This blog post is a truth bomb about me (FAQ Business founder Jane Tweedy) being a business owner with Long Covid. I’m sick of this topic, as I’m sure you are, on 21st April 2025, I clocked up three years since my first Covid infection. That means I’ve had Covid/Long Covid for the last three years. Disclaimer this blog contains no medical, financial or legal advice. It is merely a dump aka truth bomb of me dealing with this for 3 looonnnggg years.
Life turned upside down from Long Covid
My life has been completely turned upside down by Long Covid. I think the biggest challenge has been to my own identity, and my independence. For the first time in my adult life I haven’t been able to fully cover my own expenses and rely on others for their support. Especially as I love being a business owner and helping others, this has been incredibly challenging. Brain use (what I do all day every day) is the worst for giving me chronic fatigue crashes. Physical exertion gives me crippling aches and pains.
In some respects, having Long Covid has helped me connect with people who do find spending something like $49 on a monthly membership too difficult. It’s also got me further away from where I want to be as a successful business owner. So maybe a tiny silver lining is some relatability to those people struggling with finance and/or health issues? Yes, I’m clutching at straws here!
What does having Long Covid mean for me?
I’m not going to go into what it is, because there is so much conjecture about what is afflicting people like me. Is it inflammatory, a virus remnant, spike proteins etc., but rather let’s share what it’s done to me.
Dealing with ongoing chronic fatigue (to the point you physically can not get off the couch to go to bed), Post-Exertional Malaise (PEM), aches and pains, heightened allergies (Mast Cell Activation Syndrome – MCAS), retriggered viruses like Epstein Barr, inflammation, Covid cough flare-ups (especially if I have something cold), an inability to regulate temperature, and other health side effects (which included viral vertigo for the first 6 months and ANA autoimmune markers showing up).
It sucks missing out on events. Even sleeping through Christmas lunch and my favourite course dessert – the photo below is Christmas 2023, but 2024 was worse! Clearly dealing with this daily, along with chronic back pain means a lot less usable hours in my day.
Long Covid treatments
There is no one size fits all cure for Long Covid. Over the last 3 years I have tried so many things! Pacing is pretty much the only universal treatment to reduce symptoms of Long Covid. When I say pace, the reality is to start with doing nothing, which let’s face it, isn’t realistic when you need to pay the bills, and love what you do.
There is the spoons theory – each day you have a certain number of spoons. Every activity (whether thinking, physical or social) uses spoons. So say you have 20 spoons to use in a day. 5 of those spoons may simply be used by getting out of bed, getting dressed, showering, and eating. So then there are only 15 left for everything else – work, family, friends, fitness, life admin and leisure. You need to choose wisely as a one hour meeting may use 5 spoons.
For me, networking adds spoons, as it gives my extrovert side energy. This can lead people into thinking I’m better than I am), but the drive to, and especially from, steals them back and then some!
Outside pacing there are many treatments – naturopathy, histamine blockers (I take Desonex daily to avoid ripping my skin off as it gets red and itchy so quickly), supplements, lymphatic drainage of the brain … The one I haven’t and won’t try is nicotine patches. Pretty much I’ve given everything else I’m aware of a go! At one stage I was taking 14 vitamins and supplements a day (stored in an ‘old lady’ pill case, so I knew if I’d taken the pills that day or not.
I’ve had numerous tests and seen specialists including a sleep study (wired up below), brain MRI (results not back on that one), Long Covid clinic at the Nepean Hospital, rheumatologist, naturopath and more. I even did an interview on Studio 10 (Network10) with a cardiologist.
Lately, touch wood, I have been having a little less Chronic Fatigue bursts. I was having remedial massage for my back only, and now having massage combined with reflexology and lymphatic drainage from my head (brain).
Oops I forgot brain fog – due to my brain fog!
Oh and yeah I forgot of course brain fog !! So if I say a word wrong (blue instead of green etc), or go blank please forgive me! It’s also a nightmare, as I may need to look something up, and by the time I open the tab or go to write the note I’ve forgotten what it was. Weeks later I may suddenly remember, oh no!
Long Covid impact working as a small business owner
My capacity for working is severely limited due to the fatigue and PEM. Especially that over-time work that many of you are familiar with me having done in the past. With three years of limited work capacity, this has severely limited my ability to earn. This created financial stress for the first time in my life. So, if something like tech fails, in the past I could just go buy another computer and be done with it, but not now. This is causing me more stress and time, and therefore money. It’s a vicious cycle I’m struggling to get out of. My loss of income is well into the six figures though it’s hard to quantify. I know a corporate impacted employee who’s lost over $500,000 due to an inability to work her corporate job.
Long Covid has left me questioning my identity
Who expects to be sick for 3 years? Not me! This protracted illness has left me with too much to do in too little time. This has me questioning my identity and the things I believe in like customer service, as I simply haven’t been delivering.
The purpose of this post is not to be a pity party. It’s to highlight the world of hidden illness, because there are many people out there suffering with Long Covid and vax injuries. These are two separate things, and I know people with both. Of course, there are many other terrible illnesses including cancer and heart issues, which remind me mine isn’t so bad.
To all those people in the world who are suffering, I see you, I feel you, and I congratulate you for keeping going when times are really tough.
And to my family and friends who have supported me through the last three years, I give you my immense gratitude because it would have been really hard to make it to this point without you.
Where to from here living with Long Covid?
Who knows? I’ve stopped putting a time limit on getting better, because I know that’s not healthy, when I then overcommit to things and can’t deliver which perpetuates the cycle.
However, I firmly believe I will get better. There is a light at the end of the tunnel and the health, tech, time and money issues of the last three years will be but just a memory.
In the meantime, I appreciate your support , particularly those sharing insights from what they’ve stumbled across as possible remedies or at least symptom relievers. I don’t appreciate however people who insist their method is THE method for everyone. it really isn’t!
My tips for handling unwanted illness
- Stay positive and still live life
- Be realistic about what you can do
- Learn to say no and set boundaries
- Focus on what is most important
- People are more likely to be tolerant if they know what’s going on
- Focusing on health at the expense of everything else doesn’t work!
Please continue to bear with me as I deliver things slower than I anticipated. When I deliver, I hope the delivery is worth it.
Thank you for your support,
Jane
Founder FAQ Business
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