Why Long COVID Won't Resolve: A Mechanistic Reading of Viral Persistence, Mitochondrial Dysfunction, and the Gut–Brain Axis the Standard Model Is Missing — Part 5: What This Means in Practice

If the framework above describes your case, several practical implications follow. First, the proliferation of single-mechanism treatments is not going to resolve your illness on its own. Each one will produce a partial response. Stacking them produces a polypharmacy of partial responses that accumulates side effects faster than benefits. The treatment plan that has the best chance of moving your floor is one organized around the convergent lesion, not the surface mechanisms. Second, the order of intervention matters. Capacity-layer work that addresses the gut epithelial bioenergetic state is generally upstream of mitochondrial cofactor supplementation, which is upstream of mast cell stabilization, which is upstream of autonomic management. Intervening at the surface without addressing the capacity layer produces the two-week wall pattern. Intervening at the capacity layer without symptom-layer support leaves the patient unable to tolerate the work. The sequence matters, and it has to be designed for the specific case. Third, the timescale is not weeks. The colonocyte population turns over on a four-to-seven-day cycle, but the upstream lesions that drive its energy failure operate on longer timescales — NAD pool dynamics on the order of weeks to months, iron-sulfur cluster assembly capacity on the order of months, the integrated metabolic and inflammatory state on the order of