Ever Since COVID Left Me With ME/CFS, I Was A Ghost Of Myself — Lying In Bed, Eyemask On, Every Energy Cell Gone. Now I Work Again, Think Clearly, And Feel Good For The First Time In Years.

It started with COVID in the winter of 2021.

Everyone I knew got it and recovered in two weeks. I didn't recover.

Three weeks out, I was still exhausted in a way I had never felt before in my 33 years. Not tired. Not run-down. Something else entirely — like someone had reached inside my body and switched off the power. Everything looked the same from the outside. Inside, nothing was working.

The fatigue was relentless. But what scared me more was my brain. Mid-sentence, words would disappear. I would read the same paragraph four times and retain nothing. I would stand in a room, genuinely unable to remember why I had walked in.

I was 33. This was not supposed to be my life.

Four Years. Eleven Specialists. Zero Answers.

What followed was four years I would not wish on anyone.

I saw my GP every month. Blood tests always came back normal. I was referred to an endocrinologist. Normal. A rheumatologist. Normal. A neurologist who spent nine minutes with me and suggested I try yoga.

I tried yoga.

I also tried everything else I could find:

That last one — graded exercise therapy — was the advice that set me back the most. I crashed so badly I spent ten days barely leaving my bedroom. Unable to shower. Unable to cook. Lying in bed with an eyemask on because even light was too much.

I later found out this is a documented danger for people with my condition. Pushing through exercise can cause serious, lasting harm. My GP hadn't known that. Neither had I.

The Diagnosis That Explained Everything — And Nothing

Eventually, after two years of being bounced between specialists, a doctor finally gave me a name for it.

What the diagnosis gave me was validation. What it didn't give me was any path forward.

So I started doing what a lot of us do. I started my own research. I started with forums. Reading the stories of people who were living the same life I was — who had lost jobs, relationships, years of their lives to this.

That was it exactly. My entire existence had narrowed to one project: getting back to baseline. Not thriving. Not happy. Just functional. Just normal. And even that felt impossibly far away.

But somewhere in those forums, I started finding something else too. Research. Real research. People who had gone deep into the science because the medical system had nothing left to offer them.

That's when I found Dr. Anand.

The Researcher Who Finally Gave Me Answers

In late 2024, through a patient advocacy group I had joined, I was put in contact with Dr. Priya Anand.

Dr. Priya Anand — Biochemist, Post-Viral Illness Research

Eight years studying the cellular mechanisms of post-viral illness at a UK research institute.

I came prepared with four years of notes, a list of every failed treatment, and a lot of questions.

What she explained over the next two hours, felt like someone finally turning on a light in a room I had been stumbling around in for years.

For the first time, I understood exactly what was happening inside my body. And more importantly — why nothing I had tried had worked.

The Engine Inside Every Cell — And Why Mine Had Stopped

She started with something I thought I already understood: energy. Not the general concept. The actual biological process happening inside every cell in my body, every second of every day.

Every cell in your body runs on a molecule called ATP — adenosine triphosphate. ATP is your cellular currency. Every movement, every thought, every heartbeat, every immune response — all of it costs ATP. Your cells are constantly spending it and restocking it.

That restocking happens inside your mitochondria. You have heard them called the powerhouse of the cell — that is not a metaphor. They take in nutrients and oxygen and convert them into ATP. Continuously. In every cell. All day and all night.

To do this efficiently, mitochondria need one specific co-factor. Think of it as the electricity running through the powerhouse. Without it, the machinery slows. ATP output drops. Cells start running on reserves. And when those reserves run out — they stop.

That co-factor is called NAD+. Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide.

In a healthy person in their 30s, NAD+ levels should be relatively robust. Enough to keep the system running. Then she told me what COVID — and the chronic immune activation that followed — had done to mine.

Why ME/CFS Drains Your NAD+ — The Exact Mechanism

• 1
  COVID triggers chronic immune activation Your immune system gets stuck in a permanently activated state. It keeps fighting — even when the virus is gone.
• 2
  Interferon-gamma floods your system Chronic immune activation produces high levels of a signalling molecule called interferon-gamma. This is your body's alarm signal — and it won't stop firing.
• 3
  IDO hijacks your tryptophan Interferon-gamma powerfully activates an enzyme called IDO. IDO's job is to break down tryptophan — aggressively, continuously. And tryptophan is the primary raw material your body uses to produce NAD+.
• 4
  NAD+ gets depleted With tryptophan being destroyed faster than you can replace it, NAD+ levels fall. Your mitochondria are trying to produce ATP. The machinery is intact. But the electricity has been cut.
• 5
  Everything else starts competing for what's left PARP enzymes that repair DNA damage also run on NAD+. In ME/CFS, oxidative stress is high, so PARPs are constantly activated, burning through whatever NAD+ remains. Meanwhile, sirtuins that control inflammation also drop — which means the inflammatory signal never fully switches off.

Why My Symptoms Finally Made Sense

When Dr. Anand described this mechanism, I kept interrupting her. Because for every symptom she explained, I was thinking — yes, that's exactly it.

I had waited four years for someone to say that to me!! And actually being able to explain it.

Why Everything I Had Tried Before Hadn't Worked

CoQ10 supports mitochondria — but operates downstream of NAD+. Without sufficient NAD+, CoQ10 has less to work with.

