96 - Dr Masha Makeeva - Hyperbaric Oxygen & other recovery strategies

Episode 96 of the Long Covid Podcast is a chat with Dr Masha Makeeva, Canadian Board-Certified Naturopathic Doctor, educator, and motivational speaker, but also has experience of Long Covid and other chronic conditions.

We chat through her own experiences and how her knowledge as a doctor (as well as previous illness) has helped her to move towards recovery.


Youtube channel 
Instagram @dr_masha_makeeva
website - www.drmasha.com
The Plant Paradox
MS HBOT link (for UK)
Neural Therapy Network (HBOT in the UK)
Brain Tap (Coupon code at checkout for $100 off the BrainTap Power Bundle and the BrainTap Headset: BTPARTNER2023)

For more information about Long Covid Breathing, their courses, workshops & other shorter sessions, please check out this link

(music - Brock Hewitt, Rule of Life)

Transcript

Jackie Baxter  
Hello, and welcome to this episode of the long COVID podcast, I am delighted to welcome my guest today, Dr. Masha Makeeva, who has come along to share her recovery story. So I'm really excited to dive into this. So a very warm welcome to the podcast.

Masha Makeeva  
Well, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here and share my story.

Jackie Baxter  
Thank you so much. And thank you for joining me. So to begin with, would you mind just saying a little about yourself and maybe what life was like before COVID?

Masha Makeeva  
Well, I am a doctor of naturopathic medicine and integrative medicine. So my life before COVID was filled with patients, you know, work enjoying my family life. Although I'm not new to chronic illness, when I was 26, so that's more than 20 years ago, I was diagnosed with several autoimmune diseases, endometriosis, polycystic ovarian syndrome. I remember going into a doctor's office, and leaving with 10 different diagnosis at the age of 26. 

So that was tough, taught me a lot, and eventually meet me change my career, go back to school. I went back to medical school, became a naturopathic doctor, because after experiencing health transformation myself, I wanted to help others experience it and unlock their best lives. So when I got COVID, and when I got eventually Long COVID, I sort of maybe was in a little bit of a better position than many other people, because I immediately understood what was going on, and where to start tackling it.

Jackie Baxter  
Yeah, that sounds very interesting. Because I think, from my perspective certainly, I was in the very privileged position of having never experienced really any sort of illness before in my entire life, beyond like getting a cold. You know, that was really the worst thing that ever happened to me. So when this happened, it was a complete surprise. And I had no idea what was going on. And I spent a lot of time completely kind of flailing. 

Whereas it sounds like you are coming into this with a slightly different perspective of this is really horrible, but also, well, I have a little bit of an idea what's going on here.  So yes, it's really interesting that that was slightly different for you. So can you talk a little bit about how your initial illness kind of played out - when did you get sick?

Masha Makeeva  
So I got Covid, I had COVID, three times. And the first two times were pretty uneventful, I guess, after the first time getting COVID, and I think that was still we were still in alpha, or Delta - was a year after pandemic started. Of course, I got sick, and I was sick for a week or maybe 10 days, but it wasn't terrible. And so five months after that, I had trouble sleeping. But when I say trouble sleeping, I could only sleep for five or six hours at night, but I would still wake up refreshed. And I had an infection in March. And by September, I was totally fine. Then I got another round of COVID, six months later, which was really uneventful, no complications. 

And then we were on vacation. That was August 2022. We all got sick, we had no idea it was COVID. Because really, how lucky can you get getting it three times in a year and a half. So it didn't even cross my mind that it could be COVID. I had one day of fever, a little bit of headache. No other, maybe a little bit of sore throat. So it wasn't Omicron virus. So nothing really, you know, that crossed my mind until two weeks later, I realized that I lost the sense of smell. And I was like okay, let me test - I tested and I tested positive. So two weeks later. So no sense of smell. Really weird sense of taste. 

Other than that I lost a lot of weight. Probably you guys go in stones, but we go in kilos. So let's say I weigh 53 kilos, so I lost four kilos. That's pretty significant for my weight. But other than that. And then maybe a month later, a couple of months later, I've noticed that my hair started to fall out in chunks a lot, like I have hair. But losing that much hair every time you wash your hair. And then I started developing brain fog, fatigue. 

