The pandemic has created a new group of patients, COVID “long haulers,” who suffer from a variety of ongoing symptoms, including fatigue, brain fog, anxiety and depression, coughing, shortness of breath, difficulty breathing, headaches, intermittent fever, joint and chest pain, and loss of taste and smell. Anybody who was infected is at risk of long COVID—regardless of the severity of their original illness—and all these symptoms are a result of the body’s inability to regain energetic balance, says Laurie R. Mallis, M.D., LAc, owner of SearchLight Medical, in Hopewell Junction.

“When your body is trying to heal but doesn’t have enough ‘soldiers’ to focus on all affected areas, you aren’t able to get back into homeostasis—that is, your normal healthy state,” she says. “For mild symptoms, you can try to use guided imagery meditation, which will help to calm and ground your body. Your immune system can then work more effectively to help heal your body and resolve your symptoms.”

If long-haul symptoms persist, Mallis says, deeper treatments may be needed to support the body as it tries to heal. 

“This is where energy treatments, like acupuncture, Ondamed Biofeedback Therapy, and Jade Vitality Mat treatments would be most beneficial,” she says. “Not only will they work on deep-rooted physical issues, but they will put your body into balance so that long-term healing effects can be attained.”