Rohan contracted COVID-19 right at the beginning of the pandemic in March of 2020. A few weeks later he suffered a transient ischemic attack (TIA) also called a ministroke as a result of his infection. Although he recovered from the TIA, COVID was another story. His situation deteriorated into long COVID, experiencing a progressive period of mental and physical symptoms that became completely debilitating.

Eventually, Rohan decided to start applying skills he had acquired as a neuroscientist to search for treatment avenues to explore. His research repeatedly led him to the hypothesis that long COVID was caused by persistent virus lingering in the body. Inspired by HIV treatment using multiple medications at the same time to combat persistent disease, he wondered if a similar approach could be used to target COVID lingering in his body.

In early 2022 Paxlovid had been released. Although this drug is meant to slow replication of an active COVID infection, Rohan convinced his doctor to let him try it for long COVID. He felt some initial relief during his course of Paxlovid, but symptoms bounced back immediately after. This made him wonder about combining Paxlovid with some sort of targeted antiviral. His white blood cell count was low enough to qualify him to use Evusheld, an experimental COVID prophylactic medication made up of two different monoclonal antibodies. He experimented combining Evusheld and Paxlovid and felt amazing for about 10 days before symptoms slowly crept back. He tried two more treatments with this cocktail, and was amazed that his symptoms faded and never returned. It has been about a years since this cocktail brought him into remission.

In this episode of the Major Pain podcast, Rohan talks us through this experimental treatment and the results he experienced. He is currently working with a nonprofit to organize a clinical trial, to see if others with long COVID will experience similar results using this cocktail. While it is too soon to say if this treatment regiment will translate to other people, Rohan is passionate about continuing to study this potential avenue of treatment.

In this podcast Rohan also discusses an HRV biofeedback device he invented called the Lief. This device gives you a data driven approach to meditation, which he calls meditation with training wheels. Major Pain listeners interested in trying this device can get 15% off at https://getlief.com/ using the code 'MAJORPAIN.'