138 - Jules Rogers - Long Covid Recovery

Episode 138 of the Long Covid Podcast is a chat with Jules Rogers, who shares how she recovered from Long Covid. We chat through the things that helped - some of which made a little difference, some a lot.

As with all recovery stories - this is one person's experience. We wouldn't recommend trying to replicate it, as no two people are the same. But taking ideas & certainly inspiration is absolutely a good idea!

Jules website: julesrogerslifecoach.com

Social handles jules_rogerslifecoach on Instagram and Jules Rogers Life and Mind-body coach on Facebook.

Pamela Rose 4 week fatigue rescue

For more information about Long Covid Breathing courses & workshops, please check out LongCovidBreathing.com

(music credit - Brock Hewitt, Rule of Life)

Transcript

Jackie Baxter  
Hello and welcome to this episode of the long covid Podcast. I'm delighted to be joined this morning by Jules Rogers, who is here to share her recovery story. So I love talking recoveries, because everyone's story is different, but we can all take something, I think, from every story, even if it is just that someone has recovered. So yeah, I'm really excited to hear how your story went. So a very warm. Welcome to the podcast this morning.

Jules Rogers  
Thank you. It's lovely to be here.

Jackie Baxter  
So to start with, would you mind just saying a little bit about yourself and maybe what life was like, before long covid, before covid.

Jules Rogers  
Yeah. So I am a mum to two, and I was working in a part time job that was quite emotionally stressful. And there was also some kind of stuff going on within the family as well, which was kind of adding to the stress as well. So there was kind of like quite a stressful job, like supporting people that were finding life quite difficult. And then there was difficulties at home as well. 

Jules Rogers  
So it was like a perfect storm, really, of difficulties and challenges. So I would have said, before I got covid, I was pretty stressed, so my nervous system was pretty much in that fight or flight state most of the time. 

Jackie Baxter  
Yeah, and that's interesting, isn't it? Because looking back on it, I would say the same thing about me. I was constantly switched on, always busy, always stressed, actually, yeah, you know, there was just so much always going on in life. And I think, like, if that is what life is like for you, you don't see it as being a problem. You know, it's just completely normal, and we don't really have any sort of reason to believe that it isn't okay. 

Jackie Baxter  
Because I always find this really interesting, speaking to people who have recovered. Because I think often, if not always, there was always a kind of period of this kind of like stress, or whatever you want to call it, kind of preceding. And you know, how much preceding and how much it was, obviously varies, because everyone's different. 

Jackie Baxter  
And, yeah, I always think it's really interesting, because I think my first reaction when someone said that to me was that they were blaming me for being sick. And I think it took me a bit of time to realize that that wasn't the case, because what is the point of blaming someone for being sick? You know, it's not like you asked to get that virus. 

Jackie Baxter  
But I do think it is quite useful to kind of understand what was going on before, because it helps you to then work out what you want to do better, I think in the future. And, you know, kind of understanding cause and effect, I think is a useful kind of thing. Anyway, that was a bit of a tangent, but I do think it is really interesting how everybody seems to have some sort of, as you described, perfect storm in the sort of lead up to where that initial illness kind of happened. 

Jackie Baxter  
So would you be able to talk a little bit through that initial illness, starting off with, I think, when it happened, because I think for you, this is quite important.

Jules Rogers  
yeah. So I got ill at the very beginning of the first lockdown, and actually, I didn't really feel ill at all. I didn't have typical covid symptoms, but for me, I just had this little odd kind of slightly feeling, slightly nauseous and a headache. My partner, at the same time, he had typical covid symptoms, and where he worked, there was covid, typical covid going through out there. So I came to the conclusion it was covid because that had been going through our house, even though I didn't have the same symptoms. 

Jules Rogers  
I've always been somebody that doesn't really get ill. So it's not uncommon for my partner to get quite poorly with something and me to get, like, some very much milder symptoms. And so it was probably about a couple weeks after I'd had those kind of symptoms that I then got this, like real fatigue just hit me, and I kind of ended up taking a couple weeks off work, and then I think it became a couple more, because I was just absolutely wiped out. 

Jules Rogers  
But for me, when I was 18, I had glandular fever, which then became they called it post viral fatigue syndrome. Later got diagnosed as ME, and so the moment I got that fatigue, it felt exactly like it felt when I'd had that viral fatigue. So it kind of felt familiar, which in a sense, was kind of quite scary, because I was thinking, oh my god, I'm back there again. But also I knew that I could get better. I just didn't know how long it was going to take or when I would be better, but I knew at some point I would get better. 

