I started with long Covid in May 2022. I enrolled in the NIH RECOVER long Covid study through University of Chicago. I also enrolled at Northwestern University long Covid program. I’ve had countless tests done on me.

Around July 2022 I was really bad. I had to take a bunch of photos of my walk from a parking garage to an office so I can find my way back to the car. I couldn’t remember anything. One for the many neurologists I see prescribed amantadine. Within a couple weeks, people were spontaneously coming up to me saying I’m like a whole new person, even my appearance and speech.. I got lots of comments at work.

Come October, I found myself slipping, and my dose was increased, which seemed to help stop the decline. I’m on a couple of other drugs recently to help with focus and depression. I had a bad brain fog week recently. I changed my diet, stopped doing office work on weekends and weeknights, and started using deep breathing exercises. That all helped beyond the meds.

My clinical visits and tests are booked for the next six months and will continue. It builds a large amount of reports on me that I share with the doctors and help them learn more about to treat me and others.

In the next couple of weeks I will see a speech pathologist to work on my cognitive processing.

There’s lots of research on how amantadine works and what conditions it’s prescribed for. In my personal experience, I feel like it stabilized me at a closer position to “normal.” I don’t know if I will ultimately improve, maintain, or decline. Long Covid researchers are working on it, so that’s good.