"A common and low-cost antidepressant can successfully treat fatigue associated with long COVID, according to a new study.
Co-led by researchers from McMaster University in Ontario, the study found that the drug fluvoxamine, which is commonly sold under the name Luvox, significantly reduced fatigue symptoms in a clinical trial of 399 adults with long COVID. It is one of the first times a medication has been shown to effectively treat the condition. "
@douglasvb @kevinbowrin much more likely that you need to bring your doctor a printout of this paper.
I’ve been bringing much more research to my doctors as I struggle with long covid (5.5 years later) than they’ve been bringing to me.
@lkanies @douglasvb @kevinbowrin good idea. And they've made it open access!
Annals of Internal Medicine: The Effect of Fluvoxamine and Metformin for Fatigue in Patients With Long COVID: An Adaptive Randomized Trial, Vyas et al. 2026-03-31:
https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/ANNALS-25-03959
@Centretowner @lkanies @douglasvb @kevinbowrin
It's worth a shot. Hell I'll try anything at this point.
But, I read the paper there and beyond the headline, shows only a small but meaningful difference from placebo based on subjective scoring of feeling fatigue. ( https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/ANNALS-25-03959 )
The discussion also mentions (to roughly paraphrase) that treating depression associated with feeling crappy may not actually be addressing the underlying pathology but may be helping people feel better anyway. Thats not a bad thing but it would be great to actually treat the underlying pathology.
It's likely the feeling of utter hopelessness adds to the feeling of fatigue so it may be a valid treatment point too. I guess.
@rockmastermike @Centretowner @lkanies @kevinbowrin the specialist I'm seeing at the Stanford long COVID clinic (it's the ME/CFS clinic that also does long COVID) hasn't been too interested in anything beyond Mediterranean diet and low dose Naltrexone for several years. My PCP is more willing to experiment with me although he usually defers to the specialist.
Maybe I need to find a new specialist...
@douglasvb @Centretowner @lkanies @kevinbowrin
I've experienced some improvement with daily Celecoxib (anti-inflamatory). fwiw.
there's also some evidence that vitamin B-complex helps suppress some autoimmune inflammation at the source. So I've started a daily fairly high dose (carefully).
Just to hedge my bets (even though it seems unlikely but cant hurt i guess) Also omega-3 from fish oil and turmeric
*sigh*
@douglasvb wow! everyone's really different. I don't get the crazy dreams at all.
Might be worth looking into the peptide (Zep) there but i already have trouble with low apatite most days. I've heard thats being actively studied as a treatment
@rockmastermike lucky I'm fat enough that suppressing my appetite isn't a big deal 😅 Being fat also means my insurance is paying for most of it.
I also noticed a mood stabilization on Zepbound. And less inflammation in general.
It was really like a light switch for me when I started taking Zepbound. One dose and my brain turned back on. The fatigue and the exercise induced malaise have slowly gotten better with time but the brain fog almost instantly improved. Now I get foggy maybe once every few weeks for a few hours at most.
I saw there was a clinical trial of one of these drugs from the same class as Zepbound up in San Francisco so maybe some subset of the long COVID community is getting helped by it and I'm not just a weird outlier 😅
@douglasvb @rockmastermike thanks for all tn commentary, and ideas.
I just started a low dose of Naltrexone. Not expecting world changing results, but hopefully it helps, especially in the deep lows. I also plan to separately test the various supplements that seem to help.
No me/cfs specialists in Portland, OR that I can find. I have lots of comorbidities (autism, ehler’s danlos) that make it all harder to figure out.
@lkanies @rockmastermike I did find the LDN helped especially early on to take the bottom out of those lows and make me at least functional enough to get out of bed. I had to play around a lot with dosage and ended up at 10mg/day which is a bit higher than normal. I started at 0.5mg/day and it took six months of ramping to get to 10mg. From what I heard from my various doctors, everyone is different with the right dosage level on it.
Good luck on starting LDN! I hope it helps.
Kevin Bowrin ☕
Douglas
Luke Kanies
Charles A-M
Rockmaster Mike