry Leeming conceived with his team at Visible. Together they have created an activity tracking platform specifically for Long Covid and ME / CFS sufferers to enable them to track and analyse their illness in real time.In this week's episode Noreen and Emily talk to CEO and co-founder Harry, with whom th...

This week, we spoke to Mount Sinai neuroscientist and physical therapist Dr. David Putrino about his latest study on 215 patients. A collaboration between Mount Sinai and Yale University in the U.S., Putrino worked with immunologist Akiko Iwasaki to see if they could find any ‘Distinguishing features of Long COVID identified through immune profiling’. The study brought to light some potentially useful biomarkers and certainly highlighted areas for further research such as T-cells,...

Dr David Strain is a titan in the Long Covid research and clinical field. With the ability to boil down complex medical theory and research into very comprehensible explanations, Dr Strain explains HRV and how we can use it to monitor and potentially manage our symptoms. He talks us through vagal tone, the impact of vaccines and COVID-19 strains on Long Covid and we ask whether the increased incidence of strokes, diabetes, dementia and heart attacks could all be classified as a ve...

Amiad Abrahams, a Health Psychologist, the Deputy Lead for North West London's Long Covid Psychology service, understands the effect that the mind and Mindfulness can have on patients with acute and chronic conditions. Since mid 2020 he has been leading “COMFORT” – a group Mindfulness course offered by St Mary’s Hospital. In this week’s episode he talks us through the power that the mind can have on the body, and the impact that chronic illness can have on the mind, aiming to "de-...

Professor Doug Kell is a systems biologist who has been studying anomalous clotting for many years, and since the pandemic began has turned his knowledge, working alongside Prof. Resia Pretorius, to explore the theory of microclots in Long Covid patients. In this week's episode Prof. Kell explains to us the way in which these clots form, his theories behind what is occurring, and what are the current, albeit anecdotal, treatment strategies.Living with Long Covid? How was your week?Websi...

Dr Tae Chung runs the POTS clinic at John Hopkins University. Approaching this with his two specialties- neuromuscular and physical medicine and rehabilitation - he treats POTS patients, and those with Long Covid POTS, with a combination of functional exercises, alongside blood volume expansion and medication. In this week's episode he talks to us about his experience, working with his MDT, treating thousands of POTS and Long Covid POTS patients. He explains the parado...

With the established medical system offering few options to treat Long Covid holistically - most sufferers are at best only being offered symptom management - many are turning to alternative therapies. This week we spoke to Joachim Gerlach, chairman of Vedicinals, who have developed the nutraceutical Vedicinals9 for the treatment of acute and Long Covid. This nutraceutical, consisting of nine bio-active molecules targeting specific pathways, draws on traditional ayurvedic medicine...

Dr Eric Feigl-Ding was one of the first public health scientists to raise the alarm as COVID-19 took hold. Often several steps ahead of the policy-makers, Feigl-Ding shares with us his view that Long Covid looks to be an immuno-compromised state, not dissimilar to that caused by HIV. Could this explain other current outbreaks - summer flu, monkeypox, Hepatitis? He believes so. In this wide-ranging interview we take a look at the world's response to the pandemic a...

Dr Bettina Hohberger, an ophthalmologist at Erlangen University with expertise in glaucoma, believes that looking at the eye – an area of the body where the blood vessels are visible – is representative of the rest of the human body. She has seen that there is a change in blood vessel density in the eye of her patients with Long Covid and believes that this blood vessel density could be part of the key to unlocking and treating Long Covid. Her belief is that Long Covid falls into t...

Lavanya Visvabharathy, a T cell immunologist, has methodically applied her expertise to look at samples from patients at the Long Covid clinic at North Western University in Chicago, to try and establish the mechanism driving the disease. Her personal experience of Long Covid's effects and the role of autoimmunity - she has both Long Covid and rheumatoid arthritis - combined with the wealth of data she has gathered, have led her to believe that Long Covid could be due to viral persisten...