Jules Rogers  
So yeah, I ended up kind of taking, I think it was about two, maybe four weeks off from work, and then I went back to work. And then by the end of May, I was kind of unable to do that level of work I had been doing because tiredness wasn't getting any better. So then I went reduce my hours a bit, and then I managed to get through to, I think, July time. And by then I was just, I couldn't do it anymore. Bear in mind, as well as kind of having to do a job, I'm trying to homeschool as well at the same time. 

Jules Rogers  
So July came, and I took some more time off, and then I made the decision, I think it was about mid August that I was just going to stop working because I knew that I couldn't continue working and recover, because the work I was doing was taking up too much of my kind of mental capacity and my emotional capacity to then Be able to focus on recovery and family and everything. So yeah, I made that difficult decision to give up work. And then it went on from there,

Jackie Baxter  
yeah, you described that kind of experience of, oh, I recognize this, when you notice that the fatigue felt very like your experience of post viral fatigue syndrome previously. And, you know, that must have been a scary thing. I'm just kind of thinking that if I felt that, kind of like, long covid fatigue now, I would be like, yeah, properly freaking out. 

Jackie Baxter  
But I suppose, on top, as well as that sort of Yeah, sort of scariness, it's also a kind of okay, I see you for what you are, kind of like, I sort of know what this is, and maybe that gave you a bit of a jump start on what you needed.

Jules Rogers  
I must admit, it was very... when I was being 18. Being ill when you're 18 is so different to being ill when you're in your 40s, and you've got dependents, and life is very, very different. All I had to do at 18 was like crawl from one end of the house to the other, because that's all I could do. I had no responsibilities. So in a sense, yes, I recognized it, and I knew that I couldn't just push through it. 

Jules Rogers  
But when I got better, when I was 18, it was like it seemed the moment A levels stopped. It was like, oh, and it was, I didn't do anything actively, do anything to get better. I rested because I couldn't do anything else, because I was so tired. But there was no research, or no active part from me about, how am I going to get better? It just kind of happened. 

Jules Rogers  
Which it definitely didn't this time around, I spent a long time researching and looking at different ways to get better. Like I said, I knew that it would happen one day, but I had absolutely no clue how it would happen. So I walked many different paths and many tried many different ways of getting better from long covid that I never had to do when I was ill the first time. 

Jackie Baxter  
So it was a totally different experience. 

Jules Rogers  
Yeah, 

Jackie Baxter  
I mean, that's not surprising in some ways, is it? Because, you know, you're a very different person in your 40s, life is very, very different than it is when you're 18. Yeah, that's a really good point. 

Jackie Baxter  
So let's talk about things that you tried to get better. I guess they come into two categories normally, don't they? Things that you did that helped, and things that you did that didn't help. 

Jules Rogers  
So in the beginning, I kind of focused mainly on nutrition and diet, thinking that that was the path to get me back to health. And also within that, I'd also read some stuff and seen some videos online about histamine intolerance, and like there was a histamine storm going on. So one of the diets I tried was the low histamine diet, which kind of made a bit of a difference, but for me personally, it wasn't a significant enough difference for the stress of actually trying to stick to such a strict diet. 

Jules Rogers  
I did a while where I did, like I was making these green smoothies like every morning and night, having those and lots of raw foods. And that was another one that, again, it was maybe slightly, but not enough to carry on with that very different eating style to the rest of the family. I think they were the two main diets I kind of tried. 

Jules Rogers  
But then I stayed on the nutrition track, and I started working with a nutritionist, and she had me do like an elimination diet. So basically took out anything that could have been like causing an intolerance or causing inflammation within me that was my body wasn't liking. And after doing that, I felt the wellest I had. So I kind of did that through kind of May 21 till about September time. 

Jules Rogers  
And I used to find as well, I used to often crash in September. And looking back after it happened a few times, I used to find the summer holidays, having the kids at home quite draining. Because when they're at school, I used to get that break during the day where I could just focus on me. But during school holidays, there was none of that. So although my partner was incredibly helpful and would go and take them out. And I had friends, it was still that thing that I knew I couldn't fully switch off for any chunk of time. 

