Why Is My Long COVID Not Getting Better? | Dr. Jenny Tufenkian

Dr. Jenny Tufenkian is a naturopathic physician who's spent two decades with people who have complex illness, and long COVID is most of her practice now. She came to it through her own years of being very sick, and through watching her father lose ten years to a dementia nobody could name.

Brain fog and fatigue aren't normal

If you're foggy, exhausted, or flat, that isn't a normal part of getting older and it isn't a character flaw. Dr. Tufenkian's read is that inflammation in the brain is often sitting underneath it, and that inflammation can be the setup for dementia later. She means that as a reason to look now rather than a reason to be frightened.

There's no test for long COVID

Long COVID can arrive weeks or months after the infection, so plenty of people have it and haven't connected the two. Dr. Tufenkian's rule is practical. If you're exhausted, there's no good reason for it, and a few weeks of lifestyle change doesn't shift it, that's your cue to get someone to look properly. A functional medicine practitioner, a naturopath, or an integrative doctor.

What a spike antibody test can show

There's one test she runs, and it doesn't diagnose long COVID. What it may show is whether your body is still producing the spike protein, like a Xerox machine that won't switch off.

Almost everyone has some antibody response by now, so a positive on its own tells you little. On the labs she uses, anything above 13 is flagged abnormal and most people sit near 100. The result that gets her attention is topped out at the ceiling, greater than 800 or greater than 2,500 depending on the lab. That makes her suspect the body is still replicating, or still reacting to a viral fragment.

Ask for the number. Mine came back as positive with no figure attached, which gave me nothing to act on.

The spike antibody test is not a validated diagnostic for long COVID and the research on antibody levels is mixed, which is why Dr. Tufenkian is clear that it does not diagnose anything on its own.

The myth of the one thing

You hear a conversation like this, buy the herb or the supplement, take it for three days, nothing happens, and decide it didn't work. Dr. Tufenkian calls it the myth of the one thing. One diet, one protocol, one amazing food from the Amazon.

The money in the supplement cupboard is the smaller cost. The bigger one comes after. She calls it the fear of hope, and it stops you knocking on the next door. I've lived in that in different seasons of my own life. You stop letting yourself hope because you can't face being disappointed again.

Building a toolkit that fits your body

The way out is slower. Become your own detective, work out what your body responds to, and build a toolkit from there. Dr. Tufenkian compares it to learning which colours suit you. Once you know, you can rule out most of the rack on sight.

Some people do well on pharmaceuticals and others can't tolerate them. Some respond to botanical medicine, some to homeopathy, some to energetic work. Some are so sensitive they may only need a microdose. If that's you, that's how you're built.

The things she reaches for with some patients are examples rather than a plan for you. Gromwell root, as an acute dose two or three times a day, with a warning that what's on the shelf often isn't what the label claims. Arterosil, for the damage the spike protein can do to blood vessel linings. Nattokinase, where micro clots may be part of the picture. Nitric oxide, sometimes just from beets. L-lysine, where Epstein-Barr has reactivated. Any of these belongs in a conversation with your own provider.

How long treatment usually takes

Her usual window is thirty to ninety days, depending on how long you've been unwell. Some are done at thirty, some need longer. Set that against three days and a bottle of capsules.

Myalgic encephalitis and finding your setup

Myalgic encephalitis is the older and more accurate name for chronic fatigue syndrome, and it means inflammation of the muscles and the brain. One study put dye into people with ME and imaged them alongside matched controls. The muscles and brains of the ME group lit up. If you've spent years being told you're making it up, that image says otherwise.

Then there's what Dr. Tufenkian calls your setup. Something made you vulnerable before any of this started, and the soil was already right for the seed. For a lot of people COVID was the straw rather than the whole load, so working on those foundations is part of the work.

Alcohol and brain inflammation

Recent studies have moved away from the idea that any level of alcohol is good for us. Dr. Tufenkian says it massively increases the inflammation in your brain, partly from the alcohol and partly from the blood sugar spike. If you're working on brain fog, that's worth knowing.

So if this is you, find someone who'll look properly, ask for the actual number on your results, and give whatever you try enough time to tell you something. There is hope and there are answers. Be your own detective, remove the shame from it, and I'm glad we found each other.

Imaging studies published since this conversation have questioned whether widespread brain inflammation explains persistent symptoms, so this is an area where the evidence is still moving.