The Long Covid space has been abuzz with talk of Tollovid - the dietary supplement that is claimed to act, in much the same way as Paxlovid, on inhibiting 3CL protease. We wanted to get some clear answers on how this supplement works, the potential benefits, and its safety profile. We spoke to CEO of Todos Medical, Gerald Commissiong, who has brought this product to market, and Dr Dorit Arad, a biochemist and drug developer who has engineered Tollovid from her 28 years working in ...

Dr Stephen Griffin, virologist and member of Independent SAGE, talks us through the workings of antivirals - both in acute COVID-19 and in Long Covid. He explains what antivirals do - suppressing the virus rather than removing it from our systems - and suggests that the use of one course of individual antivirals might not be the holy grail that Long Covid sufferers are hoping. We talk viral persistence versus autoimmunity, the action of vaccines, and whether monoclonal antibodies ...

Dr Alec Schmaier, a cardiology and vascular specialist, has studied the impact that COVID-19 has on the endothelium. This week we called on his knowledge of the vascular system and coagulation issues to talk us through the potential role of the endothelium in Long Covid. We wanted to take a step back and look at why clotting might be playing a role in our Long Covid symptoms, and discuss what drives it. Schmaier offers us that and more in a discussion that includes anticoagu...

In Long Covid it can be hard to keep up with what we should be eating, not eating, supplementing and changing when it comes to providing our bodies with the correct nutrition to optimise recovery. This week Professor of Dietetics, Mary Hickson, provides us with some down-to-earth advice about how diet affects and is affected by Long Covid, dispels some myths, suggests some strategies to try and points us to the resource she has developed - The Nutrition and COVID-19 recovery knowledge h...

Not only do many Long Covid patients suffer from P.O.T.S or P.O.T.S-like symptoms, but there are a number of similarities between the two conditions and their management. The cross-over of symptoms - from breathlessness, palpitations, and chest discomfort, to fatigue, pain, brain fog, sleep disturbance and orthostatic intolerance - is remarkable. So, do we all have POTS? To shine some light on POTS and its diagnosis, we spoke to Dr Satish Raj, a cardiologist specialisi...

Perry Nickelston believes that focusing on the much overlooked lymphatic system could be what we each need to enable our bodies to heal. In this week’s episode Nickelston, chiropractor and holistic health coach, talks us through the role of the lymphatic system and explains how it could be what is holding us back from recovering from chronic diseases like Long Covid. By getting the lymph moving and clearing the cellular waste, we can start to reduce inflammation and give our body ...

There may be a treatment from which a third of women with Long Covid could benefit. It is not a new drug, it is safe, and it has been proven to work anecdotally. And yet there are no clinical trials looking at HRT as a potential treatment for the largest cohort of Long Covid sufferers. In our patriarchal medical system many women are not even being asked about their menstrual cycle or hormones in relation to Long Covid, and yet there is clear evidence that our hormones have ...

A Professor of Medicine in residence at the University of California, San Francisco, Steven Deeks M.D., is an expert on HIV-associated immune dysfunction. Using his 30 years of experience researching viral illness, Deeks has turned his hand to the study of the long term impacts of COVID-19 on our immune systems. The parallels that he draws between HIV and Long Covid are startling. Studying a community cohort for the past two years, Deeks believes that we are beginning to unravel t...

Dr Michael Gonevski has been administering Long Covid sufferers with Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) since the condition emerged. The treatment, generally used for diving related oxygen issues and difficult to heal wounds, is a daily course in which patients breathe 100% oxygen at pressure. The theory is that the oxygen is diffused into the blood plasma, providing more than ten times the normal supply of oxygen, which is then able to reach cells that have been shut off, repairin...

What if every COVID-19 infection was causing a degradation of our T cells, impairing our ability to fight infection? Anthony Leonardi studied T cells for his PhD and from the beginning of the pandemic that is what he has observed - T cell harm triggering autoimmune disfunction. That is in every COVID-19 infected sample he's studied, not just for those of us already showing the signs of Long Covid, every one. This degradation on a cellular level is even more pronounced ...