Jules Rogers  
So September's would often be like a crash for a while, and I would be kind of take me, probably till the next half term, to kind of get my energies back up a little bit. So after I decided that nutrition was got me a little bit of the way, but it definitely wasn't the full answer for me. And then I had that dip again. 

Jules Rogers  
I started working with the lady called Pamela Rose, who is, she does a lot of pacing, and she's a fatigue coach. She does pacing. I did her three week fatigue recovery course, which, again, I picked up. There were some really good tips that I got from that, but it wasn't the full answer for me by any means. 

Jules Rogers  
One of the best things I learned from that was she had a phrase called it was, and it was "just for now". So to accept that this is just for now, and that if I do these things that look after myself, the bits I can't do that I want to do, like going on days out with the family. And for me, there was kind of a lot of I struggled not being able to be there as I fully wanted to be for my children. So a lot of the time, it was trying to hold myself back from doing stuff with them so that I could recover. 

Jules Rogers  
I used to watch lots of videos on YouTube of other people that had recovered from, and I was watching lots of ones to do with ME/CFS, because for me, they felt exactly the same. So I was making that connection that even though they weren't saying long covid, I knew that it felt the same, so I was going to treat it in that same way. 

Jules Rogers  
And I used to kind of almost have, like, create a spreadsheet, going right that worked, and this worked, and kind of really trying to put the puzzle together. Because to me, it was like a big puzzle, and I just had to work the bits that were my parts of the puzzle that were going to be the bits that got me better. There was one that I saw, it was a lady who was a mind body therapist, and once I saw that one, it was like, Ah, I've really resonated with that one. 

Jules Rogers  
And then I contacted her, and I worked with her, probably for about, I think we had about eight sessions together, but I think it was over about three months, and that totally changed everything for me. It was that learning to associate the symptoms and those emotions that you get with the symptoms, to the thought patterns that were going on in my head, and then learning that if I could take certain actions, that I could change the outcome. 

Jules Rogers  
So I could change that symptom by taking certain actions and that would alleviate certain symptoms for me. And building up this understanding of the mind body connection was so powerful and was the biggest step by far for me, and getting on to the kind of wellness recovery path,

Jackie Baxter  
yeah. And I think, certainly for me, it sounds like you, you had the sort of period of feeling as well, where you don't really know what's going on with your body, and you don't know what to do to make it better. And then, you know, you you start hearing things, and you start looking into things and what those things are different for different people, but finding that first thing that helps in the moment, I think, is such a powerful thing. 

Jackie Baxter  
I mean, for me, it was breathing. But you know, when you feel those symptoms starting to come on. Or, you know, if you feel a relapse coming, or, you know, you're starting to feel terrible, and whatever that looks like for you, finding that first tool where you can go, Okay, actually, if I do this, it'll help. Maybe I can stop things from getting worse. Maybe I can start to get them a little bit better. Maybe I can actually stop the crash from happening at all. 

Jackie Baxter  
You know, that wasn't always easy, but you know, kind of experimenting around with these interventions, so whatever you want to call them, I think, and just understanding that there are things that you can do, I think, is just such a powerful moment. Because up until that point, there hadn't been anything that worked. It had just been like your body is completely out of control, isn't it? 

Jules Rogers  
I was going to say for me, that's the thing. It's like I just felt so out of control that I had no control over kind of my symptoms, my emotions, everything felt out of control for me. And learning these things that actually I could get back some control, and it wasn't all out of my Yeah. Control was just so empowering, I think. 

Jules Rogers  
And that really pushed that kind of like hope and that belief that I will get better, because I could see that things I was doing was making a positive difference, and that gave me that strong belief, yeah,

Jackie Baxter  
and that belief is just so important in recovery. I think, yeah, it's interesting what you were saying about emotions, actually, because, you know, I mean, I think, you know, we're both from the UK, and it's not really acceptable to talk about emotions, you know, it's very much, certainly, my upbringing was the kind of, keep calm, carry on. 

Jackie Baxter  
If you're showing emotions, you're kind of weak and hysterical and and that sort of thing. And, you know, I was never told that, but you know that that is the kind of, you know, there's a lot of that in the UK, and then there may be, maybe elsewhere as well. 

