obert McCann, a 44-year-old political strategist from Lansing, Michigan, sleeps for 15 hours – and when he wakes up, he still finds it impossible to get out of bed. Sometimes he wakes up so confused that he’s unsure of what day it is.
Long Covid is not yet widely understood, but already has the dubious distinction of being a so-called “contested” condition – a scarlet letter often applied to long-term illnesses wherein the physical evidence of patients’ reported symptoms is not yet measurable by allopathic medicine . While I don’t have long Covid, I received a diagnosis of a contested condition in 2015 after a similarly disheartening experience of being left to fend for myself.
With the help of a “doctor friend”, he’s even had stem cells shipped to him from Mexico and inserted into his body by IV. None of it has helped. It isn’t just supplements that have been touted as cures; some doctors have prescribed existing FDA-approved drugs like Azithromycin and Ivermectin for off-label uses – even when the benefit of such use has been anecdotal at best, and handily disproven but buoyed by political conspiracies at worst.
After three years of exhausting my treatment options at hospital after hospital, a private clinic in a strip mall outside of Minneapolis offered another chance at salvation. Inside the nondescript storefront that made up the Minnesota Institute of Natural Medicine, I was led down a stout hallway to the sun-filled office of Dr Chris Foley – a cool, confident mid-60s man with dark brown hair and medium build who shook my hand with a near swagger.
During the pandemic, Foley published blog posts on his clinic’s website claiming that the vaccine would likely make Covid worse, that masks offered little protection and were dangerous, that Vitamin D was as effective as the vaccine, and that the seaweed extract carrageenan and Ivermectin were proven to prevent and treat Covid. He prescribed Ivermectin to multiple patients despite the fact that the medication had not and has not been shown to have meaningful benefit in treating Covid-19.
This was certainly my experience – and I’m not alone: according to medical journals, craving more time with a doctor and feeling that a doctor wasn’t interested in their case are among the reasons patients report seeking out alternatives. Though such medical dismissal can happen to anyone, it happens disproportionately to people of color and women, who are statistically and systematically less likely to be treated for their pain.
money?