And like brain fog, that was terrible. It really affected my affected my speech. I speak three languages, but I couldn't find words in either of those languages. I knew what I wanted to say. But I couldn't find the word. And then they like almost try or searching on the internet, I would really type in the definition of the word. So Google would give me the right answer. And then I could put this words into sentences and say what I wanted to say. 

And for me, it really affected my work. Because again, I have to talk to my patients. I also do YouTube, I have a YouTube channel, so I couldn't do any videos, because I just couldn't, you know, it affected the speech and everything else and mental fatigue, the one that I've never experienced before. And another symptoms that are another symptom that I had. And up until now, I don't know if it was a flare of my old our immune condition. 

Because many years ago, I was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis. Or it's something that I've developed because of long COVID. It just had a lot of joint pain, like I couldn't bend my elbow, it was my knees were hurting, some of my joints were swollen. So it wasn't a very nice picture. And it was going on and on and on. And again, even though I'm a doctor, even though I am actually seeing and I've been seeing long COVID patients, it still took me some time to realize, oh, this is what I'm having.

Jackie Baxter  
That's really interesting, isn't it, and you hear people say that doctors can be the worst patients. But I think also it's very hard to see things in yourself. Even, you know, in hindsight, they're very, very obvious. But you can see things in other people much more easily than you can see them in yourself. I think I've certainly noticed that with all sorts of things. So you just kind of came to this realization kind of over time where you went, Oh, wait a second. This is Long COVID.

Masha Makeeva  
I think the problem with long COVID is that we get the symptoms that necessarily right after the acute part of the infection, they come on gradually, months later, right? And those, and this period is called post COVID syndrome. By definition, right, three months after you've had COVID infection. So for me, I was losing hair, but I was thinking okay, which is you know, I live in Spain. So we'll go to the seaside in August. And I'm like, okay, maybe I swam too much in the ocean. And I'm just, you know, losing my hair, I need to go to see a hairdresser. Like my joints are hurting. Maybe I just over exercised or something like that. 

Well I actually went I got an MRI of both of my knees, because I was thinking that I either have like a baker cyst or some other condition completely unrelated. So before you start connecting the dots, I guess, even if you're a doctor who sees long COVID patients day in and day out. Maybe you're in disbelief. I don't know. Maybe you're like, No, no, this is not happening to me. This is not happening. It can't happen to me. But then you're like, well, it is. 

Jackie Baxter  
Yeah, I wondered about that is that, you know, it's almost like you're, you're trying to put these things, you know, put a different diagnosis on them. Because maybe subconsciously, you don't want it to be long COVID. I mean, why would anyone want it to be long COVID. Because it's horrible. So it's like, oh, well, you know, I've overdone this or, you know, that must be caused by that. Because the thought that it could be long COVID is a bit kind of, I don't know, overwhelming. I mean, we you know, you hear about it in the media, don't we? You know, and it's so horrible. So why would you want that?

Masha Makeeva  
Exactly. I think it happened. It happened to me. And I think it happens to many other people. You're almost like trying to find another reason for it. But then you realize, okay, this is the diagnosis, and I have to deal with it. And as I mentioned, I was lucky because I already knew that our body has this innate ability to heal. And it doesn't matter what is the diagnosis. When our body is put into the right environment, and we apply all the right therapies that can help us recover. This healing mechanism will turn on - it always does. It might take some time, we have to be patient. You know, but it will it will happen.

Jackie Baxter  
Yes, exactly the body's capacity to heal when you allow it to, or when it's allowed to is is quite incredible. I think. So, yes, you came to this realization that oh, gosh, right. Okay, this is long COVID. And it sounded like you maybe didn't fly into a complete panic, like some people might have done in that circumstance, because you'd had this prior experience. So what happened at that point? Did you start trying to find things that would help?

Masha Makeeva  
I tried not to panic

Jackie Baxter  
Easier said than done, right?

