A short time ago a lady came to me at the Los Alamos Farmer’s Market with a question about her son. He got COVID-19 in the spring and has not completely recovered. Allergies-like symptoms like cough, shortness of breath, nasal congestion, and fatigue remained. He is a physician of endocrinology and diabetes. These symptoms persisted after trying many suggestions from his colleagues.
In medical terms, we call this a sequela which is any abnormal bodily condition or disease related to or arising from a pre-existing disease. In this case, it seems allergies may follow COVID-19.
I would say this is not unique to COVID-19. Other diseases, mostly infections, such as flu and pneumonia can cause the same after-effects. Chinese traditional medicine recorded similar conditions as lung deficiency (肺气虚， Fei4 Qi4 Xu1). This traditional condition usually happens after a long-lasting illness with combined symptoms of common allergies and asthma.
How?
Airway infections collapse the microbiota in the respiratory tract, freeing the immune system. This mechanism is a necessity to fight airway infections. In most cases, the bacteria community will recover with sufficient beneficial bacteria. However, some people may not recover properly afterward. The probiotics become insufficient to calm down the immune system after the virus, or other pathogens are cleared. This is the major reason why a small percentage of people developed allergies before antibiotics and modern oral hygiene. Please read the theory on how bacteria interact with our immune system here, which describes how we develop allergies.
The new COVID-19 causes an old problem if we remember the days before modern hygiene. A prebiotic supplement such as AlleerPops helps oral probiotics to recover after the infection and may prevent the after-effects from occurring.
The lady bought a box of AllerPops, and I hope it will serve her son well.