Jackie Baxter  
And I think, you know, with something like long covid as well. You know, you find that your emotions are kind of a bit out of control as well. You know, you're swinging wildly from, you know, I did this thing, and actually it helped very, very slightly, and everything's going to be okay to, you know, a couple of hours later where you're back in a crash and it just feels like life isn't worth living, and you're crying your eyes out, or you feel like you want to, but also you don't feel like you can. 

Jackie Baxter  
And, you know, we don't really know how to express emotions. We kind of often bottle them up, I think. And I'm starting to learn that that's really unhealthy. We should feel our emotions, you know? I mean, there may be times to do that and times to not, you know, if you're in the middle of a work meeting, maybe, you know, letting out everything is, if you could hold on to that for an hour and do it later, then great. 

Jackie Baxter  
But, you know, I think, yeah, just really allowing ourselves to let them out is such a healthy thing to do, but it's completely not what we've always been taught.

Jules Rogers  
Yeah, especially, I think, I lived and worked in America for a while in my 20s, and I absolutely loved the fact that you can be more expressive and you can be good at something without being big headed and and all that. And I do find this country, as in the UK, is just much more difficult to express and be okay with saying how you feel and stuff and you want. 

Jules Rogers  
I think growing up with that, it's almost like it's almost innate in us to kind of berate ourselves slightly, which is so unhelpful when you've got this kind of illness, which I really believe is so linked to our nervous system, and when you're continually giving yourself those negative messages all the time, it's just puts us in this state of stress and this state of dis ease, which can cause disease.

Jackie Baxter  
Yeah, absolutely. And I think for me, part of my recovery was kind of understanding things like the expectations I put on myself, and the expectations that the world puts on me, or maybe that family members have put on me, you know, and all those things that I believe about myself. And it's like, well, actually, what? Why? Why do I believe that, you know? 

Jackie Baxter  
And some of it was good, some of it was bad. Some of it was good in certain contexts, but certainly things like perfectionism, which is something that I have always kind of had, you know, when you put that into the context of recovery, it's like, oh, that's totally unhelpful. You know, it was like, I was trying to perfect my recovery. And it was like, Okay, this is ridiculous. This isn't going to help. 

Jackie Baxter  
So it was kind of understanding some of those things about myself that was really useful, but then not to berate myself for being a perfectionist, because that was my first instinct. Was then like, Oh, for goodness sake, why are you perfectionist? This is so unhelpful. And then it's like, Oh, my goodness. Like, what is wrong with you?

Jules Rogers  
Yeah, I must, for me personally, because I'm very similar. I think so many people that have these kind of chronic fatigue illnesses have this kind of personality that is quite self critical and but also we're quite driven, I think, as well, to kind of achieve, achieve stuff. But I have learned to be much more self compassionate, and that has been such a key part of me getting well, is that being kind to myself? 

Jules Rogers  
Like, yeah, I remember at one point thinking, I'm going to be the best person at recovering from long covid. How ridiculous is that? It's like, no. And then I caught myself with that, and it's catching those phrases and the way we talk to ourself and just, yeah, being compassionate, because that kind of competitive perfectionist tendency is really not helpful for me

Jackie Baxter  
I mean, you know being a musician, you know you have to be a perfectionist. You know that that is what makes you good at what you do, or certainly in some contexts, but then also you have to know when to let go of that. And I think that's what I wasn't able to do. I wasn't able to let go of some of these things in other contexts of my life. 

Jackie Baxter  
So it was like, right? I'm going to go up the hills, right? Well, I'm going to go up the hills perfectly, you know? I'm going to do a perfect Hill walk, everything's going to be great. And it's like, hang on. That's not why you do that. You know? You go up the hills because it's relaxing and you're putting yourself into this amazing place. So it's not of it for me, it was just kind of balancing that out, you know? I don't think I'm going to stop being a perfectionist, you know. I want things to be done well, and that's great in certain contexts, but yeah, not in others. 

Jackie Baxter  
And it's amazing what you see in yourself once you start noticing these things, and, as you say, kind of catching yourself when you're maybe trying to be perfect about something where it's not really relevant. For me anyway, I think you know, this has been a real kind of journey of discovery, like I've learned a lot about myself that I didn't expect to and some of it I liked, and some of it I didn't like so much. And that surprised me, because I didn't really expect to learn things about me that I didn't like, which sounds very arrogant, actually, doesn't it? When you put it like that 

Jules Rogers  
I think it is. It's like, this journey of to recovery is, I think it's such, it's such a teacher. It teaches you so much about who you genuinely are in and like, if you take the time to look inside, the answers, I believe, are in there. And it's, yeah, it's such a great teacher to to show you the way to find that health and everything, because you need to balance the body and the mind up. 