Masha Makeeva  
Yes, yes. You look at the statistics, and you realize that for some people, it takes months, if not years to recover. So you're like thinking and and your thinking is affected. Okay, this is one thing that long COVID, especially if it affects your brain, right? Because not for every single person, they will have that brain fog. Not every single person will see their brain function affected. You know, for some, it could be other manifestation of the same illness, right? So you can't think clearly. 

You realize, okay, this can be a long journey, like, where do I start? Do I become my own physician? Or do I consult with colleagues, and I did both, to see because it's very difficult to be objective with your own health and with health of your loved ones. That's why it's difficult to treat your own family members. Anyways, so I looked at it. And I always start - with my patients, I always start with the diet, I always look at their diet, and like, how is diet related to long COVID. It's a viral illness. So what diet has to do with it. 

And I think diet is very important, because we are what we eat, and what we absorb, we need all this nutrients that were probably lost during the acute COVID illness. And I want to say something, a lot of us, especially now, we don't get very sick during the acute COVID infection anymore, because the virus is not as strong. But it doesn't mean that it doesn't affect us on so many levels. It still creates a lot of inflammation, it uses up a lot of nutrients to help a person feel better. And those nutrients need to be replenished, both with foods that we eat, but also with supplements that we take. So as I said, my first step, as with my patients, it was the same with myself, I looked at my diet, I eliminated all foods that could cause additional inflammation. 

What is inflammation? Inflammation is pain. Inflammation is fatigue. Inflammation is present in every chronic illness. So our goal is to bring it down. Diet is the number one step. And just to give you an idea, foods that produce inflammation are things like gluten, right, that is found in flour products, grains in general, because they contain a lot of lectins. Again, gluten is a form of a lectin. 

And there is a great book, the plant paradox. I don't know if you heard about it, but it explains all the signs behind them. It's the lectin connection with inflammation. And what I've seen for myself, and with my patients, that this lectin free diet, especially in the initial stages of healing has been exceptionally helpful for people to start feeling better. Those who have gastrointestinal symptoms like diarrhea, stomach aches, a lot of gas, maybe burping, maybe indigestion, you know, constipation, that all of a sudden came on with COVID and long COVID will see relief with this lectin free diet. So that was the step number one.

Jackie Baxter  
Well, yeah, so diet obviously, it certainly can be a really big deal because like you say, what you put into your body is going to kind of determine how your body reacts isn't it? You know, and you and we were just saying beforehand, you're you're not going to heal if you're not getting the right things into it.

Masha Makeeva  
Right. What you eat affects everything. It affects how you sleep, it affects the pain level in your body. It definitely affects your energy, right? Because if you eat a lot of carbohydrates, and we tend to crave those carbohydrates when we're not well, but what they do, they spike our sugar then comes to fatigue. We already have the fatigue and this long COVID problem, right? We don't need any more fatigue. So looking at what you eat is essential. 

And it's one of the therapies it's called nutrition, right? It's one of the therapies that is generally free. Like, you don't have to get sessions, you don't have to go to the doctor's office. It's basically what you eat. And what I did for the first three months, I didn't go out, I didn't order food in, I cooked for myself, because I needed to make sure that what I put into my food is healthy, nutritious, and it's not going to make me feel worse. Like things like vegetable oils are extremely inflammatory, seed oils. If you go out, even to a nice restaurant, a lot of times you'll find that they cook you with seed oils. A big no no for somebody who's already having issues like a chronic illness, post covid syndrome.

Jackie Baxter  
Yeah, yeah, definitely. So what was the next step?

Masha Makeeva  
So that was my step number one, then I looked at the therapies. And for those who will have to go to see a doctor, most likely, that would help me speed up my healing, because diet is amazing. It's essential. But it's not enough. COVID is nasty. We're learning new things every day at what it does. And it doesn't cease to amaze me at how smart this virus is, and how it affects us on so many levels, right. And we see that from the symptoms. So the therapies that I chose, where the therapies that I saw had the most effect in my patients. And I'm not going to go through all of them, because otherwise the podcast episode is going to be too long. But the main ones, okay, that I've seen having the most effect. 

