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Thing is is you about the lot lot

1:26

further that feeling thing that require wow

1:28

now unless you can see the dust. In

1:32

early twenty twenty Lunar cousins was rubbing

1:35

putting g be headed for the Olympics.

1:37

The Olympics which didn't happen because of

1:39

the pandemic. I love wearing the stretch

1:42

of river like wearing through London. It's

1:44

like one of the most beautiful places

1:46

in London. It's so nice. Fish like

1:48

really early in the morning you know,

1:51

started rubbing at university. should be down

1:53

by the river. by five thirty in

1:55

the morning to get a training session

1:58

and before lectures and she cried She

2:00

started training 30 hours a week. I've

2:05

just started my international career. You know, I've been

2:07

in the team for a year. Getting

2:10

research for the Olympics was

2:12

my first selection for a

2:14

senior competition. I just

2:16

really loved growing. I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed the

2:18

lifestyle. I could have seen myself

2:20

doing it for many more years, and so there's

2:22

a grief for the life not lived.

2:25

And also, I worked very hard. I put in

2:27

a lot of hours. I invested a lot of

2:29

hours. But

2:31

by the time the Olympics in Tokyo were

2:33

rescheduled for 2021, Una

2:36

was too ill to take part. She'd

2:38

contracted Covid at the very start of the pandemic,

2:41

and like millions of others, her symptoms

2:43

never really went away. This

2:46

word fatigue is a bad word for what

2:48

it feels like. It's nothing like tiredness. It's

2:50

like a deep sickness. Exertion

2:53

makes these symptoms worse. You wake up in

2:55

the morning, like have a wave of nausea,

2:58

and you think, okay, what am I going to

3:00

be able to do today? Unlike

3:03

most people, though, Una had access to

3:05

private healthcare through her running team. She

3:08

saw some very good doctors, but they

3:10

couldn't offer her much. She

3:13

took vitamins and did breathing exercises. Mostly,

3:16

though, all she could do was rest. We'll

3:19

hear more from Una later, because what

3:21

happened to her next is what this

3:24

programme is all about. I'm

3:26

Rachel Shreya, the BBC's health and

3:29

disinformation reporter. And

3:31

in this episode of File on 4, I'll

3:33

be investigating how a lack of knowledge

3:36

around long Covid is opening

3:38

up a space where unproven

3:40

treatments can flourish. There

3:48

are some 2 million people like Una

3:50

with long Covid in the UK, and

3:53

most of them, around 1.5 million, have

3:56

symptoms that interfere with day-to-day activities.

4:00

fatigue, breathlessness, heart palpitations

4:02

and severe dizziness are just

4:04

some of the conditions people

4:06

experience. Currently, there's no

4:08

test for long covid. But

4:10

according to one of the UK's

4:13

leading long covid researchers, Professor Danny

4:15

Altman, the medical community is learning

4:17

fast. We've learnt as

4:20

much about long covid in the last three or

4:22

four years, probably as we've learnt about

4:24

lupus or arthritis in the last hundred years. This

4:26

is a very damaging virus that can get into

4:28

many parts of the body in a

4:30

way that you can see on things like an MRI and do

4:33

direct damage. This is a real thing,

4:35

disease with a real mechanism, with real things

4:37

that we can measure. Researchers

4:39

have found pockets of virus hiding

4:42

in people's bodies. They can see

4:44

damage to some people's hearts or

4:46

lungs in scans. They can see

4:48

changes in people's blood when they

4:50

do specialist tests, tests that are

4:52

generally not available at your GP.

4:55

It could be years before we know for sure

4:57

how best to treat long covid. In

5:00

the meantime, doctors can only try

5:02

to alleviate the symptoms, but research

5:05

is underway. If we think

5:07

that some people have reservoirs of

5:09

virus, let's do trials on antivirals.

