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I think skepticism is really sensible with all of this – if there’s multiple mechanisms and confounding factors this is all going to take a lot more study to tease out. I was skeptical myself, but tried it because the downside risk didn’t seem too high, and I’m very grateful that it worked so well for me personally.

That’s cool – I’ll definitely try adding some natto to my diet!

Good questions, and I don’t have great answers.

7mg was the weakest patch I could get at a pharmacy (in the UK), and as I understand it that’s the release over 24 hours; I wore them only during the day so it’s a lower dose. If it’s proportional it’s ~5mg, which is 2-3 cigarettes, but cigarettes deliver it much faster, I believe. I have since spoken to a doctor who suggested that if I relapse I should cut them in half to lower the dose. Did you do something like that?

The main reasons I think it had more than just a concentration-enhancing effect are a) the effect after 2 weeks of patches seems to be long-lasting (months, at least) and b) my post-exertional fatigue, which was fairly severe (going for a light jog would leave me partially bedridden for a couple of days) has also gone. But to be fair, if the fatigue is caused by nervous system dysregulation then perhaps that somehow accounts for it, and it’s equally possible both these effects will wear off in time.

I have not seen nattokinase mentioned before, thanks. Interesting that, aside from the effect on the spike protein, it’s also supposed to help prevent blood clots. A friend with long covid was enrolled in a study which treated micro blood clots and she saw significant improvement from that. But I was tested a couple of times for micro blood clots and it came back negative, so again I think the long covid mechanism is not consistent.