When Covid Won’t Let Go: How I Healed My Terrain and Overcame Long Covid

I’ve had Covid four times. The first three left my body fatigued and worn out, but it was after that last bout of Covid, in the confusing months that followed, when I realized something else had kicked in. I had just given birth, my immune system was already stretched thin. On top of that I discovered a hidden opportunistic infection (Ureaplasma) and found high mycotoxin levels in my urine. It was a perfect storm: viral hit plus underlying terrain breakdown.

I felt flu-like practically every other week for more than a year, but it wasn’t normal flu. My sense of smell and taste vanished for eight long months. Chronic sinus infections (for the first time in my life) became part of my normal. Breathing felt heavy, like I was walking underwater. Fatigue wasn’t just “tired”; it was a deep drain I couldn’t recharge from.

When I finally stepped into a private Long Covid clinic in Lisbon I expected clarity. Instead I met a specialist who knew a fraction of what I had uncovered from others also suffering. When the usual medical routes left me feeling unheard, I found myself digging through Facebook groups and Reddit threads, because at the time — with Long Covid so unknown — those were the only places where others were actually saying “Yes this is happening to me too”.¹ It was frustrating, but it lit a fire: I would take my healing into my own hands. Then the blood tests arrived: inflammation markers through the roof. Proof that I wasn’t imagining it. My body was shouting.

Today I’m symptom-free. The freedom came only after a lot of detective work, trial and error, and rebuilding from the ground up. Because I’ve come to believe this: Long Covid is not a myth. It’s real. And it rarely shows up alone.

My Theory on Long Covid

Here’s how I see it: Covid knocks you down. Long Covid keeps you down. But the reasons it sticks around — or shows up at all — aren’t always what conventional medicine expects.

I believe the story often looks like this: you get hit with Covid at exactly the moment your terrain is compromised (new motherhood, hidden infection, toxin exposure, recent antibiotic run). You’re not weak or lazy — your system is temporarily vulnerable. Now, along comes opportunistic bacteria, fungi or reactivated viruses. Your gut flora might already be wobbly from antibiotics or illness, your immune system distracted, your detox pathways loaded. Add mold or chemical toxins. Suddenly there’s space for microbial chaos. This could be why Long Covid appears in so many shapes and sizes (and symptoms).

So the treatment? It can’t be a one-size-fits-all approach, when the combinations are endless. It looks like digging into what you are carrying: what your environment looks like, what hidden infections might be lurking, how your immune system has been taxed. It’s complicated. And a 15-minute consult won’t cover it.

What Research Actually Shows

The good news: the research is catching up. Here’s what we know so far:

• According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Long Covid (also called post-COVID-19 condition) can affect anyone who’s had a SARS-CoV-2 infection, and the causes are not fully understood.²

• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that Long Covid is a serious illness which may include a wide range of ongoing symptoms and conditions lasting 3 months or more after infection.³

• Studies suggest multiple overlapping mechanisms: persistent viral reservoir, immune dysfunction, reactivation of latent viruses (such as Epstein Barr Virus), autoimmunity, micro-clots and endothelial (blood-vessel) damage, mitochondrial dysfunction.⁴

While we’re beginning to see that genetic variations (or “DNA markers”) may increase someone’s risk of developing Long Covid, they’re only one part of the picture. The real story is terrain + overload + trigger.⁵

Some of the Key Mechanisms (and What I Saw in My Body)

• Immune system dysregulation / latent-virus reactivation: Research shows that after Covid the immune system can stay “on edge”, and dormant viruses (like herpes family viruses) may wake up.⁶

• Persistent virus or viral proteins: Some studies found that viral fragments or proteins may remain in the body months after infection, keeping the immune system in a heightened state.⁷

• Microvascular & clotting issues: Tiny blood-clots and endothelial damage might impair oxygen delivery to tissues, which could explain fatigue and breathlessness.⁸

• Mitochondrial / cellular energy dysfunction: When your “fuel factories” are compromised, everything from walking upstairs to thinking clearly becomes harder.⁹

• Terrain overload: This includes toxin burden (like mold), opportunistic infections (like Ureaplasma, Candida), gut dysbiosis, hormonal shifts (like postpartum), nutrient deficiencies. In my case: all of the above!