Jules Rogers  
And once that balance happens, then the healing comes. Kind of it's part of the parcel. It's like, once we're in the right space to heal, the right mental and the physical space, then healing will happen. 

Jules Rogers  
I just wish, and I know it's not realistic, I don't think, but it's like, sometimes it's like I hadn't had to go through this journey to learn these lessons, because I'm so incredibly grateful for the lessons I've learned through healing. It would be great to not have to go through this awful thing to learn those lessons, but I'm not sure I'd have stopped and listened if it hadn't got to the point where I had something that made me stop and I physically couldn't do anything that I had to kind of process all those thoughts and all those emotions and work out what I needed to do to get to a healthy place.

Jackie Baxter  
Yeah, it's a difficult one, isn't it? Because I agree, I've come out far better than I went in, but that doesn't mean that I enjoyed the experience, because it was absolutely horrific, you know. So, yeah, I don't think I would say I'm grateful for my illness, but I'm definitely grateful for some of the things I'd learned as a result of it. I think, yeah, I think that's a tricky one. 

Jackie Baxter  
And I certainly think that, you know, for people who haven't recovered, that certainly can be something that's quite hard to hear sometimes. I think, you know, people who are like, Oh yeah, I'm really grateful for my illness. And you know, Oh well, I'm still sick. I can't imagine how anyone could ever be grateful for this. I think your perspective does change quite a lot with recovery, but everyone's version of that is different. 

Jackie Baxter  
I loved what you said about the environment needing to be right. Because, you know, we talk a lot about the sort of physical environment, you know, in our bodies, you know, getting things like nutrition right, for example, and you know, reducing stress and breathing, and, you know, all of these things that are hugely helpful. And, you know, it is incredibly important to make sure that what's inside is working as best as it can. 

Jackie Baxter  
But I think what we often talk less about is the mental side of that. You know, so is our mental environment right as well. Because our mental and physical health is so intertwined. You know, if our mental health is struggling, then the body is going to struggle. In the same way that if the body is struggling, the mental side is also going to struggle. 

Jackie Baxter  
And we know this. You know, there's so much, you know, things like depression and anxiety that come along with something like long covid. So they both kind of have such an impact on each other, you know, as well as things like environmental stuff around you as well. You know, it's important to try and get that as right as you can as well, without being a perfectionist about it, tying that back in. 

Jackie Baxter  
Trying to get all of these kind of environments to be as best as they can to then put your body into the best place it can be to heal, you know, I mean, that's what the nervous system does, isn't it? You know, the nervous system heals the body, but only if you're in the right place.

Jules Rogers  
Yeah. And it's for me, learning that how the nervous system works was really helpful to understand how I'd got to where I was. That I had been in that state of fight or flight. The sympathetic nervous system had just been dominant for far too long, and my body had got to the point of saying I can't sustain this. This is not sustainable. I'm going to shut you down. To then learning how to bring it out of that state of almost shut down, and then come back to that kind of rest, relax and be in that that state most of the time. 

Jules Rogers  
And just that knowledge was so beneficial to me to know there was a process that I could kind of get my nervous system to go through, and where I needed to kind of reside most of the time. And I think when I did the the work, the mind body therapy, a lot of it is is it's about creating that kind of balance between and learning how to kind of regulate yourself between the nervous states. 

Jules Rogers  
And that was so fascinating to me that then I decided that that's what I wanted to do. So I kind of trained as a life coach and Mind Body practitioner, and the journey of doing that studying was again that that was still part of my recovery, because there's so much that you kind of have to you coach yourself basically through the process. 

Jules Rogers  
So you're coaching yourself while you're you're studying and you're training, and it was all that was kind of these, kind of the last, I would say, probably working with a practitioner got me 80% of the way there, and then I did some on top of that, I kind of learnt stuff about the kind of brain retraining and how I talk to myself is massively important, and the self compassion and stuff. 

Jules Rogers  
And then the last bit was going through this course and studying and literally coaching myself to full wellness. It almost boosted my confidence too, because when I was really, I was like thinking almost, I knew it wasn't dementia, but I was really worried that I wouldn't get my brain back because I couldn't remember anything. I'd be part way through sentences, and I would lose words, and I couldn't remember what people were saying. 