5:12

If we think they have

5:14

blood clotting problems and microclots,

5:16

let's try them on anticoagulation

5:18

therapeutics. We haven't agreed the

5:21

guidelines, what drugs to give them, how to

5:23

make them better. So I suppose

5:25

I'd sort of summarize the kind of clinical

5:27

situation for people with long covid as a

5:30

sort of state of ongoing despair where the

5:32

lucky ones have bumped into

5:35

a good doctor who sees somebody

5:37

with breathlessness or respiratory problems or cardiac

5:40

problems or brain fog and use their

5:42

knowledge of basic medicine to try and

5:44

do something useful, which is absolutely better

5:46

than nothing, but not where we should

5:49

be at this stage. There are hundreds

5:51

of thousands of dissatisfied, desperate

5:53

patients who never get to meet

5:56

any doctor. So our long

5:58

covid clinic covers. in this country and

6:00

in other countries has

6:02

become very uneven and

6:04

postcode lottery. The

6:08

UK government says it has invested

6:10

over £300 million to care for

6:12

people with long Covid and

6:14

more than £50 million into long

6:16

Covid research. NHS England

6:19

also told us it had invested

6:21

significantly, setting up a network of

6:23

90 specialist post-Covid

6:25

services. There was an

6:27

initial crunch of money to look at it

6:29

and that led to funding

6:31

for the first two or three or even

6:33

four years of work and that

6:36

was very successful. After that, all funding

6:38

bodies that I'm aware of absolutely

6:40

lost interest in it, pulled

6:43

down the shutters. Filon

6:46

4 contacted all of the NHS

6:48

trusts that run long Covid clinics

6:50

in England, submitting Freedom of Information

6:52

requests, asking for details about the

6:55

services they provide. 58

6:57

trusts, about two-thirds of them,

6:59

responded. The replies painted

7:02

a picture of patchy services with more

7:04

than a third of long Covid clinics

7:06

not being run by a doctor and

7:08

only one in ten, even having one

7:11

full-time doctor on staff. What's

7:13

even more concerning is that only one

7:15

in five trusts could confirm their long

7:18

Covid clinics will still be running beyond

7:20

next year. Do

7:22

you tell us the main symptoms of that

7:25

that are bothering you, David? What are

7:27

the main things that you're struggling with

7:29

at the minute? I

7:31

get very tired easily and

7:34

I get headache-y and I

7:36

get angry. Dr

7:38

Benita Kane worked with long Covid

7:40

patients within the NHS in Manchester.

7:44

She left the service after feeling she

7:46

couldn't treat people as she'd like. And

7:48

before you had Covid, what sort of

7:50

things did you like doing? I used

7:52

to do football and scouts, but

7:54

I had to quit that. Now she runs

7:57

a private clinic in Liverpool where she

7:59

sees patients. from all over

8:01

the country. This patient, we'll call

8:03

him David, is 12 years old. He and

8:07

his family have travelled more than a hundred miles

8:09

to see Dr. Kane. Sometimes

8:11

people have been ill for three

8:13

or four years and not had a proper

8:16

physical examination. You know a comment that

8:18

I hear from a lot of patients

8:20

is when they come

8:22

to this clinic it's the first time they've really

8:24

been listened to and validated

8:27

and somebody's taking the symptoms seriously

8:31

because there's a lot of patients whose

8:33

symptoms are minimized or they're told that it's

8:35

all in their head and that

8:37

is actually quite traumatizing for people. David's

8:40

mum was quite hopeful at first.

8:42

She saw a helpful local GP

8:45

and she says I'm going to put you

8:47

in for a referral with the local long

8:49

COVID clinic so you think oh great there's

8:51

all these special long COVID clinics and you

8:53

don't realise until you get to them they

8:56

can't really offer you anything because they haven't

8:58

got much funding so with

9:00

our long COVID clinic they'd only speak to

9:02

us over the phone they wouldn't even see us

9:05

which is bizarre because you'd think well someone

9:07

needs to examine him and look at it.

9:09

They spoke to me over the phone about him

9:11

and then they said actually all

9:13

we can offer is just rest in time.

9:16

That was about a year ago and then we never haven't

9:20

been in touch since hence here we are.

9:24

This struggle to get help is

9:26

leaving some very unwell people desperate

9:28

and willing to try anything to

9:31

get better. There are treatments

9:33

to wash your blood, high-pressure

9:35

oxygen chambers normally used by

9:37

deep-sea divers, a rainbow

9:39

of supplements or with

9:41

varying degrees of evidence and

9:44

perhaps most strongly dividing opinion, programs

9:47

that claim to retrain long COVID

9:49

patients brains to stop their symptoms.

9:52

Using a range of brain training

9:54

exercises including visualisation, meditation and changing

9:56

your language you can set your

9:59

brain in a new direction. This

10:01

is Dr Phil Parker, an osteopath

10:04

who previously practiced energy healing. He

10:06

founded something called the Lightning Process

10:08

25 years ago and he says it's helped more

10:14

than 75,000 people.

10:17

It now operates in at least 17 countries

10:19

with a network of coaches, including

10:21

at least 14 in the

10:24

UK. He's not a

10:26

medical doctor but he has a PhD in

10:28

the psychology of health. Over the

10:30

last few years the Lightning Process has helped

10:32

hundreds of people with long Covid to change

10:34

their health and recover. So what is the

10:37

Lightning Process? In fact, it's

10:39

currently being piloted by one NHS

10:41

health centre in Scotland. The

10:44

Centre for Integrative Care

10:46

in Glasgow offers both

10:48

conventional and alternative therapies

10:50

including homeopathy. NHS

10:52

Greater Glasgow and Clyde said the

10:55

Lightning Process was being assessed until

10:57

this autumn and

10:59

a report would follow.

