Chirstmas 2024 was awesome, until I got the flu.
It started as most flu viruses do; a fuzziness all over my body, a little brain fog, less appetite than usual and feeling cold when I knew I shouldn’t be. Then came aches in my muscles like I had done a tough workout the day before.
As it was Christmas and I was a few days removed since my last training session, I knew I was in trouble.
The later the shivering and extreme fatigue hit me.
When flu strikes, you’ll generally get varying shades of the following symptoms:
Signs of a fever - Shivery, cold no matter how many layers you are wearing, but hot to the touch
Aches in your muscles and joints
Extreme fatigue
Sore throat
Chesty cough
Headache
Lowered appetite
Vomiting and diarrhoea (more common in children)
Headaches
Later on it’s common to get night sweats even after your fever has gone (we’ll explain how they come about in a little while).
So what do these symptoms mean and how do we deal with them? Here’s a few of the major symptoms and what you can do about them.
FATIGUE
Fatigue that accompanies a virus like flu can be debilitating. They say that you know that you have proper flu when the hypothetical scenario that someone were to tell you they had a suitcase full of cash a mile away and to get it you had to walk there. Only when you have flu, the idea of walking to the front door or toilet can be an overwhelming thought, let alone a mile away.
Fatigue happens for a few different reasons.
The Cell Danger Response (CDR)
The theory of CDR was originally proposed by Robert Naviaux and is a protective response to threat or danger in the body. When in the CDR your body goes through a few different stages, all concerning the mitochondria (energy producing cells in our body) and the immune system and encompasses the following elements of: Inflammation, innate immunity, oxidative stress, and the ER stress response
In essence, the mitochondria alter their metabolic environment in a few different ways:
They stop producing as much ATP energy for normal cellular processes, instead dumping ATP outside the cell as a warning to neighbouring cells that danger is afoot. This aids with the signalling of the immune response and inflammation.
They stiffen their outer membrane walls to limit the spread of the pathogen/infection
Less energy for normal processes is expected because the innate response is one of protection and attack by mobilising the troops of your immune system. The payoff is that awful fatigue.
One of the main reasons that post viral fatigue (or long covid type symptoms) exists is because the body is stuck in varying degrees of the CDR. The body is unable to return to normal cellular metabolism and energy production because a perceived threat exists. Just a quick caveat to it in that sometimes the body can remain in a state of CDR because secondary co-infections surfaced during or as a result of the initial flu virus. These secondary infections aren’t necessarily strong enough to take over, but the immune system isn’t strong enough to fully fight it off; so a stalemate exists between health and pathogen infection.
HOW TO HELP WITH FATIGUE
There isn’t one way to aid with fatigue. In the acute phases of flu, sleep and rest are paramount. If you are feeling poorly enough you’ll just sleep without actively thinking of doing it. But after you are over the intense acute stages, ensuring that you are still resting (if possible) is the quickest way to help with overall recovery and energy. Thuis means not moving from the bed or sofa for a day or three. Read, watch tv, nap, whatever it takes to rest. Another huge one is to make sure you are trying to stick to your usual bedtime routine or at least try to go to bed earlier if you can. No supplement on earth can match the power of sleep and rest.
FEVER AND ACHES
Symptoms of fever are signs that your body is activating the immune system and is actually a really useful thing. Which lead us to the question of should be instantly be taking drugs to lower a fever as soon as it arrives?
An increase in internal body temperature allows an increase in T-helper immune cells to be produced, be active and to release cytokines which in turn signals other immune cells to move in and deal with the viral pathogen. Fever also puts stress on the pathogen by moving the state of the internal environment away from its desired destination. Lowering the body temperature too much can theoretically slow this effect down and thus the recovery time. But there is still some academic conjecture as to whether this is true or not.
A mild fever (characterised as a temperature between 99.5 and 100.3-5) is generally considered a safe margin of temperature increase to NOT take painkillers to reduce it. HOWEVER if you are immunally suppressed, compromised or have multiple co-morbidities then rolling the dice and not lowering the fever could be a a bad idea. This is because you don’t want the fever to get away from you and rise to dangerous levels. If this is you, you may want to consider keeping on top of pain killers to help avoid the chances of this scenario. It’s always better to get well slower and safer than quicker at higher risk.
Muscle and joint aches occur because your immune system is releasing large quantities of cytokines. These are small signalling proteins that play a critical role in communication, particularly in the immune system. Some are involved in initiating and maintaining inflammation, others help with communication between immune cells and others (especially interferons) are crucial for defending against viral infections by stimulating antiviral responses in infected cells and neighbouring cells.
Much like all the other symptoms of flu, as the levels of cytokines lower and the immune system lowers it’s response, the muscle aches and pains will subside.
One thing that can persist for a few days that is really unpleasant are night sweats. Annoyingly these can continue long after your daytime fever has gone.
Nightsweats occur for a few reasons. The first one is due to the temperature fluctuations related to your circadian rhythm. Your core temperature will naturally lower over the evening and into the night. This happens to aid with sleep and the processes related to parasympathetic activity. However, when you have flu or a fever, your body will want to elevate your core temperature to enable the immune system to be fully functioning. This raise causes an opposite response of sweating to try and cool you down. It’s an unfortunate battle between the immune response to pathogens and the hard wired fluctuations of temperature of your circadian rhythm. Linked with this is your body trying to work it’s way back to normal and the corresponding changes to the hypothalamus (part of the brain that regulates core temp) and the neurotransmitters that achieve this, that are also put out of sync when unwell.
Added to this are having high levels of cytokines flowing around your body which will be signalling to the system to raise the temperature. Night sweats are the automatic response to trying to bring the temperature back down.
Thankfully, these will also abate when the immune response and inflammatory cytokine levels drop.
Towels may be needed in bed to avoid absolutely soaking the sheets :-(
HOW TO HELP WITH FEVER AND ACHES
It is vital to keep up with water and electrolytes when you have a fever. Dehydration due to increased sweating, fluctuations in core temperature and increased respiration rate is easy to happen. You don’t want to be putting any extra pressure on your kidneys while fighting an infection, so keep drinking.
Manage your layers as you see fit, but try not to get too warm either. This is a game of adding and subtracting layers as you see fit. If you are caring for someone who has flu, be mindful of them falling asleep totally bundled up and getting overheated.
Ride the wave. It’s rough and sucks feeling cold, sweaty, achey and shivery but hot at the same time. But know that it is an integral part of your immune response to the virus. These symptoms mean your body is doing its job and means you will get better. Try to see this stage as something positive and embrace the process of your body being magic and fighting off an unwanted and unwelcome virus that is attempting to take over.
WHAT DID I DO/TAKE TO HELP GET ME THROUGH THIS
Here is a list of the supplements and protocols I took. In a minute i'll discuss the reasons behind why I too them:
Meditation / Healing hypnosis recordings
Thymosin Alpha 1 peptide
Vitamin C
Astaxanthin
Resveratrol
NAC
Ellagic Acid
Methylene Blue
Ubiquinol CoQ10
NMN
Photobiomodulation laser therapy
BPC-157 peptide
Curcumin
Daily Sauna use
Return to exercise
Arguably, the biggest factor regarding recovery speed from any illness or infection is the health of the individual going into it. Working on your health and immune system as a part of your lifestyle will pay dividends when you do actually get unwell. One important thing to be mindful of is that yes living a healthy lifestyle and supporting your immune system will help you avoid illness from plenty of viruses and pathogens, but not all. We all get tired, stressed, indulge in more inflammatory foods or stay up late every once in a while. All factors which will affect your ability to avoid getting ill. But even if you did live like a monk, you are still going to get unwell from time to time.
But what is also very useful going into a virus, is having a tool kit of options/supplements/things to do to help aid your recovery.
Firstly I rested and slept as much as I could. My wife was also unwell at the same time so we were incredibly fortunate to have grandparents on hadn’t who took our two children away from us for a few days. Had we had to look after them as well, my recovery time would have lengthened dramatically as I wouldn’t have been able to rest nearly as much.
When I was able to eat, I kept it to very easily digestible carbohydrate, some fruit smoothies and raw honey were my early on go-to’s as they felt like what my body needed at the time. After a couple of days I was able to increase my protein intake as my appetite increased.
I meditated and listened to healing hypnotherapy recordings. These I like to use as a tool to access my subconscious and use its ability to help with the healing. They also helped me relax further and nap/sleep when I needed. It’s difficult to say how much they helped, but they certainly helped me relax, which is a big bonus when reovery is the goal.
I took some high(ish) doses of a thymus peptide, Thymosin Alpha 1. This peptide has lots of research behind it as a signalling molecule to modulate and improve immune function by boosting T-cell and dendritic cell function and modulating cytokine levels and expression. All extremely important when fighting off a virus. This is a big factor in recovery and one I am grateful to have in the fridge to inject as needed.
I took regular doses of Vitamin C every 2 hours. Vitamin C helps to clear out reactive oxygen species (ROS) and free radicals produced as part of the immune response. Build up of ROS or free radicals can damage local, healthy cells. Vit C also supports the activity of immune cells and antibodies which fight off infection. Vitamin C in medium to high doses is a massively undervalued asset when dealing with an acute infection. It is cheap and easy to get hold of and is a no brainer for almost all individuals. I strongly recommend sodium ascorbate as an alternative to the standard ascorbic acid as it is far better tolerated in the digestive system.
I took other antioxidants to help the immune system like Astaxanthen and Resveratrol and NAC (a precursor to Glutathione, one of the body’s most powerful natural antioxidants).
I took compounds to boost mitochondrial health during the infection fighting stage and made sure to continue after to help them shift from a state of Cell Danger Response back to their normal duties. These include Ellagic Acid, Methylene Blue, Ubiquinol CoQ10 and NMN (a precursor to the universal energy source NAD+).
I used my photobiomodulation red laser device to also aid with inflammation reduction and mitochondrial health as the infection wore off.
As the virus was gradually wearing off I took a more anti-inflammatory stance to help my body return to its balanced, efficient state. To achieve these I took 500mcg a day (split into two doses) of the peptide BPC-157. This peptide is one of the strongest, natural (although synthetically produced to inject) peptides in the body that aids with healing of damaged tissue, nerve and inflammation reduction. I also started taking higher doses of micellar curcumin for the potent anti inflammatory effects.
Lastly, when I felt my resilience was high enough I went back to doing some light cardiovascular and later weight training and also went back to my daily sauna use.
When listed out it all seems like quite a lot. But one very important thing to note is that these protocols, supplements and lifestyle changes didn’t all happen or get added to my toolbox all at once. It has taken me 15 years of obsession with health, performance and vitality to get to this point.
The most important asset my clients have is instant and unfiltered access to this accrued knowledge. This gives them a vast number of options and additions that they can supplement to their lifestyle to help them achieve their health and wellness goals.
If you want access to this, I’d love to work with you.
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