B vitamins contribute to energy metabolism but don't address IDO-driven tryptophan depletion. They never reach the actual problem.

Iron, magnesium, vitamin D — all important for general health. None of them touching the rate-limiting factor.

Four years... and more money than I want to think about.

The reason my body didn't feel like myself was always low NAD+.

So What Actually Goes Upstream?

I had one question left after Dr. Anand finished explaining the mechanism.

"So what does go upstream?"

You cannot meaningfully raise NAD+ levels through diet alone — especially when IDO is actively consuming your tryptophan faster than your body can replace it. You need a direct precursor. A molecule that bypasses the broken pathway entirely and converts to NAD+ efficiently, right inside the cell.

I went home and read everything I could find. Three nights of going through studies, forums, patient reports. People who had been where I was. People who had tried it.

Then I ordered it.

What NMN Actually Does — For Someone With ME/CFS

Not in theory. Specifically, for the symptoms that define this illness.

• ⚡
  Cellular energy production NMN restocks NAD+ directly — giving mitochondria the co-factor they need to produce ATP efficiently again. Not a surface stimulant. Not a temporary spike. Actual cellular energy production, restored at the source.
• 🧠
  Brain fog The brain consumes more energy than any other organ. NMN crosses the blood-brain barrier and raises NAD+ in brain tissue directly — supporting cerebral blood flow, neuronal function, and the cognitive clarity that ME/CFS strips away.
• 📈
  PEM threshold When mitochondria have more NAD+ to work with, they recover from exertion more efficiently. The margin before you crash gets wider. You don't eliminate PEM — but the point at which your cells run out of headroom shifts higher.
• 🌙
  Sleep that actually restores NAD+ regulates circadian rhythm signalling through SIRT1 and CLOCK genes. Raising NAD+ supports the deep sleep architecture that ME/CFS disrupts — meaning sleep that does what sleep is supposed to do.
• 🔥
  Chronic inflammation NAD+ activates sirtuins — including SIRT1, which directly inhibits NF-κB, one of the main switches for the inflammatory response. More NAD+ means more brake on the inflammation that is driving the whole loop.
• 🔧
  Oxidative stress and DNA repair PARP enzymes that repair oxidative damage run on NAD+. Restocking NAD+ gives PARPs enough fuel to do their job — without starving the mitochondria.

I Want To Be Honest About The Timeline

I started NMN in February 2025. I had been let down so many times that I had stopped expecting anything. I told myself I would give it eight weeks and track everything.

Here is exactly what happened, week by week.

• 1–2
  Weeks 1–2

  Nothing obvious. I noticed nothing. I had been disappointed enough times that I wasn't surprised — and I kept going anyway.
• 3
  Week 3

  Mornings felt different. Not good — I want to be precise about that word. But less impossible. I got up and made coffee without the ten minutes of sitting on the edge of the bed just trying to gather the will to stand. I noticed it. I didn't trust it yet.

• 5
  Week 5

  The brain fog shifted. Not gone — I still have bad days. But there were days where I felt something I recognised from before 2021. Thoughts connecting. Being present in a conversation. Reading something and having it actually land.
• 8
  Week 8

  I was recovering faster after exertion. I still crash if I push too hard — I always will. But the crashes got shorter. The floor got higher. For the first time in four years, I started to believe the floor could move.
• Now
  Now — 4 months in

  I walked around the city last week. Five miles. I didn't count them while I was doing it — I only found out afterwards when I checked my phone.

• Now
  And this week

  I cooked dinner. Sat down afterwards. Didn't lie on the couch the moment I was done. Jake came in and said "it smells good in here." Small thing. But I was the one who made it happen. That hasn't been true for a long time.

I am not cured. I want to be clear about that. ME/CFS does not get cured. I still manage my energy every single day. There are still bad weeks.

But I am not the person I was in 2023 — lying in the dark with an eyemask on, wondering if this was simply going to be the rest of my life.

Which NMN I Personally Take?

After Dr. Anand pointed me toward NMN, I spent three days reading everything I could find. Not every NMN supplement is the same — and after four years of wasting money on things that didn't work, I wasn't going to pick randomly.

Here is what I was looking for, and why Cellva was the one I kept coming back to.

I also appreciated that they were honest about what NMN does and doesn't do. No cure claims. No miracle language. Just the mechanism, the dose, the research. That is what I needed after years of being sold things that overpromised.

This Is For The Person Sitting In The Parking Lot

I know what it is to sit in a hospital parking lot with a leaflet and no answers.

I know what it is to have people tell you to push through. To have doctors look at your normal bloodwork and not know what to do next. To watch your life get smaller and quieter while everyone around you keeps moving forward.

I know what it is to lie in a dark room with an eyemask on and wonder if this is simply going to be the rest of your life.

There is a biological reason you feel the way you do. It is specific. It is measurable. And it is something that can be worked with.

I am not going to tell you NMN will fix everything. It won't. ME/CFS does not get fixed. I still manage my energy every single day. There are still bad weeks.

But I work again. I think clearly most days. I woke up this morning without that crushing dread I lived with for four years. For someone who spent three years barely able to get off the couch — that is everything.

If you want to read what I read, and try what I tried — it is below. I hope it helps even a fraction as much as it helped me.

— Kayla Reed

ME/CFS patient · June 2026

What Kayla Uses

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