11:02

The Lightning Process makes a

11:04

seductive promise that it

11:06

can help people recover from illness by

11:08

rewiring the brain using techniques

11:11

to influence physical changes in the

11:13

body. There's no shortage of people

11:15

who champion the Lightning Process, many

11:18

of them sharing their positive experiences

11:20

online. The staff comes in

11:22

with long Covid and

11:25

it just took three days and the Lightning

11:27

Process to reach entity

11:29

totally. It was like

11:32

taking 40 players in a

11:34

perfect three-step-up and so

11:36

they're really worth taking the

11:38

Lightning Process. I'm 100% recovered and I've got my

11:40

knife back at Pride. I am

11:42

about seven weeks on from doing the course. I

11:44

literally feel like a different person to who I

11:47

was back when I was ill. But

11:49

the programme has plenty of detractors

11:51

too. I don't have a problem

11:53

with people focusing on mind-body. I

11:56

think that's a good thing. I

11:58

do have a problem with people. claiming

12:00

that it can kill people

12:02

without sufficient evidence and

12:05

as a catch-all. There is

12:07

a place for psychological support

12:09

as part of a holistic

12:12

treatment plan which includes medication.

12:15

This idea that you can just fix

12:17

yourself by doing a three-day program that

12:20

people are paying for, I'd raise serious

12:22

concerns about that. So

12:27

what should we make of it all? Is

12:29

the lightning process the answer at least for

12:31

some people or does it

12:33

at best deliver false promises or

12:36

more worryingly does it cause people

12:38

to blame themselves for their illness,

12:40

encourage them to push through and

12:42

ignore their symptoms and potentially even

12:44

make them worse? Yeah

12:47

I just I wanted to get a

12:49

bit more information really. I came across

12:51

the lightning process and I called every

12:54

lightning process coach currently working in the

12:56

UK, 14 of them. Some

12:59

of the stuff I have I guess quite

13:01

like physical like my feet

13:03

will go blue. I just

13:06

wanted to chat through to find

13:08

out a bit more about how

13:10

it works. What's the sort of

13:12

typical result you do you find? I

13:15

gave a medical history based on interviews

13:17

with several real sufferers. They

13:19

also came up with a list of

13:21

long COVID symptoms with long COVID researcher

13:24

Professor Danny Altman. I've had a couple

13:26

of seizures and embossal pains and post-exertional

13:28

malaise they call it. I wanted

13:31

to find out a bit more about whether

13:33

this is I guess appropriate

13:35

for those symptoms. Some of the coaches

13:38

were cautious. A couple of

13:40

them even advised me the treatment was

13:42

not proven or officially recommended but

13:45

the majority made much stronger claims about

13:47

what was causing the long COVID symptoms

13:49

I described to them and

13:51

told me the lightning process could

13:53

make me better within days. I'd

13:56

gathered enough evidence to take my

13:58

investigation a step further. to

14:00

go undercover and secretly record a

14:03

lightning process training course so I

14:05

could really understand what they were

14:08

teaching people. I paid the coach £1,250

14:11

to take part in a

14:14

three-day course over Zoom. Hi,

14:17

I can hear you. All

14:21

clear you're in? Yes, all gay. And

14:25

that's how I found myself. In

14:28

my kitchen, standing on a piece

14:30

of A3 paper in my

14:32

socks. Excellent, we're going to try one

14:34

now. Each of these lines

14:36

is designed to change your brain. This

14:39

coach doesn't know she's being recorded. She

14:41

doesn't say her own things, whatever is

14:44

affected, but these are really, really useful.

14:46

I follow a script I'm taught and

14:48

walk around that piece of paper, which

14:51

is marked with symbols. They're

14:54

labelled stop, present, choice

14:56

and coach. This

14:59

is the basis of the lightning process.