So the one that I did, right from the beginning when I realized, okay, this is long COVID. So we need to start dealing with it, was hyperbaric oxygen therapy. So hyper stands for increased and baric stands for pressure. It's a therapy that's administered inside a hyperbaric chamber. So you need to go to the doctor's office, or maybe to wellness clinic. And in UK, you guys are very lucky, because you can get hyperbaric treatments at the MS charity that offers it for pennies for like 15 pounds a session. I think nobody else in the world is as lucky as you guys are. And we can provide the link to the charity in the podcast description for people, because I get on my channel. People send me a lot of comments asking me for those links. So we'll provide you guys with a link where you can get that. 

A person lays down inside a hyperbaric chamber. And because of the pressure, the oxygen consumption increases, so they start getting more oxygen. I talked about it with many people who used it to like Gez Medinger. And Dr. Tam, you know, they all did, they all went through a long COVID. They all used hyperbaric therapy, and everybody found it helpful. So this oxygen is needed for repair. And for energy production. Because we need oxygen to produce energy. So here you go, for energy production right away, you're starting to have less fatigue, your energy improves from session one, which is amazing. But one session is not enough. 

Like with many therapies, especially when you're dealing with a chronic condition. So with each additional session, inflammation levels will go down because this is what oxygen under increased pressure does. If you're interested in this therapy, you can learn about it on my channel. I talk a lot about it because I've seen it perform absolute miracles for many diseases, not just long COVID. A lot of lives were saved at the beginning of the pandemic in COVID patients with hyperbaric because it helped them breathe and it helped them absorb oxygen, as opposed to ventilators which did more harm than good, right? But we didn't know, we did the best that we could. 

And now in long COVID patients we see decrease in fatigue and there are many studies that proves that. We see decrease in brain fog, improved state of well being so person starts feeling better. Anxiety goes away, depression, those two mental health symptoms that come often right with in long COVID patients. Pain is being much better controlled because we're bringing inflammation down, so we're basically - what is inflammation? Inflammation is this fire that's going inside your body and that produces pain, swelling, inability to sleep, all this digestive symptoms, and all of a sudden, the fire becomes smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller. And you go back to how you felt before getting COVID. 

And I think this is the most beautiful thing to feel, is to finally, am I getting my body back? Am I getting my brain? My brain is coming back. Oh my god, I can think now. I can do math problems, like, things that I couldn't even think about doing, you know, six months ago. 

Now, the question that comes up a lot, how many hyperbaric sessions will be needed? It's individual. I've seen people get better with 20 sessions, I've seen people get better with 60 sessions. Why? Because we all come to this problem with our luggage from the past. Like myself, I've already had auto-immune disease is something that you have for life, right? So as opposed to somebody like you, who never even thought about, like, what is being sick, a cough or cold, nothing more than that, right. So for me, I came with a lot of baggage. So for me, it would have taken longer than for somebody like yourself, hopefully, who you're younger, and no chronic diseases. Those are all factors that affect how many sessions of hyperbaric therapy, you will need. 

One thing I can say - it's very pleasant to receive hyperbarics because you feel relaxed, you feel rejuvenated, you get this feeling, you know, when you're in the mountains, or maybe in the forest, and you breathing, this fresh air, and all this oxygen is going into your brain. This is how you feel and this oxygen goes to your brain. And it starts at some of the areas that were sleeping, because of the COVID. Because it causes brain damage, right? They start to wake up. And then like all this light bulbs go on, and it's just beautiful. So this was the main therapy that I did besides the diet.

Jackie Baxter  
I mean, you hear about people, you know, all over social media trying hyperbarics. And I'm sure what I've noticed a few people saying, in fact, probably more, probably quite a lot of people saying, is that they felt really tired after the first few sessions. And you know, this is supposed to be making me feel better, less tired. Why am I feeling more tired after the first couple of sessions? Is this kind of normal? And is that something that people just need to kind of carry on doing it? Or is that a sign that it's not working?

