5. Consider medications.
No standard drugs or treatments have yet been approved to treat long COVID (although some, such as Paxlovid, are in clinical trials). But some medications may help to relieve symptoms, said Dr. Ganesh. These include:
- Blood pressure drugs such as beta-blockers now used to treat POTS symptoms
- Nerve-pain medications such as gabapentin or pregabalin. “These can also help with sleep, since patients don’t have pain to distract them,” said Dr. Ganesh.
- Low-dose naltrexone to help with fatigue
“There’s not a one-size-fits-all approach to treat long-COVID symptoms,” said Dr. Ganesh. “You really need to work with the patient and possibly even cycle through several different medications before you find one that helps.”
A version of this article appeared on Medscape.com.