This morning I dropped a note to my physician about immune system activation symptoms from getting my 2nd covid shot. One item cited was suspected activation of coagulation resulting in brain fog. I mention that it disappears for half of the day with 300 mg of Piracetam. I expect an email back asking what is Piracetam?

From Wikipedia, you can get general background. It is NOT to be confused with paracetamol (acetaminophen). It’s sits in a murky space in the US, so while legal, without prescription, it can be hard to find.

It improves brain function for many conditions

• [2020] After treatment, the quality of life scores was significantly higher than the control group, and the difference was statistically significant (P<0.05). For patients with vascular dementia after cerebral infarction, piracetam combined with nimodipine can improve the cognitive function, improve the quality of life, and have a significant clinical effect.
• [2021] Although Piracetam is officially recognized as a nootropic, its enhancing effects in the healthy individual’s brain are moderate [104,54]. The racetam molecules are being used across a range of brain disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease, narcolepsy, ADHD, Parkinson’s disease and brain aging [105,106].
• [2020] Piracetam shifted the balance of mitochondrial fission or fusion toward fusion, which is more favorable for ATP production, which would indirectly benefit synaptic function because of the energy requirements of synapses. ⁴³ A review indicated favorable effects on neurotransmission and neuroplasticity. ⁴⁴ Another report showed that the increased neurite length after piracetam treatment was accompanied by increased expression of the synaptic marker GAP43, thus improving neural plasticity. ⁴⁵

In days long ago when I often fly between Seattle and India for work, I used a heparin-piracetam cocktail to reduce risk of DVT. As a side effect, I never experienced jet-lag.

• [1998] ” The heparin-piracetam complex had a more pronounced anticoagulant and fibrinolytic activities than the individual components.”
• [1993] “The particular efficacy of 8 g piracetam daily in 3 divided doses at 8-hourly intervals can be attributed to its unique dual mode of action; inhibition of platelet function by inhibition of thromboxane A2 synthetase or antagonism of thromboxane A2 and increased formation of prostaglandin I2, together with a rheological effect involving reduction in blood and plasma viscosity through an increase in cell membrane deformability and a reduction of 30-40% in the plasma concentrations of fibrinogen and von Willebrand’s factor”

This last study is why it is my go to when brain fog occurs. I have a mutation that results in higher levels of fibrinogen.

Coagulation in various forms in ME/CFS was demonstrated in the late 1990’s by David Berg. [Other Berg Links: [A,B, *] .

COVID Coagulation

Doing a search on PubMed for “covid coagulopathy“, we find over 1100 citations. For long haul covid to include persistent coagulation is very probable. It may be due to microbiome alterations or other mechanisms.

Bottom Line

Trying piracetam for brain fog is something to discuss with your MD. You may need to educate him about the contents of this article. The [1993] study was on humans and thus showed safety and also dosage (8 grams/day in 3 dosages).

An Exploration of the microbiome economy using Microbiome Prescription and a 16s report.

Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO)

This is detected by end products produced: Hydrogen and Methane and not specific bacteria.

We can explore for associations of different products of bacteria to symptoms

• Studies for specific bacteria often have poor results •
• From bacteria genes using KEGG: Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes,
• we have:
  • Modules (419)
  • Enzymes (6136)
  • End Products (3017)

The challenge – Looking at almost 10,000 items for patterns. This is automated, so let us jump to results.