15:02

When you start the process, you start

15:04

in the present, move

15:07

to the stop and do the stop gesture. Then

15:10

move to the next choice. First, I was

15:12

shown a lightning process training video of Dr

15:14

Parker doing the process, and I

15:16

followed along. The

15:18

idea is, every time you experience a

15:21

symptom or a negative

15:23

thought about your symptoms, you say

15:25

the word stop. Then

15:28

move to the choice. You

15:30

make a choice out loud to choose

15:32

the life you love instead of the

15:34

symptoms which they call the pit. Do

15:38

I want that or do I want this? And

15:40

move to the coach. And

15:43

then you coach yourself. Well

15:45

done. You are on track. You

15:48

are a powerful genius. If

15:50

you can do that, you can do

15:52

anything. I will you

15:54

every step of the way. want

16:00

to be strong, to have

16:02

energy, to feel comfortable in your

16:04

body. And then you visualise

16:07

the time you felt that way. So

16:10

it's changing that natural habit of

16:12

brain that helps sometimes. Every

16:15

single part of it is designed

16:17

to change a human brain.

16:19

You know, scientific improvement. And

16:22

a metaphor in nature is very

16:24

powerful, but a metaphor of the you

16:26

that you want to get back to is very

16:29

powerful. I want to be

16:31

full of vitality. How are

16:33

you going to do that? How

16:37

about science? To the beach in

16:40

space. So be there

16:42

now, let beach inspire

16:44

your friends. Feel the heat

16:46

and the heat of the sun

16:49

energising all yourselves. Recharging

16:52

you like a long-lasting

16:54

battery. Dr Camilla Nord

16:56

is a neuroscientist at the

16:58

University of Cambridge. She

17:00

studies the influence of the brain on

17:02

the body and vice versa. She's

17:05

helping me to evaluate some of the

17:07

claims made by my Lightning Process coach.

17:10

Some of that, I would say, is pretty

17:12

standard. Things you might get in

17:14

psychological therapy, relaxation techniques,

17:17

for example. And that can be

17:19

a helpful process

17:21

for many people, irrespective

17:23

of the cause of their symptoms. The

17:26

weird part about it is that it's giving

17:28

people this kind of agency over their symptoms

17:30

that I don't really think people have.

17:33

Dr Parker told us a belief that

17:35

long Covid is all in the mind

17:37

is not part of the Lightning Process.

17:40

Instead, he said it focuses on

17:43

changing your brain to, quote, facilitate

17:46

beneficial physiological changes in

17:48

your body. But

17:51

a core part of the teaching

17:53

is that you can stop or

17:55

improve your symptoms by changing how

17:57

you think and talk about them.

18:00

the virus, you got ill, but

18:02

your body did not get where it

18:04

looked stuck in running the neurological halfway

18:06

on fatigue, brain fog,

18:09

because actually your body now, this

18:11

time scale should now be being

18:13

well. Your thoughts about your symptoms,

18:16

your worry about whether it's ever going to go,

18:18

that's what keeps the neurology going and alive.

18:21

And that will keep the symptoms going. Exactly.

18:25

Being in those kind of

18:27

thoughts is what's maintaining your

18:29

symptoms. That's a big leap.

18:31

But then there's another leap

18:34

between if it's maintained by

18:36

your neurology, then you

18:38

can change it. Even in

18:40

patients whose

18:42

symptoms are largely or

18:45

even entirely generated by some

18:47

kind of cognitive process, that

18:50

doesn't mean that they can just decide to

18:52

change them. That would be great. I wish

18:54

they were the case. But I

18:56

would suggest that it is probably false

18:59

hope and also that it could lead

19:02

patients not to seek other

19:04

types of treatment. Not only did

19:06

my coach say my thoughts were

19:09

maintaining my symptoms, she also told

19:11

me quite explicitly that there was

19:13

nothing physically wrong with my body.

19:15

That's despite having no apparent medical

19:18

qualifications or requesting access to any

19:20

test results. They ask for their

19:22

real symptoms, but they're not

19:24

caused by a physical thing anymore.

19:26

Because it's your brain seeking them

19:28

going, not the virus. It's

19:31

a wild claim that there's nothing wrong with your

19:33

body. I would find that

19:35

an impossible claim to believe.

19:37

They're right that the brain

19:39

can create symptoms of

19:42

physical ill health. But I think

19:44

it's a wild claim to say

19:46

there's nothing wrong with your body.

19:48

And it's just in every case,

19:51

something that you can actively change. I

19:54

think it's a really damaging

19:56

assertion. It will absolutely be

19:58

wrong about some. patients.

20:00

But while Dr. Nord describes

20:02

the lightning process as veering

20:04

into pseudoscience, she doesn't think

20:06

we should throw the baby

20:08

out with the bath water.

