You’re welcome!
I’ve actually been on it for 5 months at the half dose. I’m off of it for 5 days now to see how my symptoms are doing without it.

I started with the 5 days and felt a difference, then was off of it for 2 weeks before convincing my doc to prescribe more as off label because I noticed within about a day to 2 days off my swelling in my body returned, my head would start to fog up again, and my whole body fatigue would come back, along with palpitations.

What I noticed when I took paxlovid, is I could feel when the meds kicked in about an hour or 2 after taking it, all of a sudden my energy would improve and my mind would clear, it was like I was lifted out of this horrible place of weakness, fog and sickness and into healing and feeling awake and alive again.

It gave me hope. Hope that with enough time of using it that maybe it could permanently change my body back into health and functioning again.

My doctor was pretty nervous about me taking it longer than approved for, so asked me to try taking as little to none as possible. I tried over the first 2-3 months of going off of it for a day a few times (as well as had difficulty getting the pharmacist to dispense more so had some gaps), and would notice my swelling immediately start returning with less energy. Then I’d go back on it the next day and my swelling would visibly shrink again. My husband definitely noticed these changes too. During a few times of not being able to get it filled due to pharmacy issues, I tried just taking the Nirmatrelvir by itself but didn’t notice any difference. It seems I had to take both Ritonavir and Nirmatrelvir to notice significant differences.

These past few weeks, I noticed my symptoms plateaued with no real improvements or changes with being on Paxlovid, or questioning if it was still working. So I’ve been off of it for 5 days now without having the fog descend and weakness take over again. My swelling hasn’t increased either so I’m grateful. I’m not gonna say Paxlovid is the cure all. I’m still at 60% of physical functioning but was at 0-5% (I was bed and couch bound). Now I have about 3 hours of being able to perform light tasks, then gotta rest on the couch, but my mind is back! I’d say my mind is back to 90% functional.

So my conclusion is Paxlovid helped me get my mind and energy back. And hopefully with more time my physical functioning will improve and maybe another few rounds of Paxlovid after a break will help or some other regime of antiviral cocktail 🙏🏻

What did you find was helpful going through the Mayo Clinic program?