WELLNESS WEDNESDAY

Hey folks, Sally Riggs here, psychologist, fellow long hauler, and your Long COVID Coach, and welcome to another Wellness Wednesday. And today I want to talk about the elephant in the room. Once again, I am in a different location, I am not recording this in my office. I am in fact down in Texas, and I'm going to be here for several weeks. And so today I want to talk about traveling with Long COVID. And you may be thinking, "I don't like to travel, I never used to travel anyways. So this video won't be of any interest to me". And if that's the case, that's absolutely fine. And I will see you next week for next week's video. But I know many of us are hoping to travel again. And whether that's just to go somewhere warm on your holidays, or that you were someone who used to travel an awful lot like I did. And just like running or other sports. This is something that I am working very hard to get back to. And I figured I would share some tips and strategies with you.

First of all, I was supposed to be down here actually, for most of February and March to escape from the cold in New York. And many of you who follow along with these videos will know that I had a water leak in my apartment. And so that did not wind up happening. But even though technically, now we're in April, which should mean spring, the cold weather has been dragging on in New York, and I thought "You know what, I'm just going to put some things in a suitcase and go someplace warm". And the joys of telemedicine these days, I can with a little bit of work, work from anywhere, and so here I am.

And interestingly, and I don't know, you may also be able to relate to this. Even pre-COVID, I have always been someone who found the cold very, very hard. And interestingly, it turns out that our nervous systems do way better in warm temperatures. And it's much easier to be in Rest and Digest and to move our energy through Fight or Flight or Shutdown if we have warm weather around. Sunlight and warmth are very beneficial to our bodies in terms of generating energy. And I find that so fascinating because I love New York, and yet I find the winters very difficult. And I can really feel in my body that tensing of every muscle when it's cold. And obviously, that is triggering my nervous system for cues of non-safety. So if you're thinking about going someplace warm, and I know, you know, a year or so ago, when everything was opening up lots of people with Long COVID were thinking about taking trips. And I know there were lots of discussions on the Facebook groups and things about where to go, and should I go and ill it be okay, and can I manage the flight, et cetera, et cetera.

And I just wanted to share a little bit of what I've learned because I have really been traveling right through the pandemic and right through being sick. And that's really for a couple of reasons. All of my family are in the UK, and so if I don't fly to London, I don't get to see them. And also I am someone who pre-COVID used to travel a great deal and loves to travel. And very bizarrely, you may not relate to this at all. There's nothing I like more than traveling for work and Hilton Garden Inn. I know they look exactly the same no matter where you are. And yet for me, that is so enormously comforting to my nervous system. So I have a traveling right from the very beginning. One of the first things that I did notice and of course those big long flights from New York to London are quite taxing on the body was that it definitely made me relapse in the beginning.

So when I flew to London in the summer of 2020, that definitely was a trigger for my symptoms to get much worse. And when I flew at Christmas again, that was really the beginning of my horrific chronic fatigue. And I'm sure both of those were related to the airport and the air travel. And one thing that I definitely do now that I've learned from those early journeys is I always request wheelchair assistance at the airport. And I know this is contentious, and it's a double- edged sword, because when we have a dis has a hidden disability, and maybe it looks to the wheelchair attendant like we don't need to be in a wheelchair, we don't deserve to be in a wheelchair, then that can also be stressful. And believe me, I have written many harsh emails to Heathrow, who are particularly bad at wheelchair assistance and have a number of wheelchair attendants who are very, very disrespectful.

The flip side is that our bodies just cannot walk that far. And especially if you're carrying a bag or even pushing a wheelie suitcase, we just don't have the strength to be doing all that. So if we don't use a wheelchair at the airport, we actually can't really travel. And for that reason, I have taken many, many, many aeroplane trips, but very few train journeys because the big train stations in New York don't have wheelchair assistance. And that would be far too much walking for me just to get on the train. So definitely think about wheelchair assistance. I also mask in airport still and I know that you've heard me talk about this, I mask everywhere. But especially on planes being mindful not to take it off when the plane is on the ground. Because that's not the good quality air, the air is not circulating, the hot air is coming in from the tarmac, and you're more likely to get sick, if you take your mask off at that point. Once you get to altitude I do take it off to eat and drink because obviously, it's super important that we stay hydrated and that we energize our bodies with food. But at that altitude so far touchwood I have been okay.

So wheelchair assistance, and the other thing that I have gotten into the routine, more recently of doing is getting IV vitamins either right before I go or right after I land. So in the US, there are a lot of companies that will come to your apartment or to your hotel room. And in all honesty, the price is not that much more than if you go to them. I know in London there are similar, although probably the price is a little bit more expensive. But it really does make a difference, especially making sure that you have an MP or an RN who is administering the IV fluids. And especially for me because I have awful veins. And yesterday evening, we spent an hour sticking me about five different times just trying to get a vein in order to get the catheter in for the IV. But it was worth it, and I think, you know, that's a testament to just how dehydrated we do get an altitude. When you're not hydrated, your veins are much harder to find. And that really meant that I really did need the fluids.

And I usually get high strength vitamins and also glutathione, which just gives you a little bit of an immune system boost and helps kind of you know, fight off any of the things but also help the body deal with altitude. And as you know, I wear my Garmin and monitor my heart rate and looking back at the data at the times that I have flied, flight, flown. Looking at how my heart rate responds versus having an IV, not having an IV, it does make a huge difference to how quickly my body recovers.

I hope you have a tolerable week. I look forward to seeing you again on another Wellness Wednesday. And as always, the links for all of the other things that I offer are down below if you are interested. And if you're watching this on YouTube, please do hit subscribe. It means an awful lot to me and helps me be able to continue providing these videos for you and for others in our community. Take care.