It was March 2020 and Ash was the healthiest she’d been in 15 years. She had just started an exciting new job and COVID was still a nameless “novel coronavirus” mainly appearing on cruise ships. One evening, after getting home from the gym, Ash was suddenly struck with a wave of feverish delirium. She passed out and eventually came to a couple of hours later on the kitchen floor with her dog staring down at her.
The next two weeks were a blur, but eventually Ash started to feel better. About a month after the initial illness she had pretty much recovered. And then things started getting strange. She had this feeling her teeth were rotting. A painful pressure began building in her head.
“And it just took over my nerves,” Ash explained in a conversation with Salon. “About six weeks after COVID, I started losing the use of my hands.”
Everything from opening a ziploc bag to using scissors became profoundly difficult. Multiple GPs, dentists, clinical specialists and even a Chinese acupuncturist all had no idea what was going on. By the end of 2020 Ash had stopped working altogether. Alongside the neuropathic problems all the now common neurological long COVID issues had become entrenched: Brain fog, dissociation, extreme fatigue, memory troubles.
Alienated by mainstream medicine’s denial of her condition, Ash became her own guinea pig for the next couple of years. With a deep knowledge of science and a pool of friends in the entheogenic community Ash tried anything and everything to overcome her debilitating symptoms. Steroids, low-dose naltrexone, melatonin, lecithin, goldenseal, sceletium and a whole world of anti-inflammatory botanical ferments like kefir. Some helped temporarily, some didn’t help at all. Ash kept a detailed treatment diary, tracking the effects of everything she consumed.
“People were just sending me random obscure stuff. And I’m like, yep, that doesn’t work. That works. That doesn’t work. Oh, that doesn’t work for more than three days.”
Then in early 2023, Ash tried something completely different. Something she described as a game-changer for her condition: A powerful hallucinogenic plant called iboga that originates from Africa. It’s active ingredient is known as ibogaine and it’s being explored for addiction treatment. It’s not clear yet if it will really help — but even more questions remain about its potential for alleviating long COVID.
Hellbound and Down 