What They Came In For: Long Covid

“I just want to feel like myself again.”

That’s what Thomas K. said when we asked him what brought him in. Then he paused.

“And the truth is, I’m not even sure I remember what that feels like.”

He’d had COVID ten months earlier. It was his second time getting it—the first had been over a year prior, and he’d recovered easily. A few days of fatigue, some sniffles, and then life went back to normal. He was vaccinated. He’d done everything “right.” So when he got it again, and it started as a mild case, he wasn’t too worried.

But this time, the recovery never came.

The fever passed. The test turned negative. But the fatigue stayed. Not the kind you push through with coffee or a good night’s sleep—the kind that settles into your bones. He started needing to lie down in the afternoon. Sometimes his chest felt tight—not dangerous, just off. His brain felt foggy, like he was trying to think through static. He forgot words. Simple tasks took longer. His mood got flatter. His sleep got worse.

He kept waiting to bounce back. But the weeks turned into months, and nothing changed.

He’d had all the tests. Labs normal. Lungs clear. “You're just stressed,” one provider said. Another called it post-viral syndrome and offered antidepressants. He wasn’t against medication. He just didn’t feel like anyone was really listening to what was happening in his body.

That’s when he found his way to Root and Branch.

What he wanted was simple: clarity, energy, and the ability to trust his body again.

We started with the big picture. When did the fatigue hit hardest? How did he feel after meals? How had his digestion been since the illness? What about temperature regulation? Sweating? Focus? Anxiety? We looked at his tongue, felt his pulse. Beneath the surface, his system told a familiar story: a body still caught between recovery and defense. Weakness at the core. Stagnation in the chest. A nervous system on edge.

We explained how long COVID presents, through the lens of Chinese medicine, as a pattern of post-viral depletion and dysregulation. Energy isn’t just “low”—it’s blocked. The body isn’t just tired—it’s stuck in a pattern it can’t exit.

So we built a treatment plan to help guide it out.

At the center of that plan was a custom herbal formula—one tailored to nourish the body’s energy without overstimulating it, to open the chest, support lung and spleen function, and gently recalibrate the nervous system. Not a stimulant. Not a sedative. Just medicine that knew how to listen to what the body actually needed.

He took it twice a day, every day. And we adjusted it often—because as his body changed, the formula needed to change too.

We paired it with acupuncture designed to support his recovery on multiple levels: points to regulate his sleep, clear the lingering heaviness in the chest, restore cognitive clarity, and rebuild his sense of groundedness. After each session, he’d say the same thing: “I didn’t know I could feel this calm anymore.”

After three weeks, his fatigue began to shift. Not all at once—but there were longer stretches of clarity. Mornings that started easier. Fewer naps. More consistency. His brain fog started to lift. He could read again, focus on a conversation without drifting.

After six weeks, he said, “I feel like I’m finally climbing out of something.”

We continued to treat the fluctuations—days where his energy dipped again, or sleep became fragile—but overall, the direction was steady. Upward. Back toward himself.

What Thomas came in for was his energy.

What he found was recovery—and something more: a renewed relationship with his body, one built not on pushing through, but on paying attention.

At Root and Branch, we’ve worked with many long COVID patients, each with a slightly different picture. Some come in with chest tightness. Others with digestive distress, insomnia, hair loss, anxiety, or relentless fatigue. No two cases are identical—but the approach is always the same: track the pattern. Treat the root. Support the whole person.

If you’re living with long COVID symptoms that just won’t let go, know this: there is still healing available. It might not be fast. But it can be real.

And we’re here for the long arc of it.

The Power & Poise of Chinese Herbal Medicine

Travis Cunningham L.Ac.

    Where I live in Portland, Oregon, many people share an interest in natural medicine. There are two Chinese medicine schools in town, a Chiropractic school, a Massage school, the oldest Naturopathic school in the country, and a medical school which specializes in Integrative Medicine. With such an abundance of natural medicine to choose from, why would someone pick a medicine that does not draw its roots from local soil? Wouldn’t it be better to choose medicine that is grown, stored and processed here? Why should people give Chinese herbal medicine a shot?

    All of these questions are valid. And as a Chinese medicine practitioner, I have been asked them many times. The answer lies within the uniqueness of assessment, diagnosis, and treatment that Chinese herbal medicine can offer. This begins with the medicine’s focus on relationship.

Understanding the Relationship

The focus of a Chinese medical assessment is not based on the physics of what is happening in your body. This assessment is actually more concerned with understanding the relationship between your component parts (e.g. your organs, tissues, or bones). Our understanding is expressed using a kind of symbolic language. These symbols are taken from activities and movements that ancient people observed within nature and then observed that those natural processes had an apparent likeness to activities within the human body.