Predicted Symptoms

Support for multiple samples

Summary

The purpose is to discover associations. Association does not prove causality; but association often reflect severity of symptoms. This gives leads to explore…. Not canned answers…

Long haul COVID is sometime referred to as Post-Virus Syndrome. I prefer the more general, Post-Infection Syndrome. Most people with a CFS/ME diagnosis fall under that classification and causation. It appears to impact about 10% of people with a certain severity of COVID. The profile is very similar to ME/CFS: “were predominately white females, between the ages of 30 and 60, who lived in the United States. “[NIH]

Forget about Disability etc

A few people may get it, those with positive test results for something wrong, for example a SPECT scan of the brain. In general, long haul covid show no atypical results from standard medical tests. This has been the situation for ME/CFS for decades. Some people may get it granted for up to one year… and then will get turned down on renewal. The fact that they may not have been hospitalized or had a formal diagnosis may make a claim more difficult “More than half never sought hospital care. Only 8 percent said that they’d been admitted to the hospital for COVID-19.”[NIH] Insurance Company: “We need clinical evidence that you had COVID…”

How will the insurance company respond?

From ME/CFS experience, it will be suggested that it is either psychosomatic, or work-phobic , or someone using it as an excuse not to work, or psychologically crippled from COVID stress. There is nothing wrong with the patient according to medical tests. Hence, it is psychological or attitude. Benefit denied.

COVID cases grew exponentially, Long Haul Cases will decline with Exponential decline or decay. Unfortunately, insurance company will view it as linear decline…if 50% recover in 9 months, then anyone still with it at 18 months must be a faker.

Probable Cause … microbiome dysfunction

Microbiome dysfunction, even when shown, would be viewed as an experimental or research diagnosis and thus, not applicable for disability. This gets much worst because almost no physician knows now to effectively deal with a microbiome dysfunction apart from a Fecal Matter Transplant (which may require multiple attempts using different donors — they still have not figured out compatibility and compensation vectors for FMT). FMT in the US is restricted to a very small number of conditions, and long haul covid is unlikely to be included for decades.

Technically, sufficient information appears to be available on PubMed (National Library of Medicine). It is not consolidated into a cookbook formula but spread across over 3000 separate articles. Clinical MDs do not have time to consume this, and applying it would be contrary to existing standards of care. Their supervisors will veto it (been there, seen that!)

Bottom Line

The cure for Long Haul Covid is likely the same cure as ME/CFS. From existing studies, we know that a percentage will spontaneous recover every 6 months, with the percentage decreasing over time. Some will never recover. A few will, like ME/CFS. continue to get worse.

My hope is that some long haulers will get their 16s results (from one of these providers), upload it to Microbiome Prescription and in time, we’ll see the pattern and how to address it.

Recently I have gotten several emails like that shown below.

 Hi Ken,I’m one of those CFS people who has such brain fog it’s very difficult  for me to use your microbiome prescription website even though you’ve done an excellent job with the  videos to get started. I’m dictating your email from my phone bc I’m too tired to type. 
Is it possible to have you look at my information that I’ve uploaded from Thrive and help me with which bacteria is important to replace.  I know I need Lactobacillus Casi.I don’t know how important it is to replace Faecalibacterum but my ave is 2.2% were The healthy ave is 12.89%. My Symptoms are severe fatigue, brain fog, tingling of extremities, moody.

From a reader on 26 Feb 2021

I have refactored a part of the site to address this (I have more UI changes pending from other feedback). In short, after you uploaded your sample, you will see a new choice in the first drop down:

When you click it, the suggestions page is less complex (all of the same information is there, just hidden on first load).

Very pleased with suggestions

I used this person’s sample for the video below. The suggestions matched those of some physicians that have had considerable success (and the suggestions are close to what I did too!)

•   glycyrrhizic acid (licorice) — this was advocated by “Cap’t Dave” on CFSFMExperimental Yahoo groups back in the late 1990. Many people reported improvements using it.
•   tetracycline – Used by Prof. Garth Nicolson and also by C. Jadin, MD
•   azithromycin – Used by C.Jadin, MD
• Vitamin D3 – Used by Anna Dorothea Hoeck, MD

The artificial intelligence on the site put these items in the top suggestions based solely on the microbiome. It is my belief that success or failure to treat depends on the microbiome (which is usually ignored!). There have been some recent studies finding that the microbiome was a key factor in the success or failure of some cancer treatments.