Jules Rogers  
And so doing a course, it took a lot of courage to actually decide to study something, because I really had so little confidence that I'd actually remember anything I was going to learn. But it really boosted my confidence to know that my brain can work again. And it gave me back my brain, in a sense, because it gave me the ability to remember and learn and everything, which I was worried I'd lost. 

Jackie Baxter  
Yeah, that's amazing. I remember having a really similar experience when I did my breathing training. I wasn't fully recovered. I was doing a lot better, but I wasn't there yet. And it was a lot of time, it was a lot of energy. It was, you know, a lot of sitting in front of a screen, having to focus for long periods of time. 

Jackie Baxter  
And I remember thinking afterwards, you know, I was like, Whoa, afterwards. But also that I did it, yeah, I did it, and I took it in, and I passed and, you know, it was like, Okay, so, okay. I was quite tired after that. That took quite a lot out of me. But at the same time, as you say, you know, having that kind of a little bit of confidence in your body and in your mind and your brain. And it's quite a lot doing something like that, you know, I think at the time, I didn't realize quite how much it was that I was taking on. I think if I had, I probably wouldn't have done it, and it would have been a shame to have not done it. So yeah, that's quite interesting, that you had a similar experience there. That's very cool. 

Jackie Baxter  
So you said that this kind of really helped you, kind of over the finish line, I suppose, what did that final kind of like moment look like for you? Did you have a kind of like "I'm there" moment, or was it more of a kind of gradual process to kind of realize that you were fully recovered, that you'd had made it?

Jules Rogers  
It was definitely not a Whoa, yeah, I'm there, kind of thing. It was that, for me, it would be like that, realization that the things I hadn't been able to do, I'd almost be like saying, Oh yeah, I can do that. Oh yeah, I can do that. Like, I love walking. 

Jules Rogers  
And it's like, for a long time, I had to really restrict what I could do, how far I could go, because I really suffered with post exertional malaise. That would really get me, so I'd be fine at the time, because I'd be loving doing it, but it would knock me right back, which then, in a sense, almost was like I had to really flick the switch in my brain when I got to the point where I wanted to start doing more walking. 

Jules Rogers  
Because I would continually have a message that my brain kept saying, Be careful. Be careful. Don't go too far, because that'll get you worse. You don't want to do that. You'll make yourself worse. So one of the things I had to do with that brain, when I talked about that period of brain retraining was when I went for a walk, I had to create a new neural pathway in my brain. It was not the Be careful pathway, I had to create. 

Jules Rogers  
And my mantra I would walk, and I would just keep telling myself, walking makes me strong, walking makes me healthy. And I would have that like on repeat, going round in my head, and because I needed to break that cycle of kind of that I'd got so used to having post exertional malaise that I just was so scared of going back there again. 

Jules Rogers  
And then I realized that was totally a mental thing, that I could do that walking, but I just had to be able to mentally allow myself to walk, and then I wouldn't get any symptoms. So the worry of the walking would be so much more detrimental than the actual physical act of walking. So yeah, I feel I've gone off track slightly from what you asked me.

Jackie Baxter  
Yeah, it's interesting though, isn't it? Because I think you know, we have certain things that we know that trigger us, particularly. I know for me, arguments with my partner would be incredibly triggering for me, trying to do too much physically and stuff as well is a really obvious one. I think the emotional one was, was more difficult because I never saw it coming. 

Jackie Baxter  
And then we know, you know, every time we do that, we get worse. And every time we try to do it again, we get worse, you know? And then once we start finding things that help, and we start to regulate our nervous systems and we start to improve, how do we get around that kind of like, I suppose it is, it's a fear, isn't it, of doing that thing, because we know what's going to happen when we do. 

Jackie Baxter  
Whereas actually it's thinking, well, actually, no, my body is in a better place now, you know, I have learned to breathe. My nervous system is more resilient. So actually, maybe I can do some of these things. But I think it can be quite difficult to get out of that. You know, when every time you've done it before, it set you back. Then, why isn't it going to do the same now. And even though you can remind yourself that actually I am much healthier now, it can be difficult. I think,

Jules Rogers  
yeah, and I think to know when I recovered is like that when I would walk. And that negative stuff just isn't there anymore. And so it definitely wasn't just a Yay I passed that line. It was very much like, Oh, I've done that, and there was no issue. Oh, I've done that, and there was no issue. And I would think about climbing a mountain without having all the but what happens if this? What if that? 

