Covid long hauler worried about music career and reinfection

[guitarguy251]

I am a male Covid long hauler in my late 20s who is finally starting to recover after a year of not being able to work or go to school. Now I'm worried about reinfection and continuing my career as a musician. 

Playing gigs as a guitarist and teaching students can be risky for avoiding COVID. I'm worried reinfection may cause my long covid symptoms to come back to how they were a year ago or get even worse. 

Playing guitar has always been what I've wanted to do since I was 9, so I really don't want to give it up as a career. My friend think I am just worrying and being too anxious. I know the public and politicians are saying the pandemic emergency is over but I'm still pretty scared of catching it again. But it hurts seeing my friends and fellow musicians having the time of their lives while I'm at home. How can I accurately assess my risks, especially with so many unknowns surrounding covid? Also @Leo Gura I wonder if this is something you may have some insight on in terms of assessing risks or even career advice.

(My symptoms are shortness of breath, fatigue, and GERD which have improved since last year. I've had 2 Pfizer shots and one booster. Contemplating on getting another booster but worried how that will effect my long COVID too.) 
 

Edited July 12, 2023 by guitarguy251
Grammar was confusing

[LfcCharlie4]

@Michael569 This is an awesome response. Tbh if you can follow this 80-90% even without Long Covid you're majority of the way there for overall health and longevity! 

[Leo Gura]

On 7/12/2023 at 10:46 AM, guitarguy251 said:

Also @Leo Gura I wonder if this is something you may have some insight on in terms of assessing risks or even career advice.

Sorry, but that's just not within my area of knowledge.

If I had to guess, if you already survived Covid once I think you shouldn't worry too much about it. But I don't know your unique health situation.

I just don't see how you can realistically hide from it at this point. At some point you gotta say Fuck it and get on with your life. The only reason for being cautious about Covid was early on in order to get the vaccine. But if you're not getting a vaccine or you already got one, then there's really nothing more you can do other than stay generally healthy with good diet and exercise. And at that point if it kills you it kills you. What else can you do? You can't live in fear your whole life.

Edited July 15, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Yimpa]

On 7/12/2023 at 0:46 PM, guitarguy251 said:

(My symptoms are shortness of breath, fatigue, and GERD which have improved since last year. I've had 2 Pfizer shots and one booster. Contemplating on getting another booster but worried how that will effect my long COVID too.) 

The new COVID boostah should be available latter part of September. Get yo arm ready!

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/13/health/covid-19-vaccines-hhs-letter/index.html

[guitarguy251]

@Michael569 @Michael569 @LfcCharlie4 @Leo Gura Thank you so much for the help!@Leo Gura That's definitely been on my mind a lot. Thanks, that helped put my fears in perspective. Dealing with a disease that we still don't fully understand has been quite a mind fuck. I was young and healthy so death wasn't too much of a worry once I got my vaccines, but I wasn't ready for it to negatively impact my health and at least am fortunate I'm improving. 

Michael you gave me a lot to work with, thank you! I've tried a few of these already, such as vitamin d supplementation, cleaning up my diet, meditation and breathing exercises, zinc and magnesium. Unfortunately with the plant based diet I was really losing weight (almost underweight) and it was tough getting enough protein, so I switched back to eating meat. Doctors have done chest x-rays and blood tests, no vitamin tests yet though. Really appreciated what you said about the yin and yang approach to exercise, cold exposure, stress resistance, etc.

 

@Yimpa Thanks I'm hoping this one will better target the new variants! Still trying to figure out the data on how long haulers handle boosters. There is so much we still don't know. 

[Yimpa]

1 hour ago, guitarguy251 said:

Dealing with a disease that we still don't fully understand has been quite a mind fuck. 

If you really think about it, there’s still a lot we don’t know about the human brain, despite significant advances in neuroscience. 

[guitarguy251]

@Yimpa Very true, I wonder if we can ever fully understand the complexities of the human brain.

 

@Michael569 When you were describing cold exposure and body scanning mindfulness I thought of Wim Hof. I have heard some success stories with Wim Hof's breathing method and cold showers/ice baths (he himself takes it a little extreme) and am curious what do you think of its use for long COVID?

[Yimpa]

Just now, guitarguy251 said:

@Yimpa Very true, I wonder if we can ever fully understand the complexities of the human brain.

Maybe the aliens will help us with that.