Symptoms That Frequently Show Up

Here are the symptoms I tracked in myself and heard again and again from other long-haulers:

• Deep, bone-deep fatigue — not just “I need a coffee”.

• Shortness of breath or “weighted” breathing — the air feels heavier than it should.

• Loss or distortion of smell/taste (mine disappeared for eight months).

• Chronic sinus or respiratory infections that won’t quit.

• Brain fog, memory lapses, cognitive glitches.

• Chest tightness, palpitations.

• Muscle/joint aches that flare after mild exertion.

• Sleep disturbances, feeling unrefreshed (silver lining: I started a new habit of reading a new book every week because of my chronic insomnia)

• Mood shifts, anxiety, emotional overload from being unwell for so long.

These overlap with what official sources list.³

What Helped Me (and What I Recommend Sharing with Clients)

• Functional assessment rather than symptom-band-aid: looking at the whole picture.

• Microbiome support (and sometimes gut testing): deep gut dysbiosis was part of my terrain story.

• Addressing underlying infections: treating Ureaplasma, checking for mold exposure.

• Anti-inflammatory nutrition + gut-healing diet: supporting the terrain so the body could repair itself.

• Mitochondrial support & rest/pacing: I learned not to sprint through healing.

• Environmental detox + limiting toxin burden: water filters, air filters, mold remediation

• Detoxifying what had colonized my body: using a targeted approach to kill pathogens and remove endotoxins, while also supporting detox pathways (sauna, dry brushing, exercise, herbal liver support, etc.)

• Patience + self-compassion: I needed to accept that this would take time (months to years).

Why I Write This

Because if you are reading this and you think: “Maybe this is me”, let me tell you: your symptoms are valid. The research supports this. You are not imagining it. But you also don’t have to resign yourself to staying stuck. With a functional-nutrition, root-cause mindset you can engage your terrain. You can rebuild, you can reclaim. And you don’t need your primary focus to be Long-Covid. Often the virus is the trigger — but your job becomes: clear the aftermath, rebuild the landscape, restore the homeostasis.

In my practice at Cultivate Healing, clients come in with post-viral symptoms + opportunistic pathogens + environmental or internal stressors. Yes it’s messy. Yes it takes time, but the body has the wisdom. And by supporting it, layer by layer, we can restore its balance.

References

1. Thompson CM, Rhidenour KB, Blackburn KG, Barrett AK, Babu S. Using crowdsourced medicine to manage uncertainty on Reddit: The case of COVID-19 long-haulers. Patient Education and Counseling. 2022 Feb;105(2):322-330. DOI:10.1016/j.pec.2021.07.011. URL: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34281723/ PubMed

2. World Health Organization. Post COVID-19 condition (Long Covid) Fact Sheet. URL: https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/post-covid-19-condition-(long-covid) PubMed+1

3. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Long Covid: Post-COVID Conditions, Symptoms & Treatment. URL: https://www.cdc.gov/long-covid/about/index.html PubMed

4. Sarker A, Ge Y. Mining long-COVID symptoms from Reddit: characterizing post-COVID syndrome from patient reports. JAMIA Open. 2021;4(3). DOI:10.1093/jamiaopen/ooab075. URL: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8805953/ SciSpace

5. (Authors, publication on genetic risk factors etc.) — See for example Lammi V, Ollila HM, et al. Genome-wide association study of long COVID. Nature Genetics. 2025. URL: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40399555/

6. (More on immune dysregulation) — See Yale Medicine article “The Long Covid Puzzle…” URL: https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/the-long-covid-puzzle-autoimmunity-inflammation-and-other-possible-causes ai.jmir.org

7. (Persistent virus/proteins) — See Mass General Brigham study. URL: https://www.massgeneralbrigham.org/en/about/newsroom/press-releases/study-finds-persistent-infection-could-explain-long-covid-in-some-people medrxiv.org

8. Cleveland Clinic. Long Covid. URL: https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/25111-long-covid pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

9. PMC/NCBI article on mitochondrial dysfunction in long COVID. URL: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9839201/