Maryland teen rings bell, fully healed after painful journey with long Covid

By Mindy Basara

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    FAYETTEVILLE, Arkansas (WBAL) — An Easton teenager who spent three years suffering terribly from long COVID is completely healed.

Dylan Smith was unable to move, speak or eat. When 11 News first met the Smith family, they were in a state of desperation and despair. Over the course of about two years, Dylan went from being an active, happy boy to bedridden with a feeding tube, suffering from chronic pain with pediatric long COVID.

Dylan told 11 News how he felt: “Basically laying down in a wheelchair, eyes shut, couldn’t talk, couldn’t move any part of my body. Basically, dead in a way.”

So, his family took him to the Spero Clinic in Arkansas, which offers holistic treatments for pediatric long COVID.

After 15 weeks at Spero, Dylan is completely healed. He thanked the staff and his parents and rang the bell Sunday.

“Thank you all so much, everyone I’ve mentioned, for saving my life. I truly owe everything to all of you,” Dylan said before ringing the bell to cheers.

After an incredible transformation, the Smiths are now headed back home to Maryland.

How the Spero Clinic treats pediatric long COVID The Spero Clinic has been successful with pediatric long COVID patients by treating the vagus nerve, a key part of the nervous system.

For Dylan, progress was slow at first, but then, at the eight-week mark, it all changed.

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“It’s like his body just literally woke up,” said Stacey Smith, Dylan’s mother.

After years of laying in bed helpless and immobile, Dylan walked.

He shared an inspirational message in September for other youths suffering from long COVID, who are in the depths of a despair he knows so well: “I want to give the message that there is hope, and that at least I know there is a place that can help you, that there is a life to be lived and this isn’t going to be the life that you live for the rest of your days.”

“It’s been amazing, it really has,” Stacey Smith said. “We have our son back.”

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