Covid and the vagus nerve

At this point, you may know someone who has experienced long-haul COVID, or perhaps you know somebody that’s had some type of adverse event occurring from the vaccine. Many times this presents as neurological symptoms and therefore is important to discuss the connection between the vagus nerve and COVID.

Rather watch or listen? 

The connection between the vagus nerve and covid

Patients with long COVID  may have had swallowing issues, headaches, blood pressure dysregulation, shortness of breath, difficulty with digestion, and more. All of these things can be directly linked to the vagus nerve.

At this point, we’re well aware that the COVID virus (SARS Covid-2) can affect the nervous system. The vagus nerve exits the brain stem, branches into the throat, affecting our swallowing, branches into the ear, and moves down to innervate our SA node of the heart and into the entire digestive tract, thus considered one of the most powerful nerves in the body.

If the nerve is inflamed, that can affect a whole host of nervous system functions, specifically our autonomic nervous system. There’s preliminary research in small subject samples looking at exactly how this is happening. So, with ultrasound, it’s showing the vagus nerve as it exits of the neck, is demonstrating some thickening and reactive tissue signaling, indicating that there’s inflammation in the nerve.

As we can see, this can cause a lot of different symptoms. Because of the innervations and the anatomy of the vagus nerve, you could have everything from dizziness and blood pressure dysregulation to heart palpitations and digestive issues. Even more obvious is the impact on mood, anxiety, and depression. The vagus nerve is 80 percent of our parasympathetic nervous system, our ‘rest and digest’ state.

Additionally, what’s very interesting is as it relates to the adverse events reported from the vaccine, there are numerous cases of neurological type symptoms that can present very similarly. Headaches, swallowing issues, and ear pain have been reported more frequently in females than males as it relates to post-vaccine injuries, yet so much of it is under-reported. Still, there are over 800,000 cases of adverse events, many of them neurological in nature.

Now when you’re beginning to assess the symptoms that you may have had over the past few years during this time of the pandemic, you begin to look at what precipitated. How was your health before the COVID hit? Did you have COVID? Did you have covid multiple times? Did you have a vaccine? Did you have boosters? All of these things should be factored in when assessing your recent health history.

Here’s the most important thing: whether you had COVID and/or you had some type of adverse event from the vaccine, your body is designed to heal itself. If you are focusing on what is driving inflammation for you, whether that’s food, bugs, viruses, hormones, stress, and so on, you can heal. Whether it’s a virus, bacteria, or a parasite, you can absolutely get to the root cause.

Please know that there’s always hope, and there’s always a way to get better.

If you check out all of my vagus nerve hacks, those are simply a way to begin to regulate your nervous system, improve your vagal tone, and thereby decrease inflammation in your body.

Interested in our upcoming 6-week online vagus nerve program? Register here: https://px9bh0on.pages.infusionsoft.net/

I hope this is helpful. If it was, please give it a like, share it, and subscribe to our Youtube Channel — The Movement Paradigm — for weekly tips on mindset, nutrition, and movement.

Other things that may interest you:

How Your Vagus Nerve Affects Your Gut Health

Vagus Nerve Hack | Gastroesophageal Release

Top 5 Vagus Nerve Hacks to Help You Relax and Restore