Long Covid: New Leeds doctor brings specialist clinics and home visits to Yorkshire

But drawing on his own experiences, Dr Sinclair has developed a specialist Long Covid clinic for those affected by the condition, which can include symptoms such as extreme tiredness, shortness of breath, loss of smell and muscle aches.

Dr Sinclair, who trained in Yorkshire for 10 years, having studied Medicine and Surgery at the University of Leeds and later supported patients in York District Hospital’s A&E and Special Care Baby Unit, caught Covid-19 in 2020 during his work as a part-time prison doctor.

“I was very poorly with the initial COVID infection. I was unwell for about two weeks and then I tried to go back to work and I just was exhausted like I've never been before. I've done lots of intense exercise and stayed up all night working and things but there's nothing that compares with the fatigue that you get from Long Covid,” he says.

"Then I had quite a significant event where I experienced a left-sided paralysis and realised that, actually, something serious was going on.”

Dr Sinclair had to sign himself off work, have a brain scan and experienced three months of “very intense neurological symptoms,” he says, such as having difficulity talking, which he describes as being “almost like a stroke”.

He says: "I now suspect that I probably had some some sort of micro clotting, which is not a level that you could scan or detect - my brain scan was normal - but we suspect that the blood flow to the the brain was perhaps reduced, (and) all these neurological symptoms were perhaps a result of an inflammatory reaction in the body, which can happen in people who are at risk of Long Covid. And that may be linked to allergies, and I've had lots of allergies in my lifetime.”

Slowly, he recovered and was back to working full-time after about a year.

Dr Sinclair believes certain lifestyle changes can help with Long Covid.

He says: “We suspect Long Covid is an inflammatory reaction. So if we try to reduce (that) all over the body – so a global reduction of inflammation – we’ve seen a lot of the symptoms get better. For example, I went gluten-free and that dramatically changed my symptoms, my weakness in my leg, my problems with speaking, I really got a lot better. And we need to get plenty of good rest and pace ourselves and not do too much.”

There are nutritional aspects that need to be tailored to individuals, he says, but in general getting more vitamin C, D, zinc and magnesium could help, alongside taking care of gut health.

“We work a lot with patients on gut health and on promoting the best possible microbiome and then nourishing that person with with really good, healthy, natural whole foods as well,” he says.

Dr Sinclair, 46, grew up in Kent and is based in the West Midlands but has been working in Yorkshire to establish Dr Finlay’s Private Practice, which is already operational where he lives.

He named it after the fictional home-visiting doctor Alan Finlay from the 1960s and 70s BBC television drama Dr Finlay’s Casebook, which captures “that essence of the good old fashioned GP relationship,” says Dr Sinclair.

He says capacity for home visits is reduced on the NHS – which he has done 21 years with – and he believes his practice can help take pressure off the health service. "We wanted to bring that back because people are clamoring for it and you learn so much on a home visit about a patient - their situation, their actual day to day life – that you wouldn't learn otherwise if they visit you in the clinic.”

Other GPs and specialists working with Dr Sinclair include Dr Samantha Rosenberg, Dr Aaron Brown, Dr Maria Wrest, nutritionist Sally Duffin and nutritional therapist Natasha Rosenberg.

The practice, which also offers a specialist menopause service, will be available to patients various parts of wider Yorkshire.