Knowing the History

The Chinese Medicine understanding of combining herbal remedies is backed up by thousands of years of writing and experimentation. The older writings that exist on the various topics of herbal medicine also have hundreds of years of commentary and discussion by physicians of past and present. In a very real sense,  Chinese herbal medicine has close to two thousand years of peer review. This fact alone may suffice to make it worthy of consideration for modern people.

Defining the Symbol

Natural experiences like heat, cold, dampness, dryness, and wind, are described as they appear in a person’s body presentation. Shaking, for example, with its sudden appearance and disappearance, tremor and vibration are caused by wind. The ancients observed the air suddenly moving and gusting, shaking the leaves of the trees and blowing debris along the ground, and they carried this experience to their understanding of human physiology.

Symbols such as Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal and Water, were also chosen to emphasize patterns of functional movement within the body. The Lungs and the Large Intestine both descend and consolidate, as is the movement of Metal in nature. The Lungs breathe in air (descent), and consolidate the essence of air into nourishment for the body. The Large Intestine descends the stool and consolidates moisture for optimal elimination. Every major organ is looked at by a similar likeness with a corresponding movement in nature.

The ancient Chinese found that when these movement patterns were happening harmoniously and in just the right amount, a person was happy and healthy. While, a disharmony or mismanagement of these movement patterns led to disease. When these nature-based symbols are used together in an evaluation, a Chinese medicine practitioner can form a type of diagnosis called a pattern. A pattern reflects the relationship of harmony and disharmony within a person’s body.

Finding the Pattern

All Chinese medical treatment, whether acupuncture, moxibustion, cupping, gua sha, or herbal medicine is done to address a person’s pattern. This is different than targeting the person’s disease (as is done in biomedicine). If we seek the destruction of an illness we require a force to eliminate it. If, however, we seek to restore a pattern of functional movement, all that we require is a guide. This guide can be less forceful, but it must be precise. The cultivation of precision is the skillset of the Chinese medical practitioner. This skillset is practiced through a careful differentiation of the pattern. 

Lets look at an example:
Two people catch a cold. Person A, has chills and fever, a slightly irritated sore throat, a headache on the sides of their head, and itchiness in the ears. Person B, has chills and fever, an intensely swollen and painful throat, and is sweating profusely.

Analysis:
Biomedically, these people may have the same virus attacking their systems. But in Chinese medicine, what is important is the pattern that such an illness presents within the individual. And in the example above, the pattern is different.

In person B, the intensely swollen, painful throat and profuse sweating indicate a heat pattern. In person A, the sore throat is less severe. The itchiness in the ears and location of the headache indicate that the illness has reached a different pathway (the Gallbladder or Shao Yang layer). The Chinese medical treatment will be different for each case, as it will tailor to the individual’s pattern.

As you can see, the pattern not only tells us about the disease, but also the relationship between the disease and the person’s constitution. This relationship is given a symbolic name with the terms discussed above (Example pattern: wind-heat invading the exterior). Treatment is given to principally address this relationship, and help assist the person restore their health (Example treatment principles: clear heat, vent wind, secure the exterior).

Choosing the Formula

To execute the above principles in the form of a treatment, a formula is chosen. A formula is a set of procedures that follow the direction of a treatment principle. In acupuncture, a formula is a list or set of acupuncture points, and the needling techniques of each point. In Chinese herbal medicine, a formula is a set of herbs given at a particular dosage and frequency of administration.

Chinese herbal medicine studies not only the effects of an individual herb, but pays particular attention to how that effect changes when herb A is combined with herb B. Herbs in combination can emphasize certain functional principles, or unlock new actions entirely.

The hot herb Fu Zi (Aconite) can be used to treat invasive cold patterns like neuropathy of the limb, by warming and dispersing the cold influence. But Fu Zi can only become a tonic for the heart, when it is combined with other sweet herbs like Gan Jiang (Dried Ginger) and Zhi Gan Cao (Prepared Licorice Root). In this case, Gan Jiang and Zhi Gan Cao also act to nullify the toxicity and harshness of Fu Zi, making the decoction or tea, safe to drink. While if you were to take Fu Zi by itself, the remedy might actually be dangerous.

Treating the Person

The strength of using Chinese medicine ultimately stems from the medicine's focus on treating the person. The perspective that Chinese medicine comes from is a view that believes in health as a natural phenomena. Health doesn't need to be forced, it can simply be encouraged. And with the right encouragement, a natural state of health and happiness can resume. Ease is, after all, easier than disease.