This week we speak to Professor Robert Thomas who has used his work as a Consultant Oncologist and Professor of Nutritional Science to develop potential nutritional intervention for Long Covid. He talks us through the gut microbiome and the power that it has to harm as well as heal. His Phyto-V study looked at whether the addition of a combination of Probiotics and Polyphenals could impact Long Covid recovery. The results are definitely positive, and what Professor Thomas has to s...

This week we talk to the vivacious Dr. Sabina Brennan health psychologist, neuroscientist and author of the book Beating Brain Fog, about the neurological symptoms that leave some of us feeling foggy, but lead to some people being unable to function.When it comes to Long Covid, Brain Fog is an umbrella term that refers to a myriad of symptoms, stemming from various factions of the brain, that are challenging the day-to-day functioning of thousands of people with Long Covid. It is the second m...

Consultant physician and endocrinologist Dr. Paul Jenkins runs the London Endocrine Centre, and drawing on this expertise and treating patients with post-viral fatigue syndrome he has now established a multi-disciplinary Long Covid Clinic. In this week's episode Dr Jenkins walks us through the endocrine system and we discuss the way in which hormones are being affected by and are affecting our Long Covid.The hormones in your body’s endocrine system control nearly all the processes of th...

Dr Bruce Patterson believes that he understands the mechanism causing Long Covid, and has treated over 14,000 Long Haulers in the United States - to varying degrees of success. His recently published paper details how SARS-COV S1 protein - fragmented viral sequence - is seen in the cells of Long Covid patients, driving a prolonged inflammatory response. In this week's episode Dr Patterson discusses his findings and the treatment protocol that his company, IncellDX, has developed - ...

To gently welcome in the New Year we asked Respiratory Physio Robin McNelis to give us a guided breathing exercise to optimise our O2 and CO2 and provide a few moments of calm after what has been a tough couple of weeks here at The Long Covid Sessions. We were delighted to check back in with Long Hauler Robin and find that he has been managing to rebuild his health with careful monitoring of his heart rate. We hope that his insights can help our listeners on the road to a healthy ...

Francis Vaz is an ENT surgeon who has seen a large increase in referrals due to Long Covid. In this week's episode he talks us through the symptomatology, drivers and treatments, or at least management, of some of Long Haulers' most common and prominent issues. From tinnitus to the loss of sense of smell (anosmia) Vaz provides us with advice, resources and explanations for some of what we are hearing, smelling and struggling to swallow.Living with Long Covid? How was your week?Web...

Dr Tomer Bronshtein, head of research at Bonus BioGroup, has been developing cellular therapies to treat acute respiratory distress in Covid-19 patients. In their trials of ‘MesenCure’, which uses mesenchymal cells, the treatment has been shown to dampen the hyper-inflammatory response in the acute phase of the disease as well as promote the healing of injured lung tissue, dramatically improving survival rates and reducing the length of hospital stays. Whilst MesenCure is being de...

Following on from our interview with Professor Resia Pretorius and her hypothesis of microclots driving the symptoms of Long Covid, we speak to Dr Asad Khan, a Long Hauler who has travelled to Mülheim, Germany, to undergo H.E.L.P. Apheresis in a bid to remove those clots. Khan talks us through the process in detail, describing how he was able to visibly see these clots in the blood that was drawn out of him as he underwent this method of filtration and blood cleansing. But it has ...

Mitochondrial dysfunction could be one of the mechanisms driving Long Covid. But what are mitochondria, what has happened to them in people with Long Covid, and how can we fix them? This week we talk to Dr Betty Raman, Oxford researcher and MRI specialist who has noticed changes in the organs of Long Covid patients, and Axcella Therapeutics’ CEO Bill Hinshaw about AXA1125 – a potential treatments that they are trialling with Raman’s team, to assess its power to reset the mitochond...

Professor Alex Richter, Clinical Immunologist at the University of Birmingham, looks at post Covid both through patients and microscopes. Her work into the role of autoantibodies in acute and post-Covid has found very specific patterns. She believes that Long Covid may be similar to ME / CFS and whilst she admits that we have not made the required progress into the science of those conditions, she believes that we can approach the treatment of them pragmatically and use clinically...