20:11

We shouldn't dismiss the possibility,

20:13

I think the likely possibility,

20:15

that for many patients the

20:17

brain, cognition, wider nervous system

20:19

plays an important role in

20:21

their experience of symptoms. We

20:23

know this to be the

20:25

case across medicine. When

20:27

your body is under stress, whether emotional

20:29

or physical, it goes into a state

20:31

called fight or flight. Stress

20:34

can have very profound

20:36

physical consequences on

20:38

gastrointestinal symptoms, on immunological function,

20:41

on systems all over the

20:43

body. So maybe it's one

20:46

piece of the puzzle. So

20:50

she thinks there is a place for

20:52

therapies that help to calm down your

20:54

body and those that help

20:56

you to respond differently to your

20:59

symptoms. It could even

21:01

explain some long COVID symptoms

21:03

in some patients. One

21:05

of the most scientifically shaky claims

21:08

we found lightning process coaches make

21:10

is that using negative words can

21:12

trigger symptoms and

21:14

using positive language teaches the

21:17

brains to experience positive sensations.

21:20

At one point my coach seemed

21:22

to be saying these positive and

21:24

negative experiences and the words to

21:26

go with them were literally housed

21:28

in two different sides of the

21:30

brain. Let's get into the

21:32

other side. The sparky Disney side. It's

21:35

coming up with a vocabulary for the

21:37

sparkly side because all

21:39

of our vocabularies feel about the other stuff. So

21:41

it's coming up with words around body

21:44

comfort, around energy, around

21:46

clear head. So we're thinking

21:49

on purpose in the lightning process and

21:52

we're thinking of the opposite thoughts to how

21:54

we've been thinking of what's going to stop. I'm

21:57

afraid now we've strayed very, very far.

22:00

from neuroscience, what I would

22:02

call neurobollocks. So it's a

22:05

kind of abuse of neuroscientific

22:08

terms in order to give

22:11

quite simple psychological

22:13

techniques a kind

22:15

of sheen of science about them.

22:18

Oona, the elite rower we heard from at

22:20

the start of the programme, missed out on

22:22

the Olympics because of long COVID. After

22:25

giving a TV interview about her

22:27

condition, she was contacted by a lightning

22:30

process coach and offered a free place

22:32

on the programme. I think

22:34

they were hoping that I would have a

22:36

positive experience and use my classic

22:38

platform to kind of advertise it to

22:41

this new patient cohort that was appearing as a

22:44

result of the pandemic. Instead,

22:46

she told me she wants to

22:48

help expose them for what she considers

22:50

to be misleading claims about the process.

22:53

The way that they demonstrate that this is

22:56

what's happening is by pointing out

22:58

how bad your mental health is. And I

23:00

objected to that because by the

23:02

time I spoke to them, I had

23:04

done a lot of work on my mental health and I'd

23:06

recognised how important it was. And I came to like a

23:08

place of acceptance around what was

23:10

happening to me. And so the

23:13

whole kind of premise of the course quickly fell

23:15

apart. She gave up on the lightning

23:17

process after two days. After

23:19

the first day, she complained and was

23:21

sent more stories of people who had

23:23

recovered using the course. This

23:25

stuff makes me really angry because it's exploiting the fact

23:28

that a lot of people with chronic

23:30

illness do have bad mental

23:32

health justifiably. And it's

23:34

easy to exploit patients because a lot of them will say,

23:37

yeah, I do have bad mental health. So maybe it is my

23:39

fault that I have these symptoms. At

23:41

the end of the first day of

23:43

the course, I was told to do

23:45

the lightning process ritual you heard earlier

23:47

and then do a physical activity. Una

23:50

ignored this instruction when she did the course.