Masha Makeeva  
It's definitely - it's a sign that it is working. And for some people, they can get tired after the first sessions, which means their mitochondria, mitochondria - these little things in your cells that actually the energy production plant, they produce the energy. This means that the mitochondria were damaged during the COVID infection. So what your body's going to do, it has to get rid of the old mitochondria, it has to improve the ones that it has, and it starts producing new ones. So this will take time. And in this time, you might feel tired, this is normal. What I really suggest that people do, don't schedule anything after your first especially first three or four hypothetic sessions, see how you're gonna feel - if you feel tired, go home and sleep. Don't push yourself too hard, because your body is exhausted. 

You know how there is a saying that and we can prove this. But we'll say that long COVID very often affects high functioning individuals. Why is that? Because those are the people who try to squeeze 10 different things into their day, at the expense maybe of not having a rest. Correct. So they're so used to it. That when long COVID comes it's all of a sudden it's like the biggest lesson we need to learn in life. To stop, pace yourself. And pacing is another therapy that we're going to be talking about today hopefully. So this idea of you know, taking your time just pausing and let your body heal. Right. 

Especially sleep because we know that healing happens during sleep. So sleep is extremely important. If you feel sleepy - perfect. A lot of people in long COVID have their sleep, see their sleep affected right. So if you can sleep, definitely take advantage and sleep. Don't stop if you feel tired after hyperbarics. You definitely need it. It's gonna go, this oxygen is gonna go in, it's gonna start repairing your mitochondria. And you will start feeling better. Eventually this feeling of tiredness would go away. And it would be replaced by this increased energy.

Jackie Baxter  
Yeah, so it's almost like when you're tidying your house, and you have to make more mess in order to make it tidier. So it's a bit like that, then. 

Masha Makeeva  
Uh hmm

Jackie Baxter  
So you just mentioned pacing and sleep.

Masha Makeeva  
Yeah, I think Sleep, sleep, you can't really underestimate the power of sleep, right? We need to sleep. And that's when we get better. That's when we heal, especially for people who see their brain function affected. So you need that deep sleep, you need REM sleep at all different phases of sleep. There are tracking devices, like an aura ring. They can track actually how much sleep you're getting. Are you getting the right amount of sleep? And are you getting the right type of sleep during the time that you sleep, right. And you can work on that. 

So my advice, it's a general advice, really, is to make sure that you go to bed at the same time every day, and you wake up at the same time every day. People tend to sleep in on weekends and go to bed later. So that's not a good idea. Because your body really likes this consistency. And make sure that you get at least seven to eight hours of sleep. 

Now the question comes, what about me if I have trouble sleeping. I know that not me as myself. But my patient said all the time, they said Ok I understand, sleep is super important, but I can't sleep. Alright, so again, many therapies that can help I find that hyperbarics help people improve sleep. Eventually. I also learned about this amazing technology. I didn't use it during long COVID. But I'm using it now. And I can say that it dramatically improves sleep. It's called Brain tap. 

It's a device that you - it's like earphones, and you have this panel in front of your eyes. So what it is, it's a sound, it's a combination of a sound and light therapy. And it just works amazing, like I am so in love with this device, I can actually spend hours doing it. Although the sessions are really short, they're like 10-15-20 minutes long. And you get like visualization with it, or a meditation. And you have listened to classical music, and you have all the slides that go through your ears and through your eyes. And it's just so relaxing. And it definitely affects the quality of the sleep. 

So this is the technology, but also other things can definitely help. As I said, making sure that your bedroom is not too hot, and it's not too cold. Maybe taking an Epsom salt bath before going to bed. I found that really helps to relax. So not eating right before going to bed, those are easy things, right? We all can implement them without going into more specific advice of supplements and herbs that can help. But I find that as other long COVID symptoms improve. Sleep improves as well.

Jackie Baxter  
Yeah, definitely. A lot of people with long COVID will be you know, they might get up. And then you know, a couple hours later, there'll be feeling so tired, they'll need to go and have another lay down. They might have a nap. That might happen later in the day. You have people having you know, a couple of naps during the day. Is that healthy? And will that affect people's sleep at night if they nap too often during the day?

