Some people who have recovered from COVID-19 have reported having headaches that can persist for months, but new discoveries are leading to specific treatments for COVID-19.
Some people who have recovered from COVID-19 have reported having headaches that can persist for months, but new discoveries are leading to specific treatments for COVID-19.
According to a neurologist who specializes in headache, “We have a treatment that not only controls headache, but also controls what causes headache and systemic symptoms,” said Dr. Stephen Silberstein, the Jefferson Headache Center of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.
He said that a device approved by the Food and Drug Administration, which doctors can prescribe for use at home, stimulates the body’s vagus nerve, as well as when the nerve is activated by doing deep breathing exercises with yoga, Pilates or meditation.
“It has the same effect as deep breathing, but it is continuous for 90 seconds; and this device has been shown to shut off the path of neuro-cytokines that are being released, ”said Silberstein.
The so-called “cytokine storms”, or out-of-control inflammatory reactions, are believed to be behind the serious reactions of COVID-19, such as headaches, body aches and difficulty breathing.
The device “helps with headache, but just as importantly, it has been shown to decrease the amount of these inflammatory cytokines in the bloodstream,” he said.
Doctors don’t really know how various medications, like aspirin, can aggravate the underlying causes of COVID-19 symptoms, according to Silberstein. But he said that stimulating his body to launch its own headache relief response is perfectly natural.
“What we’ve seen for a long time – before we have doctors and before drugs – is how powerful the body is in controlling its own pain and symptoms. And many of the techniques used in the past were based on controlling our own sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, ”said Silberstein.
“Deep breathing and meditation do that. So now we have a device that mimics it, but it prolongs the effect of vagal nerve stimulation, and it’s really as natural as possible, ”he said.
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