23:52

You quickly learn as an athlete that when you

23:54

get sick, you stop and you have to rest

23:57

to recover. And pushing through is just

23:59

a really good. way to make yourself more

24:01

ill basically. And so if people follow that

24:03

advice they definitely can do

24:05

themselves harm and make themselves more ill. And

24:08

then I also think you

24:10

know the gaslighting and the kind of

24:12

blaming patients for their

24:14

symptoms and saying that it's their

24:17

negative thought pattern that is stopping

24:20

them from getting better, I

24:22

think that's a dreadful thing to say

24:24

to patients and it makes people feel

24:26

a little guilt and shame and yeah

24:28

I think it has a lot of

24:30

potential for harm. Long COVID

24:32

doctors and researchers caution that increasing

24:35

activity without medical assessment and supervision

24:37

has the potential to worsen symptoms

24:40

for some patients and even prolong

24:42

their illness. The recommended way of

24:44

managing it is called pacing, basically

24:47

a way of breaking up activities

24:49

with rest to conserve energy. We

24:51

don't do pacing in our cases, you

24:54

never get well with pacing. Instead

24:56

of pacing so we always do the

24:58

same, we do the lightening

25:00

process and then do something,

25:02

a little bit stretching that

25:05

you wouldn't have maybe done before. Dr

25:07

Parker told us the lightening process does

25:09

not encourage people to push through symptoms

25:12

and to be fair my coach specifically

25:14

told me not to do this while

25:16

also confusingly telling me not to pacemase

25:18

things. But it does

25:21

teach that its ritual will give

25:23

you a boost of energy which

25:25

will allow you to safely increase

25:27

your activity without clashing or becoming

25:29

more unwell. Dr Benita

25:31

Kane is dubious about it. There

25:34

are decades of evidence in ME

25:36

to show that there is pathological

25:39

reasons why there

25:41

is energy limitation, that there is

25:44

an underlying problem

25:46

in the energy making factory of

25:48

the body. ME is

25:50

a condition also known as chronic fatigue

25:53

syndrome which has a lot of overlap

25:55

with long covid. Oxygen is not getting

25:57

into cells, some of that might be

25:59

due It might cry. Plus saying

26:01

inflammation. Of the blood vessels some

26:04

of it might be do to

26:06

also me and process is this

26:08

idea that people are just scared

26:11

of exercise and it's all a

26:13

fear based response I would say

26:15

is complete nonsense if you push

26:17

exercise. In a way that

26:20

is no controls. Very very

26:22

carefully managed. you can actually

26:24

make the underlying condition was

26:26

that really worries me. That

26:28

somebody is not medically qualified

26:30

would be asking patience to

26:32

exercise just on the idea

26:34

that they taste that mindset

26:36

of assets. To me, that

26:38

sounds quite dangerous. And

26:42

sat in my gym at the moment

26:44

which isn't a double coverage at the

26:46

bus service my garden. Is

26:49

Kiss.really. Really? Well Scott, Trust

26:51

no way. Loads of really,

26:53

really good kid Savage Eat

26:55

is a science teacher from

26:57

the West Midlands. And

26:59

is all not being used. It's

27:02

a painful reminder actually of the

27:04

person that I used to be

27:06

and that life for I use

27:08

the. Cause she's been struggling

27:11

with Long Cove It for almost

27:13

two years. Old. I'm

27:15

not a professional athlete like Una.

27:17

She was also super fit and

27:19

access before she developed an it

27:21

now had gym houses her wheelchair.

27:24

And. Make sure that take everything

27:26

from upstairs and need because of

27:28

com on the stairs very well

27:31

Fire and he wants and stairs

27:33

rainy day I can't stand in

27:35

the kitchen it is when I

27:37

stand it causes blood pooling some

27:40

my legs at the turn of

27:42

a blue purple color. A must

27:44

see! Get really swollen and the

27:46

pain in my legs just from

27:48

standing is horrific. Sarah thanks to

27:51

spend about fifteen thousand pounds on

27:53

treatments with varying levels. Of evidence

27:55

and safety before trying the lightning

27:58

process. She. Found it often

28:00

I mean.a. rabbit hole of recovery stories on

28:02

you tube. The. Thought that perhaps

28:04

my brain could be driving

28:06

the symptoms was terrifying. It

28:08

may more anxious because he

28:10

can't sit peacefully with anybody

28:12

in the brain said maybe

28:14

was. Like owner and like I

28:17

was when I did. the coast server was

28:19

impoverished to do something she hadn't on for

28:21

long time. After one day of saving the

28:23

process. So. I thought he,

28:26

i'm going to don't sit on

28:28

the spin bike in my garage,

28:30

my gym and. A

28:33

Half this attitude. So.

28:35

I saw on the exercise

28:37

bike and I'm very very

28:39

slowly peddled for about five

28:41

minutes and a whole face

28:43

was twitch him eyelids the

28:45

twitching. When. I for I'd say

28:48

you earn any kind of. Exercise

28:50

or even distant point a low

28:52

level of of activity I see.

28:55

Core. Immediate deafening is the

28:58

symptoms. Despite feeling worse

29:00

when she tried to increase productivity,

29:02

Sarah persisted with the lightning process

29:04

for several months. It didn't work

29:06

me, so I just tried harder.

29:08

You do blame yourself and you

29:11

think you haven't done it right.

29:13

So where does. Makes. You feel

29:15

completely. Even worse that

29:17

he can't do anything to influence

29:19

you will condition positively by know

29:22

she says she felt as if

29:24

she had been trained to ignore

29:26

her symptoms. I said the learning

29:28

process and then about ten days

29:31

later I experience t seizes but

29:33

because I'd recently than the lot

29:35

in process and that spent of

29:38

his time prime him a brain.

29:41

I just completely normalized

29:43

and just ignored lose

29:45

really scary horrible terrifying

29:47

sees is that a

29:49

hard and at didn't

29:51

seek medical. attention savard

29:53

doesn't know what caused has seizures

29:55

it's not clear whether they were

29:57

related to long clay that and

29:59

as certainly no suggestion they were anything

30:01

to do with the lightning process. But

30:04

her experience on the course led her

30:06

to ignore them. I just

30:09

thought that I was part

30:11

of the process so completely

30:13

didn't seek any medical advice whereas

30:16

I should have. Lightning

30:19

process founder Dr Phil Parker said

30:22

it was always disappointing when people

30:24

didn't find benefit in a treatment

30:26

but that this was a possibility

30:28

with all treatments. I

30:30

put a series of questions to him about

30:33

my findings. In an email

30:35

he told me he was too busy

30:37

lecturing to speak to me but he

30:39

did send a written response saying that

30:42

blames, ignoring symptoms and not seeking medical

30:44

help were at odds with the central

30:46

concepts of the lightning process. He

30:49

also told me he believes long covid

30:51

is physical and that the lightning process

30:53

is not about changing mindset. Instead

30:56

he said it is about using

30:58

the brain to influence positive physiological

31:01

changes in the body. I

31:05

also asked him about specific claims made

31:07

to me by lightning process coaches but

31:10

in his email he told me

31:12

our questions were informed solely by

31:15

rumours and misinformation circulated by what

31:17

he called anti-recovery activists. He

31:20

referred us to what he described as

31:22

peer reviewed evidence which supported the efficacy

31:24

of the process. I knew

31:27

that I was essentially well within

31:29

the first two hours of doing

31:31

the lightning process. Wow that's

31:34

quite extraordinary. Rachel Whitfield is one

31:36

of those people who says the

31:38

lightning process worked for her. After

31:40

a seemingly fairly mild covid infection

31:42

she tried to get back to

31:44

her usually busy life as a

31:46

self-employed single parent but she

31:48

found herself developing strange symptoms,

31:51

brain fog, exhaustion and

31:53

purple toes. She

31:55

tried to find more information from

31:57

support groups online. posted

32:00

was does anyone recover and I remember this

32:02

really clearly I got no response

32:04

nothing. This frightened her. I got told

32:07

if you had long COVID then you

32:09

were exercise intolerant and I think every

32:11

time I then tried to exercise even

32:13

if it was just sitting on a

32:16

bike I would get

32:18

symptoms and so I think I formed a

32:20

conditioned response basically like Pavlov's

32:22

dog. After six months she tried the

32:24

lightning process. When I then sat down

32:26

and I did the lightning process course

32:28

very early on I said of course

32:30

I've got to pace I've got to

32:32

manage my energy I've got to build

32:35

up really slowly and she said Rachel it's

32:37

up to you what you do but

32:39

you have as much energy as anyone

32:41

else they call it the pit where

32:43

you're so full of fear and expectation

32:45

about this thing that you think might

32:48

make you worse that it actually starts

32:50

to become reality and something

32:52

in that just clicked and I

32:54

realized that there were some

32:56

things that didn't add up like I could walk

32:59

in my house but not outside and

33:01

I just suddenly realized that my

33:03

beliefs and my fears and my

33:05

anxiety had just been keeping me

33:07

stuck. She felt better almost immediately.

33:09

I went out and I rode

33:11

my bike for 10 miles and

33:13

then I the next day did

33:16

a 5k run from

33:18

scratch having not done more than walked

33:20

to the end of my street for

33:22

seven months. Not everyone does that.

33:25

Some people do. I'd done

33:27

quite a lot of work before

33:29

that in terms of thinking about how

33:32

the mind and body are actually one

33:34

system. I understood fundamentally the mind and

33:36

the body and the impact of stress

33:38

I'd already worked out that that was a huge factor

33:41

for me. But

33:44

the idea that anxiety about

33:46

exercising is at the root

33:48

of most people's post-viral symptoms

33:50

is an extremely controversial one.

33:53

Not least because of the large and growing

33:55

body of evidence of physical damage in many

33:57

people with long Covid. Part of the

33:59

problem if long COVID is an

34:02

umbrella term which might cover several

34:04

different conditions. That's

34:06

why long COVID specialists say people

34:08

need a thorough assessment and access

34:11

to a range of different treatment

34:13

options from psychological support to medication.

34:18

So here on the left we've just

34:20

come to our outpatient clinic. People will

34:22

have blood tests. This

34:25

long COVID clinic in Leicester

34:27

offers exactly that. Dr

34:29

Rachel Evans is a breathing doctor and

34:31

a researcher who helps to run it.