Masha Makeeva  
I'd say my advice always to my patients, if you need to nap, please nap. Those power naps. They're great. They're amazing. And it brings us back to the idea of pacing. You know what is pacing? Pacing really is the idea of stopping when you need to stop. Whether you need to nap for half an hour, maybe just lay down, but don't push through fatigue, through being tired. This concept was first developed with folks who have fibromyalgia, ME and chronic fatigue syndrome right. So you wake up and you estimate your energy. How many spoons - they estimate it in spoons - how many spoons do I have today? Or like what's my energy like on a scale of zero to 10? Zero - I can't get up, 10 - I feel amazing, the best I've ever felt. And then estimating and giving it a really good estimate, what can I do with the energy that I have, so that I still have something left in the evening. So always spending less than you have that day. 

Your energy will differ, even if you're the healthiest individual efforts. As for women, depending on their cycle, where you are in your cycle, you're going to get very different energy. When you're ovulating, your energy is going to be through the roof. And then the second half of the cycle, maybe not so great, right. So it's normal to have different energy levels depending on the day. 

Then I can wake up with energy level of six out of 10, or three out of 10. So if it's a three out of 10, at the beginning, what I did, I planned one task a day, because I was really tired. So whether it was grocery shopping, or maybe maybe I had one patient consultation, but it was just one thing that I did. And the rest, I tried to rest. Resting doesn't mean that you are watching Netflix, okay? Because that's still engages your brain a lot. So listening to music, laying down with your eyes closed. It's amazing, things like that, don't please don't feel guilty. Okay, because especially for people who are like, used to doing so many things. And they want to excel, being a great parent, or daughter or son, a husband and wife, career, everything, you know, let's just squeeze everything together in this one day and push through. Okay, that might not work right now, don't feel guilty. 

Now it's time to, you know, for self care, to build that foundation of health. So you can be healthy in 10 years and 20 years and you know, 30 years, we need that foundation. When I was at naturopathic school, I was introduced to the concept of a jar. So what it means is that when we're born, we're all born with a jar of chi, of energy, that we're ever going to have. Now, depending on the life circumstances, on the health of your parents at the time of the conception, and how the pregnancy went and the birth, the size of your jar might be very different from even your brothers or your sisters, right. 

And then we can take from the jar, or we can put back to the jar. So when we not sleeping when like partying, drinking a lot of alcohol, or even a little alcohol, things like that, being a type A personality - we're constantly taking from this jar. So when we get to midlife, we can take very little left. And that's when we started getting our health issues. Also happens if we had an illness like COVID, and the jar was half empty. So here comes long COVID. 

But we can also put back into the jar. And that's a good part, right? Because you might have been dealt the cards that you've been dealt, the jar that you've received when you were born, maybe was not that big. But you can actually by following healthy lifestyle, but making sure that you sleep there, you take naps if you need to, that you stop, that you breathe, you know, that you take time to cook a meal and things like that. Healthy Relationships, good laughter. That's why they say that a comedy movie is the best movie you can watch when you're not well, right. So you're putting back to that chart. And that's what we're doing with Pacing.

And Long COVID, we'll look at it. It's an illness, it's an illness, here are the symptoms. This is the therapy, but let's look at it as a life lesson really, that we need to learn, you know, that we need to take care of ourselves first, like put your mask on first, on a plane, right? Especially as women, we tend to do the opposite. We're the caregivers, let's take care of everybody else. And maybe if I have time left, I'll take care of myself. Well, when you have long COVID It doesn't work like that anymore. Right? Because all of a sudden, you must take care of yourself, otherwise, otherwise life becomes miserable.

Jackie Baxter  
Yeah. And it's almost like the tables are turned isn't it - you know, you can't even look after yourself some of the time and instead of being the person that does all the things, you suddenly become the person who is asking everybody else for help. And I certainly found that that was a difficult thing to do, to let go and and to actually say, I was lucky to have a partner I was living with. So he just started doing everything. 

