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Sleepiness After Eating
Hello all, I am new to this board and I am so grateful I found you all. It's such a relief to realize I am not alone in this battle. I am 70 y/o and have been suffering from long-Covid for nearly two years. I did not get the "jab" and was very healthy and active before getting Covid in February 2024. Now, I struggle through each day. My symptoms are the typical extreme fatigue and shortness of breath after any moderate exertion. So far, nothing has helped, but I am still hopeful and still searching...as we all are. My question today is about the inability to stay awake after eating. No matter how large or small the meal, or what foods I eat, within 30 - 40 minutes after eating...I fall asleep. And it isn't a short 20 minutes or so....it's a solid, deep, 2 hour nap! I start feeling incredibly tired, my eyelids get very heavy and I just cannot stay awake. My body gets a heavy feeling, my arms and legs ache, I get a ringing in my head and I simply fall asleep. I've tried everything I could find online to fight off this effect, but nothing works. Has anyone else had this problem associated with Covid and what are you doing to fight it?
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@vostie Bless your heart. I know how you feel with the weight gain. I've been eating Keto for the past several years and my weight gain after Covid has been so bad that I've even lowered my carbs to 20 total per day. I did lose 7 pounds the first week and thought I found the solution. Today, the scale shows I gained a pound overnight and 6 hours later...the scale went up another pound! I just don't understand. I have a really accurate scale, so it't not that. And I haven't eaten any carbs. Please do let us all know how the study group goes and if you are losing weight .....if you get the GLP1. Best of luck to you! ❤
@shelleyr and Law59
I would love to hear what works for you food wise to be able to stay awake more.
Dealing with this sleepy factor after lunch, because lunch is really my only full meal of the day; the rest are basically health snacks aimed at my nutrient needs with a long fast at night.
@shelleyr Thanks Shelley...I also tried keto several times as I could lose weight on it prior to COVID. Now I don't enter ketosis so it does not help me at all. I am trying to eat protein all day but even that does not stop the food noise...love that Long COVID!
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1 ReactionYep....gotta love that #&*@ long Covid! LOL Prior to long Covid, I had lost 50 pounds on keto/carnivore. I was feeling great. I started gaining weight after Covid and have now regained about 25 of those lost pounds in the last 2 years! I hadn't been eating strict keto or carnivore .......I actually craved carbs and sugar.....and I thought that was the problem. Now, to be eating strict keto with no more than 20 total carbs a day.....and I'm GAINING!! I haven't checked to see if I'm in ketosis or not, but I imagine I'm not, or I would be losing again.
Based on all the strange symptoms, I have to think Covid was designed to completely throw the body's entire system out of whack. All we can do is keep trying to overcome it. May God bless us all and carry us through this nightmare. 🙏
@kathleen1314 I'm trying to take a new approach to the problem to see what works best for me. I did change the time of day that I take my B Cpmplex vitamins. The Life Extension brand that I recently switched to do seem to have a fast effect on me. It worked today to ward off that sleepy time. It's now 5PM and I'm still wide awake!
I also switched to eating tiny meals of mostly protein several times a day. Basically, I'm eating one total protein/veggie meal a day, but I'm breaking it up into 5 or 6 mini meals. I don't know if the positive effect is from changing the B Complex or the eating routine change, but today was a good day.
I will check back and update you in a few days to let you know if it's still working.
@shelleyr the naps are getting shorter from the 1 and 2 hour ones I had to take for the first year of Long Covid. I'm in my second year and now sometimes now I just need to rest for 30 minutes and doze off for 10 minutes. Hang it there. Things have very very slowly gotten better for me.
@quickstepper I'm so glad to hear that you are doing better now. It gives me hope. Believe it or not, my naps have gotten less frequent too. During my first year, I had to take 2 and 3 naps a day....each at least 2 hours long! I felt like all I did was sleep. I'm down to one nap and sometimes two naps a day depending on how active I've been. So things are improving.....very slowly. I have to wonder if it's because our bodies need that down time to heal and repair all the internal chaos created by the Covid.
@shelleyr yes, I'm a great believer in the "listen to your body" thinking. I'm glad to hear your naps are less too. Once in a while I have a day where I don't need a nap at all. But gosh progress is slow and I'm almost up to two years with this.
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1 Reaction@quickstepper I know what you mean. I will reach the 2 year mark next month. I read comments on this and other sites where people are at the 4 and 5 year mark and still have their symptoms. I pray mine don't last that long. I'm starting to re-evaluate my thinking and my approach to it now though.
My husband does the same thing. He said he was depressed. he did not take the jab. He does all the cooking because of my Long Covid and much more. He falls asleep soon after he eats and will sleep 2-3 hours also. He never did this until he got covid.
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