When Covid- 19 broke out in the UK in February 2020, and the fear of acute respiratory-illness was at its peak, little did we realise in our Spinavita health care setting that the longer lasting effects of Covid would still be affecting our patients, months after the start of the pandemic.
This for me, as a Chiropractor, has been the biggest challenge – the increase in chronic illness. I have seen an exponential increase in the number of people suffering with chronic pain as well as long lasting symptoms such as, low mood/energy, anxiety, lethargy, sleep disturbance and lingering viral symptoms.
My challenge as a Chiropractor has been to find the answers to why so many people that have had recent viruses, don’t seem to be able to shake them off? Why are the symptoms lingering for weeks or sometimes months?
These questions became even more significant to me when I suffered my own health battle. In March 2022, I finally succumbed to Covid, at the time it felt like a very heavy cold but with a weird symptom of ‘brain fog’. I tested positive for 10 days, however, my symptoms of fatigue and slow cognition just kept on going, and really as I look back this was the start of a downward spiral of my health. The climax of this for me, was a kidney infection which took me to A&E – I think this was around late April 2022. I couldn’t understand how someone ‘as healthy’ as I liked to think I was, got taken down by this horrible virus, which led me to get a very serious infection! I decided to do some research………
Quickly, I stumbled on the link between nutrition, and metabolic function and how this massively affects the body’s ability to heal. When I caught covid, I had just finished breastfeeding my 14 month old youngest daughter (pregnancy and breastfeeding are known to significantly deprive you of minerals and nutrients). It made sense that my body couldn’t cope with this new and nasty virus, which meant my body significantly deteriorated trying to fight against it, leaving it vulnerable to other infections. I was under-nourished and metabolically fragile.
When I realised this and started to focus on significantly boosting and improving my diet, nutritional intake and sleep patterns. I gave my body the opportunity to heal and repair. It took about 5-6 months to fully heal, and I finally got back to my robust self ( I gauged this by being able to run again and perform my normal daily tasks without burning out). I can tell you it was a relief to finally get there!
I have continued to follow a nutrient dense diet, avoiding, as often as possible the toxins which I know upset the balance of my body and I take daily supplements to help maintain this.
I understand that every person is different. Genetic make up and lifestyles all vary. However, there are a number of commonalities which mean often we can make subtle basic changes and follow certain rules to our diet and lifestyle which will 80% of the time have significant benefit to our health.
I will go into this in more detail in future articles but in a nutshell if you are nutritionally or metabolically deficient, then effective healing can’t take place, inflammation builds up in the body which can cause havoc with our health and immune system. Putting less toxic chemicals into your body and nutritionally loading ourselves with the good stuff can have massive benefits to us all!
Myself and Chiropractor Jessica Davy are now members of the Academy of Chiropractic Nutrition and we both recommend nutrition and supplements as part of our Chiropractic Practice.
Written by Anna Hawrot
Doctor of Chiropractic
Spinavita Clinic Director