And you know, and I was lucky that he was able to do that. But I know that people who live on their own who don't have somebody else, or who even maybe have children that they're responsible for, would have a much harder time with that, because they'd be needing to ask for, you know, outside help. And I think that's possibly even harder than asking someone you're living with maybe.

Masha Makeeva  
Absolutely. And we're learning to receive. We're pretty good at giving, right? Most of the time, but how about receiving? And talking about children, I have a 14 year old, and she was pretty spoiled. She's the only child, you know, I took care of her and her father - we all take care of her. And then all of a sudden, when I became so sick, a lot of responsibilities she had to sue. And it helped her I think, grow into a better person, in so many ways. 

And at first, I felt really guilty, that I cannot be with her as much as I wanted to, that maybe I was not so present with things that she did at school, and maybe she was surfing the internet when I was sleeping, you know, it wasn't something that I wanted her to do. And that, you know, that absolutely teaches us to let go, receive and divide that responsibility among the family members. It's a great lesson. It's a great it's painful. Like every lesson. Yeah. But and we're still learning, all of us we're still learning, all of us in this boat, I guess.

Jackie Baxter  
Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Were there any other things that were really helpful to you wanted to mention?

Masha Makeeva  
There are many therapies that can help and that have been shown to help. Ozone, for example, could be really helpful, especially for people who have viral persistence. So they still test positive, or maybe some viral particles are found. People who have lung fibrosis. And so they had a lot of respiratory symptoms when they were initially sick. And now their lungs have scar tissue. So maybe their oxygen saturation hasn't gone back to normal, you know, they still have this difficulty breathing, especially on exertion. So Ozone would be helpful for things like that. 

Somebody who has hormonal problems, which is very common for women in their 40s who have long COVID, because it's sort of - is it long COVID? Is it perimenopause, what is it? And how to help this woman? Right. So Ozone. What else? Is there? Things like red light therapy, it was helpful for me, for my joint pain. Definitely. Pacing was amazing. It still is, I really hope it stays with me, here now. I feel a lot better. I should say, my long COVID was at it's worst in March, February, March of 2023. We're in June. And I'm a lot better, probably 80% better. 

One thing I guess I wanted to add, we don't know if you actually get better. And that's it. Or it's a chronic condition and long COVID can come back. Right? Because what happened to me and what I've heard from other people, I was doing amazing in May, right. And then I had a lot of stress. And then I started getting my symptoms back. So the question is, is it the condition sort of a chronic condition that we'll have for life, and we'll have to be careful about stuff following all this steps, eating well, sleeping well, you know, exercising enough, not over exercising, and things like that to keep us healthy. So we feel great, but whenever we fall short, it might come back. 

I've also heard from some of my patients, they did all this therapies. They got 100% better, they went back to their old life habits and then two months later, they call me and they say some of my symptoms are coming back. So this is a big question in the air. We don't have the research yet. We don't have the time, like the time has to pass so we better understand this condition. And that's why all we talked about today. The pacing, self care is super important, guys. Take it with you, like let it become a habit, right, rather than a short term solution. And that habit will help us stay healthy. 

If you're a woman through the years of menopause, if you're a man through the years of andropause, we all get to age one day, we are aging, actually, from the day one, since we were born. But you get to the time of your life when you like really notice the signs of aging, right? Are you going to age while and gracefully? This really all depends on the lifestyle and self care. And, you know, prevention. 

And I emphasize this, because prevention is really - what is prevention, you can't touch it, right? It's one thing when you have an illness, and you get better. It's another thing, I'm preventing an illness. Am I imagining something? No, you're not. You're really building this foundation of health.

Jackie Baxter  
Yeah, I love what you're saying about, you know, preventing illness because this is something that, as I said, I was very privileged before I got long COVID, that I, you know, had never really been ill before. I thought I had a very healthy lifestyle. But actually, with hindsight, I was getting away with a lot. You know, I was under a lot of stress, I was physically doing too much. I was mentally doing too much. My diet wasn't that bad. But it wasn't that great, either. But I didn't really realize. 