34:34

It's seen as one of the most

34:36

comprehensive treatment programmes in the UK. Some

34:39

people that are recovering but still

34:41

have got ongoing symptoms, they might

34:44

need more of a light touch

34:46

approach. Other people have

34:49

really severe symptoms in a very

34:51

difficult time and we have a

34:53

much more complex approach. We've got

34:56

a range of diagnostics, all types

34:58

of imaging and physiology

35:00

and blood tests that

35:02

are all available. The

35:04

Leicester clinic can prescribe a

35:07

range of treatments from drugs

35:09

to target symptoms to breathing

35:11

rehabilitation but it's not representative of

35:13

the whole country. 40% of

35:16

trusts responding to my Freedom of

35:18

Information request said they had no

35:20

ability to prescribe medication and almost

35:22

20% said they couldn't order

35:24

tests or scams. Even

35:27

Leicester's gold standard clinic can only

35:29

do so much until further research

35:32

points towards the best course of

35:34

treatment. So I think

35:36

going through the service people

35:39

report that they feel better than

35:41

they did at the start but I

35:43

do want to be cautious with that

35:45

because we're by no means curing

35:48

people with these supportive measures and

35:50

we urgently need to find the

35:52

real treatments of long Covid to

35:54

stop this process in the first

35:57

place. So we urgently need clinical

35:59

trials. to demonstrate

36:01

which medications are going to be helpful. But

36:04

as Covid researcher, Professor Danny Altman

36:06

is all too aware, those clinical

36:09

trials take a fair bit of

36:11

time and money. And

36:14

he says that's pretty much dried

36:16

up. Why would you want to do 60

36:18

or 70 or 80% of the homework and

36:21

then need the funding to get the other 20

36:24

or 30% to the finishing line to actually start

36:26

making people better and getting them into

36:28

the workforce and not be able to find anybody

36:30

who will even discuss it with you because they've

36:32

lost interest. It seems incredibly short-sighted to me, but

36:35

that's the nature of it. Unable

36:42

to find much treatment at home, Sarah

36:44

Dukes has been accepted to take part

36:46

in a Spanish trial of a new

36:49

drug. So I'm here at Bristol Airport

36:51

ready to fly to Madrid for a

36:53

clinical trial. I'm here with my mum,

36:55

who has taken me. I've

36:58

been able to walk or stand for

37:00

long periods of time. I'm in a wheelchair

37:02

feeling really exhausted already, but

37:04

also really excited and really,

37:07

really hopeful. She's hoping it

37:09

might be a turning point in an

37:12

illness that has already stolen two years

37:14

of her life. Research

37:16

is slow by nature. Even

37:19

with the best will in the world, it

37:21

could be years before we have an approved

37:23

test or treatment. But in

37:25

the rush to move on from the COVID

37:27

pandemic, many still suffering

37:29

its after effects feel

37:32

they're being forgotten. I

37:35

do feel hope. I've

37:37

always have felt hope because this

37:39

is a treatable condition for sure.

37:42

The research is out there now. People

37:44

are improving. I

37:47

feel hopeful about the future, but

37:49

I feel really frustrated and sad that

37:51

it's going to take so long. People

37:54

have been suffering for years and we

37:56

need clinical trials more. This

38:01

Far One Four podcast was presented

38:03

by Rachel Shreya and produced by

38:05

Paul Grant. The technical

38:07

producers were Cameron Ward and Nicky

38:09

Edwards, and the production coordinator

38:11

was Tim Fernley. The editor

38:14

was Carl Johnston. It

38:16

was a BBC long-form audio production

38:19

for BBC Sounds, where you can

38:21

find more radio, music and podcasts.

38:26

Okay, he's coming in underneath your

38:28

house. He

38:30

was underneath us and that's when he came and rammed into our

38:32

left wing. A collision between a

38:35

Chinese jet and an American

38:37

spy plane. We flipped inverted, and more

38:39

than an inverted dive with no nose,

38:41

explosive decompression and severe problems. With

38:44

relations between the West and China

38:46

increasingly strained, what are the chances

38:48

of things spinning out of control?

38:51

The Western world was asleep and

38:54

it's had a rude awakening. I'm

38:58

Gordon Carrera. In Shadow War, China

39:00

and the West from BBC Radio

39:02

4, I'll be exploring the friction

39:04

in this most important of relationships

39:07

and asking, has the West taken its eye

39:09

off the ball? Well, unlike

39:11

many of my colleagues, I don't talk about

39:13

what's discussed around the cabinet table. I'll

39:16

be speaking to politicians, spies, dissidents and

39:18

those caught up in the growing tension.

39:21

You cannot ignore China. I'm

39:51

Gordon Carrera. or

40:00

wherever you get your podcasts.