About this project

Why it exists

Long COVID is defined broadly — "symptoms lasting months after COVID, not explained by something else" — and over 200 symptoms have been reported. Behind that label sit roughly a dozen distinct causal mechanisms: organ damage, persistent virus, herpesvirus reactivation, immune and autoimmune dysfunction, mitochondrial problems, microclots, autonomic dysfunction, sleep disruption, deconditioning, an over-protective nervous system, depression, anxiety, and more. A given person may have one, several, or many at once.

Most of these have established ways to be tested for — but testing for all of them costs thousands of dollars. So the real bottleneck is figuring out which mechanisms are active for a particular person, cheaply. That's what this tool tries to help with.

An honest word on what it can do

We reviewed 778 Long COVID clinical-trial extractions (267 randomized trials) alongside the 2024–2026 literature. The sobering finding: very few treatments have held up in rigorous testing, and several widely-promoted ones — including Paxlovid for established Long COVID, CoQ10, several supplements, and therapeutic plasma exchange — actually failed their best trials.

So this tool does not promise a cure. Its honest, defensible value is to help you and a clinician match your situation to the right diagnostic workup, and to steer you away from wasted money and avoidable harm. That mirrors what the evidence actually supports.

Two things it takes seriously

• It's never "all in your head." Brain- and nervous-system-based contributions are real and treatable, and they coexist with physical causes rather than replacing them. Physical and brain-based mechanisms are always shown together, never segregated.
• Subtract before you add. The most common, cheapest wins are ruling out look-alike conditions and reviewing the supplements and medications people are already taking — a frequent and avoidable source of harm.

Privacy

The wizard runs entirely in your browser. Your answers are saved only in this browser's local storage and are never uploaded. There is no account and no server collecting your health information.

Important disclaimer

This is an educational tool, not medical advice, and it does not diagnose you. Its estimates come from hand-authored expert judgment, not a validated clinical algorithm, and can be wrong. Always consult a qualified clinician before starting, stopping, or changing any test or treatment. If you have severe or rapidly worsening symptoms, seek medical care.

See exactly how the reasoning works, or start the wizard.