And then, you know, now with the kind of benefit of hindsight, I'm looking back on it and thinking, Well, why was I living that lifestyle? That wasn't healthy, but I didn't know better. So you know, there's no point beating myself up about it. But it then makes you think about, well, health care, the health care system is wrong, actually, you know, we should be looking at preventing illness rather than being reactive, and reacting to illness, which is what we currently do. And I don't know, I just get really annoyed about this. 

But you know, I guess it's one of those things that until you've been through an experience where you've been, you know, made to realize this, it's quite hard to understand it, you know, people before I got sick might have said, Oh, you should do some yoga, it's really good for you. And I would have said, I don't have time, or I'd rather do something else, or you know. So I suppose it's hard to see it until you have had a certain experience.

Masha Makeeva  
Exactly. But when you've had that experience, and you really don't want to go back to it. Like, now I need to prioritize this, I am prioritizing my health, my health is important. It's the best investment, right? Because when you healthy, it's so much easier to enjoy life. When you're not, it becomes more difficult. Let's be honest about it. I was shocked when I actually learned that it's 80% of women, I specialize in women's health. So I'm going to talk about women here, but I'm sure it's the same for men as well. 80% of women will not realize their dreams, they will not fulfill their life potential because of the chronic illness. 

And a lot of the chronic illness can be prevented, because a lot of it is caused by lifestyle factors. And this is what long COVID is teaching us, right? I think people are a lot more conscious about their health right now. They're a lot more willing to take that extra step, and maybe change their diet, to take that extra step and go to bed early, instead of staying up late. Because they know that there are consequences to this behavior, and they don't want to be paying that price. And I totally understand. I agree. I don't want to be paying that price, either.

Jackie Baxter  
Yeah, I mean, again, it's coming back to what can you do, isn't it. The healthier you are, the better you are going to be able to withstand whatever life throws at you, whether it's a horrible virus, or a stressful situation, or, you know, whatever it is, like life, unfortunately, is not all sunshine and roses is it, you know, things happen. And they will always happen. 

And I think this is kind of what I'm coming to realize that, you know, you can't avoid everything that happens in life. But you can put yourself in the best possible position to handle it when it comes. And I think that's probably an important lesson that I've learned from this. And, you know, hopefully that's one that I can take forward and you know, not fall back into some of those less healthy patterns, where I refuse to say no to anything.

Masha Makeeva  
Yeah, yeah, beautifully said. I agree with you totally. Like we all have our own lessons, right. That we hopefully learned, that we're taking with us. And I think that's the beauty of it. Because yes, it's a very unfortunate condition to have. But at the same time, if we can learn from it, if we can get better. And there are many therapies and now we're learning which therapies are most effective, right, for long COVID. So we don't, we don't keep doing everything there is, you know, in hope to to get better, but rather doing more focused therapies that help us get better. 

And if you look at statistics, most of the people get better. And I do believe that all everybody will get better, but it will just take a different amount of time for each person, which is normal, because we're all different. We're all individuals, right? So when we all get better, what are we going to do with our health? And that's a big question, actually, that I ask all of my patients, when we start working. Please imagine things that you want to be doing when you finally start feeling better. What are you going to do with this health? With this energy? You know, where are you going to channel it? How you can next change your life? 

The important question we all need to be asking, even if you're still bedridden, and you still have very little energy to get up, think about those things, because you will get to the point of feeling better. 

Jackie Baxter  
Yeah, 

Masha Makeeva  
Just encourage everybody to visit my YouTube channel. I talk a lot about long COVID. But not only, especially for those who want to learn about hyperbaric oxygen therapy, and if you're planning to use it for long COVID or any other illness. And thank you for having me on this podcast, it was an absolute pleasure talking to you.

Jackie Baxter  
Thank you so much. I will make sure that I pop a link to - you've mentioned loads of things. I'll put them all into the show notes, including your YouTube channel. So if anybody's interested in that, then I definitely recommend checking that out. And yeah, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been such a pleasure speaking to you and hearing your story and I hope that it's inspired some of people who are listening. 

Masha Makeeva  
Thank you

Transcribed by https://otter.ai