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this is what it feels like [CW: illness, body horror illustration]

Treatment: Nicotine Patches

The body is a melting clock. it points to 11:00. The right arm has an exaggerated scale nicotine patch on it. There are abstract swirling patterns leaving the cloeck and rolling outward counterclockewise. behind the swirls are subtly written years.

Treatment: Nicotine Patches (felt like time travel to sickness pre-Covid)

I’m quoted in Could Nicotine Patches Help Treat Long COVID Symptoms? on VeryWellHealth

https://www.verywellhealth.com/nicotine-patches-long-covid-treatment-8705089

The first wave of effects were mostly increased focus, decreased appetite, and the benefits that I think many ADHD people like me associate with caffeine, nicotine, or other stimulants.

The second wave of side effects were what are illustrated here, and really strange. It felt like a time machine to what sickness used to be like for me–like back when at the end of a college semester I would be very worn down and get a cold that’d put me out for a few days. It felt like that, not like my last year and a half of chronic illness.

The lasting changes I saw were a reversion to pre-second infection baseline in resting heart rate and HRV, as well as some cognitive improvements, especially in listening comprehension of audiobooks and television without subtitles.

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