I’ve got a few garments to share over the next few days/week, but I wanted to start this off with a shorter post about a top I made with leftover fabric, but also a health/Long Covid update (scroll down to the photos if you don’t care!).
Three months ago, after suffering with zero help for 18 months, I finally got a prescription for the first medication I could actually try. I’d already tried every supplement with even the slightest amount of medical research behind it (thanks, BSc in Genetics, for giving me the skills to read medical journals!), to absolute zero effect. In fact, I was getting steadily worse with zero medical help (sarcastic shocked pikachu face!). After suffering for a full year, I was finally extremely lucky enough to be referred to the only decent, research-led Long Covid clinic in the UK (at UCLH). They actually listened, did an extreme amount of blood tests, and after discovering that I “had lower T-Cells than most patients with full-blown AIDS”, referred me to a Clinical Immunologist, who investigated even further. He found additional things wrong with my immune system, but was at a loss to explain, let alone treat them, so I was left to try one medication: Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN).
As an aside, Naltrexone at high quantities is an opioid receptor blocker, used to treat addiction. But at low doses it acts as an immune modulator, affecting the calcium channels of NK T-Cells, and is off-label used to treat a wide range of auto-immune, post-viral, and immunocompromised issues. Anecdotally (because it’s only just being studied in trials for LC now), a third of LC patients who try it have zero effect, a third have a small improvement, and a third have a big improvement. This is as good as it gets in terms of LC treatments right now.
I’m current three months in, and I’ve seen a small but significant increase in energy (I’m talking going from a 30% baseline each day, to 40%). I AM IN NO WAY “CURED”, and frankly, I am hesistent to even post about this for people responding that it’s some miracle or something and making me feel 10x shittier when I have to explain that I am not. So please do not do this. I am not cured. I still cannot walk to the corner shop. I can only sit upright for an hour or two. But I’m waking up early, and actually feeling refreshed. I have only crashed once since I started it. I am actually awake in the evenings instead of lying collapsed on the sofa. And significantly for me, several opportunistic infections I’ve had for 9-12mo that have resisted all treatments are actually clearing up now.
I’m still hopeful that I might improve further, as some other patients have said that they didn’t feel a big difference until 4-6mo in. But even if I only peak at 40-50%, that’s still a small portion of life I can live that I couldn’t before.
Which means I’ve been able to do some more sewing!
After I sewed my recent Cashmerette Irving dress, I miraculously had nearly a meter of the black broderie anglaise jersey fabric leftover (it’s kinda insane I could squeeze a dress AND a tee out of only 2m?!), and frankly, it was taking up room in my fabric stash that I really wanted to gain back!
So I pulled out my FehrTrade Versatili-Tops Tee, reprinted in size XL, and made myself a breezy summer tee out of the leftover yardage!
This was an extremely straightforward sew – the Versatili-Tee is as quick to sew as a standard teeshirt, but with the side seams shifted to the back for some extra design flair. Unlike the dress version, I didn’t bother to line this as I knew I would want those little holes for summer ventilation, and I could just wear a beige bra underneath!