Jules Rogers  
And I knew I could just go and walk that mountain and it would be okay. And knowing that if I felt a bit tired afterwards, that's okay, because I've not climbed a mountain for a really long time, so it's perfectly normal to feel really tired when you do that. 

Jules Rogers  
I don't know if gradual is the right word, but it was that kind of doing things that I would have done before in the same way, and then it was like, each time, it was like, Yeah, okay, that's fine, that's fine. That's fine. 

Jackie Baxter  
Yeah, I suppose it's building up confidence in your body. It's building up, like, physical fitness, I suppose, as well. 

Jules Rogers  
Yeah, 

Jackie Baxter  
I think something that I remember was that, oh, okay, well, I think I'm good now, so therefore I'm gonna go - I ran out the door and decided I was gonna go run a 5k. And, you know, 30 seconds round the corner, I thought I was dying. And it was like, oh, maybe I'm not better then. And then it was like, hang on a second. When was the last time I went for a run? Like, of course, I'm gonna struggle here. 

Jackie Baxter  
So it was, yeah, kind of thinking about myself as an unfit, healthy person, rather than a fit person, which is what I'd been before. And allowing that kind of fitness to come back in a safe sensible way, rather than running myself at a wall over and over and over, which obviously was part of what put me there in the first place. That was very interesting experience. And you know, looking back on it was like, Well, of course that was gonna happen. No one goes for a 5k having not run for years and is okay with that. Like, that doesn't work that way.

Jules Rogers  
No, I found for myself too, because I went into this, like in my kind of early to mid 40s, and then perimenopause for me, I felt really hit. And then I've had to learn, your body seems to  change so dramatically. So I'm kind of, all my goal posts have moved anyway, because my body's going through a natural process. So I can't use the ones I went into it with, as the ones I used when I came out. So that was learning how the body's changed just through the natural process of kind of perimenopause as well. So that was interesting. 

Jules Rogers  
And I also, one of the pieces of research I saw was that there were some people of my age that the HRT had been beneficial for them. So I did do that. I did start taking HRT, and that was one of the biggest things for me that actually shifted my brain. It really helped dramatically with the brain fog. 

Jules Rogers  
So I then, I think there was that combination of, like, long covid, perimenopause, all getting mixed up into that kind of cauldron of symptoms and everything. So, yeah, I found, I did find, for me, actually starting HRT, which is something I'd never, ever planned to do, made a big difference. Another little bit of the puzzle.

Jackie Baxter  
Yeah, and I think that's really interesting, because long covid does affect more women than men, and the sort of average age of people with long covid does tend to be around about the age that most people, not everybody, do start going into perimenopause. And, you know, you kind of have, you just described it as a sort of like cauldron of evil kind of thing, of all of this stuff kind of happening at once. 

Jackie Baxter  
And, you know, it's not just menopause, and it's probably not just long covid either, and kind of trying to find the wood for the trees almost, you know, by working out what, and what's exacerbating the other I suppose. I mean, I imagine that navigating perimenopause is not easy without long covid. So, you know, I can't imagine that having it with long covid on top is all sunshine and roses either. So it sounds like it was Yeah, of sort of experience where the kind of both happened together. It must have been really difficult,

Jules Rogers  
yeah, and I never really put the two and two... again. It's that thing I just didn't think about it. And then I saw this evidence and these reports and these and I thought, oh, maybe there is something about it. And I thought, I'll just try it. And it made a big difference. So I was really glad I did. 

Jackie Baxter  
And I think, why wouldn't you just try stuff either, you know. I think certainly it can be quite scary trying something new, whether that's HRT, whether it's a drug, whether it's breathing or, you know, whatever it is that you found next on your list of things to try. 

Jackie Baxter  
And I think it can be difficult for lots of reasons. I mean, you know, you put so much pressure on the next thing you try because you want it to really work. But you know, you're maybe worried about side effects, or there must be so many things that are worrying when you try something new. 

