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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsVagal Neuropathy: What You Need to Known During COVID 19
Everyone knows what "neuropathy" is. It is that sense of tingling/numbness/pins and needles that diabetics get in their feet. But there are other types of neuropathy, some of which are much more dangerous.
First, a little biology. The vagus nerve is a major player in the parasympathetic autonomic nervous system. This is the system that helps us relax, chill and digest our food. There is a parallel autonomic nervous system that is called the sympathetic which is more commonly known as the "fight or flight" nervous system which speeds up our heart and breathing and cuts down blood flow to "unnecessary" organs (like the digestive tract) in times of stress and increases our inflammatory response to threats such as infectious disease.
The vagus nerve is actually a pair of cranial nerves (meaning they emerge directly from the brain via holes in the skull rather than from the spine) These nerves are very long, reaching all the way from the brain to the abdomen and they are very important.
Vagal neuropathy can occur in diabetics, alcoholics, in those with vitamin deficiencies--and after some viral upper respiratory infections. The vagus nerve controls 1) heart rate (slows it down) 2) inflammation (suppresses it) 3) swallowing (keeps you from choking or aspirating food and liquids which can lead to pneumonia 4) speech (via the recurrent laryngeal nerve that controls the larynx or voice box and the palatoglossal muscle of the tongue which is necessary for swallowing and for fluent speech 5) digestion (stomach acid production, gallbladder contractions, colon peristalsis--except for the rectum that is controlled by the sacral parasympathetics) 6) sweating which regulates temperature.
What happens when your vagus nerve stops working? Depends. If only one of the two nerves crashes you will have trouble swallowing and speaking and a hoarse voice and maybe a nagging cough and aspiration. If both nerves fail at the same time, you will have unchecked sympathetic autonomic nervous system activity--which means racing heart, shakiness, insomnia, migraine headache exacerbation (if you suffer from migraines), dry mouth, loss of sweating and temperature regulation, increased inflammation throughout your body and especially in your lungs, fatigue since your heart is racing even when your are sedentary, poor perfusion in your extremities making your muscles feel weak and anxiety(which your doctor may write off as a bad case of "the nerves" not realizing exactly what "nerve" is acting up).
Now, I am going to get personal. I had a virus--actually four of them. Three bouts with influenza, the last a really bad case with two weeks of cough/fever/weakness and then another nasty little bug called metapneumonia virus--all in the space of four months. Every time I got one of these bugs, my mouth would get a little bit drier, my speech would become a little less fluent and my voice would become a little more hoarse. Each time I got over the influenza these symptoms would begin to get better---only to return with the next bout of flu (and yes, I had a flu vaccine, but they just do not work the way they used to maybe because we grow the virus in Tamiflu laden chicken eggs) Until the final virus, when I began to choke (aspirate) anything I ate, my resting pulse shot up to 120-140, my arms up to the elbows and legs up to knees and the anterior half of my tongue felt like blocks of ice. I also stopped sweating and having hot flashes, my seasonal allergies suddenly went away (the only good part of vagal neuropathy), I could not have a bowel movement even with laxatives. Finally, on day eight of the metapneumonia virus, my oxygen saturation dropped and I had pneumonia. Oh, and did I mention that I also lost my sense of smell? Since I did not know what I had I assumed the worst and went to the hospital where I was admitted and placed on the Covid Death Watch. However, I was lucky. I did not have COVID. I had metapneumonia virus. Which acts an awful lot like COVID in its symptoms but which does not (usually) have COVID's lethality.
The metapneumonia virus is long gone. Two months have passed. Buy my vagus nerves still have not returned to full function. Occasionally I can sweat and occasionally I have a hot flash. Sometimes my voice is not a frog croak and sometimes I can swallow liquids without choking. My pulse is kept at a nice steady 80 by beta blockers, prescription medications. I am doing exercise, external vagal stimulation, vagal breathing, mediation and imagery in an attempt to heal my vagus nerves. I use medical nicotine (I have never been a smoker but I have found that a combo of 7 mg nicotine patches supplemented with small doses of lozenges relieve the ice cold extremities and improve my muscle strength and digestion, and also, surprisingly my oxygen saturation which used to be 99% and then fell to 94-95% post metapneumonia virus but now is back to a nice healthy 98% possibly from the anti-inflammatory effects of nicotine which is a vagal agonist meaning it boosts the vagal nervous system). I have added Vit E and zinc to my usual regimen since they help with nerve growth. And I have found that extra potassium is a must--probably because unchecked adrenaline lowers blood potassium levels.
Why is understanding the vagus nerve important in time of COVID? The current best hypothesis about why COVID suddenly turns lethal in some people is that it weakens the vagus nerve (as some respiratory viruses can) which causes sudden increase in lung inflammation and fluid accumulation and stiffness and finally death. In experiments on rodents, if you sever both vagal nerves at the level of the neck, the animals quickly die from pulmonary inflammation and edema, even if the animals are not exposed to any respiratory pathogens. If you severe the nerves above the abdomen they develop inflammatory peritonitis and die. If you preload them with nicotine, they don't get the inflammatory peritonitis. (The last journal article was the reason I decided to try medical nicotine for myself)
What does this mean for folks out there who have not had COVID yet? Treasure your vagal nerves! Pamper them! Exercise every day (it boosts vagal tone). Practice yoga/meditation/vagal breathing (quick inhalation filling up the entire lung meaning the abdomen should swell followed by prolonged, slow, smooth exhalation.) If you have sleep apnea, make sure that it is controlled---nothing suppresses the vagal system and boosts the sympathetic system like having multiple spells of low oxygen and high adrenaline at night while you sleep. Control your diabetes. Don't drink to excess. Eat a balanced diet and if you have pernicious anemia (impaired ability to absorb Vitamin B12) take your supplements.
Oh, and of course practice social distancing, wear an effective mask (plus or minus a face shield depending upon your job), wash your hands. Because the best treatment for COVID is still prevention.
OneGrassRoot
(22,920 posts)BComplex
(8,060 posts)You might have just saved some lives, McCamy!
Grasswire2
(13,571 posts)Very enlightening on many levels. (Me, type 2 with sinus bradycardia increasingly low)
delisen
(6,044 posts)wendyb-NC
(3,328 posts)Thank you, for posting it's a very informative article. Take care and get well.
kas125
(2,472 posts)twenty five years ago after he'd removed half my stomach and part of my intestines, "I did you a favor. I snipped your vagus nerve as long as we were in there, now you won't have to deal with stomach acid anymore. You're welcome." I never had an acid problem to begin with. At the time I had no clue what that was going to do to the rest of my life, if I had I probably would have punched him. I don't need more damage so I guess I'm still staying home.
McCamy Taylor
(19,240 posts)So was vomiting up blood in the ER and having to endure a tube stuck down your throat followed by a blood transfusion followed by removing the stomach because the ulcers just would not heal.
Proton pump inhibitors (such as prilosec) are wonder drugs that have made the upper GI bleed almost a thing of the past. And, for the record, there is no proof that they cause osteoporosis. The studies were skewed because people with low acid tend to have Vitamin B12 deficiency and that deficiency causes neuropathy which can make little old ladies with weak bones trip and fall and break something. That does not mean you should not take your medication if you have a history of erosive gastritis or esophagitis. Just take it with Vit B12.
kas125
(2,472 posts)They told me to eat small portions and that I'd need a B12 shot once a month because I can't absorb it from food. Everything else I had to learn on my own, my docs had never even heard of dumping syndrome. Thankfully, I found a partial gastrectomy group online and learned a lot. That was 1995. A few months ago I joined a support group on facebook and I'm just amazed at the difference between then and now. They get nutritionists and drugs I've never heard of, doctors appointments what seems like every week, tubes, supplemental feeding, all sorts of stuff that if I needed I didn't know it and I'm glad, lol. I got eat small meals and call me in six months. In six months I asked questions he didn't even understand much less answer.
Damn, now that I'm thinking about it, I don't know why I ever thought my doctors would know anything to begin with. I diagnosed my own pyloric stenosis in the first place, by looking in my mom's medical book with the follow the arrows if yes or no thingies from Reader's Digest, and it took two office visits and a really disgusting story from the night before to convince them that I knew what was wrong with me and they needed to do more than give me pills.
iluvtennis
(19,868 posts)StarryNite
(9,459 posts)Very important and informative.
cannabis_flower
(3,765 posts)I have something to add here. I used to get respiratory infections on a regular basis. Sometimes as much as monthly. I would end up in the doctor's office with bronchitis. Every time I got a cold it would go down to my bronchial tubes and I would be sick for at least a week. Also I had asthma and hay fever. About 8 years ago a doctor did a test for vitamin D and told me I was deficient. He told me to take 2000 UI of vitamin D and it was like an off switch. I have not been to the doctor for a respiratory infection for 8 years. My allergies and asthma have gotten better too.
I did a search when I read your information on vagus nerve vitamin D and there seems to be a lot of evidence that vitamin D is important for both heart and respiratory health as well as many other body systems.
A daily vitamin D dose of 5,000 IU for 28 days was associated with maintenance of the so-called sympatho-vagal balance, or the interaction between the sympathetic nervous system and the vagus nerve
References
https://vitamindwiki.com/Hearts+responded+to+stress+better+after+5%2C000+IU+of+vitamin+D+for+a+month+-+March+2014
Non-Skeletal Activities of Vitamin D: From Physiology to Brain Pathology
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https://www.mdpi.com/1010-660X/55/7/341/htm
Vitamin D appears capable of inhibiting pulmonary inflammatory responses while enhancing innate defence mechanisms against respiratory pathogens. Population-based studies showing an association between circulating vitamin D levels and lung function provide strong justification for randomized controlled clinical trials of vitamin D supplementation in patients with respiratory diseases to assess both efficacy and optimal dosage.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2759054/#:~:text=Specifically%20in%20respiratory%20health%2C%20vitamin,and%20wheezing%20diseases%20%5B5%5D.
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Around March 12, after working the Democratic Primary in Houston March 3rd, driving for Uber at the Houston Rodeo and working at a school, I got sick. I had most of Covid-19 systems except the fever. I had a dry cough, sore throat, chest pain, muscle aches, fatigue but it didn't get bad enough to go to the doctor. It lasted 3 weeks though. I couldn't get tested because I didn't have a fever or respiratory distress. I think I had it and my vitamin D supplementation may have been what stopped it from getting bad. I've seen that they are investigating the role of vitamin D in Covid-19. Do, along with your other things you are doing, consider if you might need vitamin D. Especially if you don't get enough sun, don't drink vitamin D milk or are diabetic. Even if you do all these consider you could still be deficient. My sister was deficient and she plays golf and softball. Her doctor said that people differ in their ability to metabolize vitamin D from the sun. He said deficiency tends to run in families
McCamy Taylor
(19,240 posts)at least according to a pulmonologist I know. Would not it be something if the cause of excess asthma in inner cities is lack of Vitamin D rather than cockroach allergy?
smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)Good advice.