The Long Covid community is abuzz with talk of microclots. We take it back to the science in this week’s conversation with Resia Pretorius, a distinguished professor of Stellenbosch University who has identified the presence of microclots in the blood of Long Covid sufferers. But what are microclots, how do we identify whether we have them, and what are the proven treatments for them? Professor Pretorius explains her observations and highlights that there is still a lot for us to ...

What if some of your Long Covid symptoms could be improved by changing your breathing? In this week’s episode respiratory physiotherapist and Long Covid sufferer, Robin McNelis, explains the science behind some of us being given breathing exercises. From breathlessness to fatigue and gastrointestinal issues, changes to breathing in the acute phase of COVID-19 could have had a dramatic effect on our subsequent symptoms. So even if you don’t think you have lung issues, it is w...

Writer Michael Rosen became seriously ill with COVID-19 in March 2020. Rosen discusses how his brush with serious illness has left him with long lasting physical disabilities. We talk politics, philosophy, and the seeking of comfort through seeded bagels and a sense of communality.#longcovidLiving with Long Covid? How was your week?Website - https://www.tlcsessions.net/Twitter - @SessionsTlc https://twitter.com/sessionstlcInsta - @tlcsessions https://www.instagram.com/tlcse...

An extra bite from The Long Covid Sessions with top tips from our experts. Dr Katy Munro details the supplements she recommends for migraine sufferers, and most importantly talks about the specifics and dosage. Interestingly all of these 'nutraseuticals' had been recommended to us for aiding in Long Covid recovery but we were both taking the wrong quantities.Living with Long Covid? How was your week?Website - https://www.tlcsessions.net/Twitter - @SessionsTlc https://...

Dr Katy Munro is a GP headache specialist at the National Centre for Migraine. This week she talks us through one of the most prevalent conditions intertwined with Long Covid – migraine. We discuss this complex neurological disorder and its manifestations in both adults and children. From mildly annoying to extremely debilitating the fluctuations of a migraine brain mirror that rollercoaster we experience with Long Covid. We can learn much from Dr Munro’s practical adv...

This week’s conversation takes a deep dive into Long Covid gut issues. Dr Corinna Geiger, a specialist in Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, has seen the number of patients needing her help soar in the wake of Covid-19. MCAS has been cited as a potential Long Covid driver or symptom for several months now. She talks about the various possible mechanisms of gut problems in Long Covid, the route to diagnosis, and we learn that these issues are indeed treatable, and by treating the...

Dr Amy Small is a GP and a Long Covid fighter. She's fought a personal battle with the disease and it seems like she's won. She's fighting for support for patients with Long Covid in Scotland where she is a locum doctor in Lothian, having lost her job as a partner in East Lothian due to her illness. She is a mother, a wife of a Long Covid sufferer, and advocate for those suffering from the condition. And she is a ray of hope for all those of us who don't know when this...

Guy Leschziner is a professor of neurology and sleep medicine, leader of a sleep disorder clinic, sleep author, BBC Radio 4 'Mysteries of Sleep' broadcaster... this man knows a lot about sleep. He is also part of a Long Covid clinical team. This week we use the breadth of his expertise to talk through the impact of Long Covid on sleep and the impact of sleep on Long Covid. He shares his knowledge of the potential therapies for sleep disturbances, giving practical advice on h...

Consultant Neurologist Dr. Hadi Manji is part of the team leading a new clinic for neurology patients with ‘Long Covid’ at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery (NHNN) with funding from the National Brain Appeal. The COVID Neurology Clinic will focus on complaints such as headache, ‘brain fog’, muscle weakness and brain inflammation in patients recovering from the COVID-19 virus. He speaks to us at the The Long Covid Sessions about what he thinks is affecting the post-Covid bra...

Physiotherapist Darren Brown is a Long Covid sufferer and founder of Long Covid Physio. In our conversation this week he lays out the fundamentals of our rehabilitation needs and explains how pacing might be the key to getting a handle on our symptoms. He takes his experience working in HIV and Oncology rehabilitation and demonstrates how we can apply our knowledge of treating those conditions, with their fluctuating health challenges, when facing Long Covid. Patient a...