Jackie Baxter  
And I think, you know, one of the things for me is like, I'm just not sure I want to try something new, because I can't bear the disappointment when it doesn't work, kind of thing. And then it was having to, you know, wallow in that for a couple of days and then, Right okay, now I'm ready to try it. Because there were definitely a few places for me where, you know, maybe I had seen a bit of improvement, but then ever the House of Cards have come crashing down, and I'd hit another relapse, 

Jackie Baxter  
And it was like, Why do I bother? You know, because it never works, you know, or it never keeps working. And then, you know, you take a couple of days or a couple of weeks, or whatever that looks like for you to just be like, Okay, I just need to allow myself to feel terrible and to be really down about this, and then I would sort of pick myself back up and be like, Okay, well, that thing helped a bit, so let's find the next thing that helps a bit, and then the next thing and the next thing. 

Jackie Baxter  
But yeah, I think, you know, in those moments, it can feel really horrible and scary and, yeah, difficult for whatever reason to kind of, you know, move on and try the next thing, because that does seem to be what recovery looks like. I think everyone that I've spoken to, you know, it hasn't been one thing. It's been kind of like bits and, you know, a puzzle, as you described earlier, you know, fitting that together, and that's different for different people, I think.

Jules Rogers  
And when I'm working with people now that are working out their puzzle, working out their recovery, it is. It's like, it's so individual. It's there are similarities, don't get me wrong, but the way people do it, or the order people do it, it varies depending on where each person is at, or which bit they're most receptive to. 

Jules Rogers  
And I just think puzzle is such a good way, because we put in different pieces at different times, but we all get there in the end, but it's working out the combination of pieces. When you put each piece in and which, which are the right pieces for you, it's similar, but very individual at the same time I think. 

Jackie Baxter  
Yeah, absolutely, yeah. So just to finish, maybe what advice would you want yourself to have known, kind of back at the start? So looking at it with the benefit of sort of hindsight, what might you have wanted to know?

Jules Rogers  
That you definitely can get better, and that having a belief that you can get better is so important, I think, to keep you going through those really dark days. And to know that I'm going to learn things along this path that are going to be of great benefit to me once I get to the end, and I will be able to use the things I learn to create a life that I really want. And that you can create a life that feels kind of balanced and healthy and joyful from this really dark, difficult place. 

Jules Rogers  
I do feel life is more balanced. I have a much clearer idea of how I need to live my life, to stay well and to not let those things build up in the beginning that can be the kind of lead in to these kind of chronic illnesses. So I think that's probably what I would tell myself, 

Jackie Baxter  
Yeah it's hard, I think, when you are in the middle of long covid or any chronic illness, you know, and people will tell you all sorts of things. And some of them will be useful, and some of them might not be. 

Jackie Baxter  
But I think hearing it from people who have recovered, I think, is always useful, because you know what it feels like to be in the middle of it, and although you know people's perspectives and things often change, having recovered, you don't lose that entirely. You know you still know what that feels like and how awful that can be. 

Jules Rogers  
I think one other thing I just thought actually, is also to trust yourself, because we know what is right for us within, and to listen to those messages that come from within our mind and our body and to trust the path that we know is the right one for us to heal. 

Jules Rogers  
Because nobody's path will be the same as anybody else's, And it's really having that belief and that trust that you know yourself better than anybody else. And I think, yeah, to have that is really beneficial,

Jackie Baxter  
yeah, absolutely, or you certainly will be by the end of this, yeah, you're definitely going to know yourself a lot better. I think so much of this was really actually kind of listening to my body, which had obviously been trying to tell me all sorts of things for a long time, and I hadn't really been listening to it, and I sort of I understand what it's trying to tell me a lot better now.

Jules Rogers  
Yeah, you tune into the messages, don't you? Definitely yes.

Jackie Baxter  
I think a lot of it is working with the body rather than against it. Sometimes the body says no, and I think we need to be able to listen to that a lot better. Otherwise it'll say no a lot more loudly and a lot more forcefully, and we will be forced to not do things. Certainly that was kind of my experience.

Jules Rogers  
No, definitely mine. It's like, yeah, the body, the body knows how to heal when we get out of the way and let it do its healing.

Jackie Baxter  
Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you so much for coming along today and for sharing your story and for sharing hope, because that's so important. I'll make sure that I drop links in the show notes to anything that we've mentioned today, as well as how to get in touch with Jules herself, if if anyone would like to So, yeah, thank you so much.

Jules Rogers  
Thank you. It's been a pleasure. I hope something's been beneficial that I've said to others.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai