03/10/2026
So many people with long COVID, MCAS, POTS, and ME/CFS are doing everything right… and still not getting better. What if the missing piece isn’t another treatment, but a different understanding of what’s actually driving the symptoms?
In this episode, I sit down with family medicine physician Dr. Rebecca Kennedy .kennedy.md who spent 15 years at Kaiser Permanente treating some of the most severe long COVID cases in the Northwest.
After seeing how dramatically the neuroplastic model helped her patients, and after developing severe neuroplastic symptoms herself, she left conventional medicine to focus exclusively on this work.
Together, we unpack why so many people aren’t getting better with traditional treatments, what the research actually says about spike proteins and inflammation markers, and why the brain’s threat response may be the missing piece that makes everything finally make sense.
Inside the conversation:
🧠 Why spike proteins, cytokine changes, and abnormal blood tests may not be driving symptoms the way many people believe
🔬 The real science behind the placebo and nocebo effect, and what vaccine trial data reveals about the brain’s role in side effects
📊 Why most people with long COVID are middle-aged women who were previously healthy, and what that might tell us
⚠️ How diagnoses like MCAS, POTS, and ME/CFS can unintentionally keep people stuck in fear and body-focused treatment
🧩 The difference between nervous system regulation tools and the deeper emotional processing that actually turns off the symptom signal
🛑 Why stopping body-based treatments entirely can sometimes be the missing piece
💡 How to begin accepting a neuroplastic diagnosis when everything you’ve been told points to something structural
If you’ve been doing all the right protocols but still aren’t getting better, this episode might shift the way you see your symptoms entirely.
🎧 Listen to “Episode 115: Your Brain Is Creating Real, Severe Pain ; A Doctor Explains Why and How to Stop It” wherever you get your podcast, or find the link in bio.