As the start of the school year approaches, we look at the impact of Long Covid on children and their parents. We talk to Frances Simpson, one of the founders of Long Covid Kids, about her 18 month struggle to get medical attention for her own children whilst battling with Long Covid herself, and how she has chosen to be an advocate for children and parents in the UK and beyond. We also speak to two teenage Long Covid sufferers, Kitty McFarland and Liliana Jackson. Livi...

Still riding the Coronacoaster, in this week's episode Noreen and Emily manage a brief catch up with each other, talking over their personal situations and observations on some of the things that they've learned over the past weeks: they share their opinions on drug interventions, give first-hand experience of US awareness and treatment, talk about some of the latest studies, and give their thoughts on the idea of HRT as a Long Covid treatment strategy.Living with Long Covid? How was yo...

UCLH Long Covid Clinic has been described as the gold standard of treatment. Clinical lead and respiratory consultant, Dr Melissa Heightman, talks us through their multi-disciplinary approach, the areas that we need to develop for effective universal treatment and the challenges facing the Long Covid clinics and NHS at large.Living with Long Covid? How was your week?Website - https://www.tlcsessions.net/Twitter - @SessionsTlc https://twitter.com/sessionstlcInsta - @tlcsessions https://www.in...

As we start to explore the different systems of the body affected by Long Covid, this week we speak to Consultant Cardiologist Dr Alexander Lyon. He unpicks how Long Covid affects the heart, talks us through the symptoms that the heart causes, and gives us hope that recovery is possible in a majority of cases.Living with Long Covid? How was your week?Website - https://www.tlcsessions.net/Twitter - @SessionsTlc https://twitter.com/sessionstlcInsta - @tlcsessions https://www.instagram.co...

Professor of Immunology, Danny Altmann, talks us through his work looking at the way in which Covid-19 has left its mark on the immune system in cases of Long Covid. He draws comparisons with other viruses to try and understand the long term prognosis for Long Covid sufferers, as well detailing his efforts to develop a potential blood test for diagnosis of the condition. A brilliant mind, Professor Altmann does not shy away from political, ethical and moral debates arising from th...

Sonia Gallego works as a reporter for an international news channel and lived a full and active life until she contracted Covid in December 2020. Since then she has had to dramatically change her expectations. Suffering many of the most common Long Covid symptoms, she has also become pre-diabetic and is currently having her endocrine system investigated. Living with Long Covid? How was your week?Website - https://www.tlcsessions.net/Twitter - @SessionsTlc https://twitter.com...

Dr. Paul Glynne, Consultant Physician and Medical Director at The Physicians’ Clinic and former medical director at UCLH. He is the Sherlock Holmes of diagnostic medicine and is now treating patients with Long Covid. He shares with us the current management strategies he believes can help Covid 'Long Haulers'. Glynne advocates a holistic and multi-disciplinary approach to help patients manage their symptoms. Living with Long Covid? How was your week?Website - https://www.tlc...

Dr Elaine Maxwell, Clinical Adviser at the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) breaks down all the world’s Long Covid research for us into bite-sized pieces. Maxwell explains who is being affected, how they are affected and what is being done to try and help. And yes - it's a real thing.Living with Long Covid? How was your week?Website - https://www.tlcsessions.net/Twitter - @SessionsTlc https://twitter.com/sessionstlcInsta - @tlcsessions https://www.instagram.com/tlcsessions

Sometimes it just takes two people to start the national conversation. Noreen Jameel and Emily Kate Stephens talk about what it's like to live with Long Covid and what inspired them to create this podcast.Living with Long Covid? How was your week?Website - https://www.tlcsessions.net/Twitter - @SessionsTlc https://twitter.com/sessionstlcInsta - @tlcsessions https://www.instagram.com/tlcsessions

A brief introduction to a brand new podcast on Long Covid. What it's like to live with this new condition and what the medical community is doing to try and find a cure. Living with Long Covid? How was your week?Website - https://www.tlcsessions.net/Twitter - @SessionsTlc https://twitter.com/sessionstlcInsta - @tlcsessions https://www.instagram.com/tlcsessions