COVID Support

My blog post this week isn’t an original, that is to say much of what I am including is from one of my teachers and mentors, Dr. Lissa Rankin MD. She wrote this great article a couple of weeks ago that I felt very much worth sharing with you all, as I value her perspectives and suggestions very much and they echo my own personal and professional sentiments.

And, well, they are just really well articulated and evidence-based, while still keeping at the forefront of our minds that one of the biggest viruses is fear and divide and that if we fall victim to the tug-of-war going on in the world rather than settling into listening to others, attempting to gain understanding and compassion for all, and working on our own fears, well we are contributing to the fear, violence, disease and unrest.

In any case, you can read her full article here

and are some key points I pulled from her article, in the hopes these will be empowering to you and assist you in making some love-based, responsibility-driven choices for yourself, your family and our community:

First of all, Covid is here to stay. It is endemic. It is possible or even likely that we will all get Covid at some point, so we can’t wring our hands or isolate in lockdowns forever, but I think it’s worth watching your local case numbers and adjusting your behavior depending on what’s happening in your local community. This current surge will likely peak and fall quickly since Omicron is so contagious. It is likely to blow through rapidly and then burn out just as quickly. The best we can do is watch our local case numbers. When they are low, we can play and relax more. When they spike, we can hunker down for a phase. The main reason to make those sacrifices is to avoid hospitals getting flooded. If your local hospital has no beds, unnecessary deaths will happen because there will be no room for heart attacks, strokes, car crashes, or other infections, much less Covid. So we can’t just say “Well, Covid is mild so we can just let ‘er rip.” If we care about preventing unnecessary deaths and have empathy for those who might lose their lives because we failed to make choices to help prevent those deaths, we need to make sure we have adequate staffing and adequate open beds in our hospitals. Otherwise, people will die needlessly of all kinds of medical conditions, and that’s tragic.

That said, mental health is an equally valid consideration here. My friend who runs the psych hospital at Harvard recently told me there were 84 people waiting in ER for psych beds. The hospital is also full of mental health workers, including psychiatrists. So our systems- inner and outer- are buckling under all this. Our minds are cracking under the strain and trauma of all this, and our mental health workers are burned out and overwhelmed, as are our front-line hospital workers in ERs, ICU’s and clinics. People die from mental health issues too- suicide, overdose, side effects of addiction. So take care of your emotional needs, your needs for touch, your needs for companionship. And if you can find and afford a good trauma therapist, consider yourself blessed and use that resource liberally. If you can’t, do what you can to find alternatives, even if you’re joining a 12 Step group on Zoom.

Now is a good time to call upon your spiritual practices, not as a spiritual bypass but as a kind of energy transfusion, as a way to fill yourself with life force so you can bolster your resilience and keep on keepin’ on. This is why we practice- for the times we really need it. Use your meditation, yoga, tai chi, qigong, contemplative prayer, art therapy, dance therapy, nature therapy, hiking, earth rituals, and other nourishing practices that uplift you and keep you feeling hopeful when things might start to feel hopeless.

Continue any prevention strategies you’ve been employing. As I say, “Germ theory AND Terrain theory!” We can keep our terrain optimized as best we can while also trying to prevent unnecessary exposure. Personally, I take my Vitamin C and drink my green juice and engage in general healthy behaviors, like hiking in nature every day, doing some yoga stretches, meditating, getting 8 hours of sleep, and eating a high nutrient diet. I’m not going crazy popping expensive supplements, given how mild most Covid cases seem to be at this point among the vaccinated, but it’s fine if you’re doing so and can afford to keep doing so.

If you do get Covid, here’s what my most trusted functional medicine doctor Rachel Carlton Abrams recommends.

• Vit. D 5000 IU daily
• Vit. C 1000 mg 3 times daily
• Zinc 20-30 mg twice daily.

Start at least some of these immediately:

• Quercetin
• Curcumin
• Green Tea
• NAC
• Resveratrol
• VIt. A
• Elderberry
• Fish oil
• Melatonin 3-15 mg before bed, which also helps with sleep.

The Institute of Functional Medicine (IFM) has a good write-up on natural treatment and prevention

We at Prairie Sky Integrative Health are grateful to be able to be here, in the Regina community, to provide you with whatever services you might need in order to help you through this pandemic time.

Need suggestions for general immune support?  We are here.  Feeling anxious, stressed, depressed and having difficulties coping with it all?  We are here.  Wondering about suggestions post-COVID, especially with any long-haul symptoms?  We are here.  Wanting support pre- and post-vaccine?  We are here.

Whatever your COVID-related fallout, as we all know and have experienced it in some way shape or form, please know you can turn to us and we will help you through.  We offer in-person, phone or video appointments.

Wishing you all a safe and healthy pandemic, and the ability to mine the gold from these potentially tough times.