Dr Carissa Conrad's Recovery Story: Parenting with Long Covid, Vagal Toning and Tens Machine
“What I did was focus on my nervous system state. The polyvagal theory is very useful for this - just determining ‘where is my nervous system at?’ And that was the discovery that really helped me start making real progress, was realising that what everybody was doing - the common theme among all of the recovery stories and all the recovery programmes that are available out there - is understanding what it means to be in a parasympathetic nervous state and maintaining that throughout. As I was looking at pacing, the key for me was figuring out how far I could push myself and maintain that parasympathetic state. Whatever tool you are using, whether it is vagus nerve stimulation or symptom tracking or meditation or breathing exercises - the key is understanding that the purpose of it is to maintain that state. ” - Carissa Conrad
In this episode, we are joined by Dr Carissa Conrad, Doctor of Physical Therapy Therapeutic Pain Specialist, and Health & Wellness Coach.
Carissa describes her own recovery journey from Long Covid, from severe fatigue and being bedbound and housebound. We discuss how challenging that is as a parent and how her parents assisted in providing childcare support.
Carissa goes on to tell us all about the parasympathetic nervous system and how the vagus nerve is so crucial to recovery. As a trained PT and doctor, she provides invaluable insights and demonstrates her own recovery due to using a tens machine. We discuss how listeners can also seek assistance from this.
