Around the New Year, my wife started experiencing symptoms consistent with her semi-annual sinus infection. She curses the mountain cedar, and a few other pollen producers. But Tuesday the 4th she took an antigen test and was SARS-CoV-2-positive.
We've been homebodies more lately (hasn't everyone?) and she hadn't even gone into her lab since before Christmas, but she found out that one of her lab mates was also SARS-CoV-2-positive.
She might have experienced a combination of COVID-19 and allergy problems. We started her on ivermectin and several other medications right away.
Friday morning I felt a weird pang in my chest. Nothing tremendous. Friday night as I was headed to bed I felt a weirdness in my chest. No real "crud", but I could feel that I might be getting sick. I rinsed my nose and took some quercetin and vitamins, but I kicked myself for having gotten out of the habit of taking every single precaution since we moved in late November.
Yesterday while on a zoom call at around 5 PM, I experienced an unusual brain fog and sudden tiredness. My body was starting to feel it. I was talking COVID hospitalization stats with my friend John, but just could not focus on his words. I felt the sudden need to lie down.
At around 5:30 PM, I took stock of my condition:
oxygen: 97
Heart rate: 126!
Temperature: 100.4
Headache (6 on a 10-scale, but persistent)
Body aches (4 on a 10-scale)
Very small amount of throat/chest crud, like needing to clear the throat once in a while
Most likely this is an omicron infection.
My wife, who is mostly recovered after a few days of symptoms, brought me all the medicines as I parked myself on the couch downstairs. I took/did all of the following:
Ivermectin
Quercetin and Quinine (we do not currently have HCQ)
Vitamins and zinc
Budesonide
Pepsid
Zicam
N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine (NAC)
Saline rinse (I am allergic to iodine)
Mouth wash
Phenol throat spray
And my wife brought me some ice cream.
Note: My hormonal vitamin D level, 25(OH)DÂ was something like 65 or 66 when I got my basic blood work done last year. That puts me in a pretty low risk group with respect to COVID.
I slept 11 of the next 12 hours or so, waking up and taking more medicine.
At 8:30 this morning I took a mile walk.
At 9 AM I took stats again.
Oxygen: 97
Heart rate: 97 (not fully back to normal, but I had just come back from my walk)
Temperature: 98.6
Headache (2 on a 10-scale, but persistent)
Body aches (2 on a 10-scale)
Very small amount of throat/chest crud
I thought I might dodge the whole pandemic. Given how much time I've spent in classrooms working with students over the past 18 years, I figured I had all the coronaviruses that confer cross-reactive immunity. Then again, maybe that's part of what my case is mild?
But I can't ignore the fact that when I woke up at 5:30 AM, most of my symptoms were already gone. Even if this was a mild case, I was mostly recovered in 12 hours. Now, after 16 hours, I'm at work, though it is safe to say that more naps are in my future.
While resting, I did turn on the TV looking for something to fall asleep to, and I will not recommend Zack Snyder's Justice League. Wow. That might be called the worst symptom of this whole ordeal. I wised up and put Firefly on since I'm not up on newer TV shows to know if there's anything new that's good (the curmudgeon in me very much doubts it).
Assume that I'm not going to write about my early treatment experience again until something changes in the progression. I plan to continue taking medicine and cleaning my nasal/oral passageways, and I suspect that's that.
I have one great disappointment, which is that I was supposed to get on a plane tomorrow and fly to Miami. I was scheduled to be in a roundtable discussion with Robert Malone, Bret Weinstein, and Pierre Kory at an interesting invite-only event called Hereticon (if nobody else knows, who can come burn the witches, right?). Aside from wanting to share the part of the pandemic story I've come to know best, myself, events like that are a great opportunity to meet and learn from a lot of tremendously bright people. There is just no replacing those kinds of experiences.
Overcoming the COVID Darkness
Dr. Tyson and Dr. Fareed's book is out. I plan to write sometime soon about the chapter I wrote, which includes the analysis of their first 4,000 patients. I may just post the whole study here, but frustratingly, substack doesn't give all authors the same amount of space, and it will take three newsletter posts to fit the whole study in!
My episode w CoVid had similarities. Just a couple of days after Christmas w extended family, both of my sons said they had started to feel a little sick. One is vaxed (Navy required), one is not. The Next evening my heart started pounding. 120-130bpm and I felt a little achy as I got into bed. About an hour later, I had a slight cough and a worsening sore throat. I felt febrile and started having ridiculous shivering. Seriously, I’ve never shaken like that before! The places I normally ache started hurting more, and in general I had all muscles and joint aches. Got out of bed, took IVM and HCQ (and cont’d x 7 days), and all the other supplements I normally take. I had had plans to drive to Colorado early the next day but slept in instead. Continued to rest and take meds (added mucinex and full dose aspirin), pushed fluids, and within 36 hours of onset of symptoms, I felt 90% normal (slight aches, cough, sore throat, easily fatigued). My sons tested positive. My sister. Her son. My parents (88 and 89! And not in good health at all!). All positive, too. And none of us is vaxed. W the exception of my navy son who had to return to base, all of them were on the same regimen shortly after onset of symptoms. They’re all fine. The one who stayed sickest the longest was navy son, vaxed x 2 per requirement, and no IVM HCQ. He also didn’t want to take supplements. He’s fine now, but he was sick at least a week longer than his brother and me w similar onset of symptoms. I drove to Colorado 36 hours after symptoms started, hiked 2 miles at altitude in knee deep snow the next day (which wasn’t easy at all, but I didn’t feel sick at all so I went). Count me as a firm believer in the early treatment plan!!!
Hope Bret Weinstein can Zoom you into that conversation. Hydrogen peroxide 1.5% is an alternative to povidone iodine on the McCullough and FLCCC protocols. We mix it with saline spray for the nasal rinse or application with a q tip. There is a lot of evidence that fasting, at least from carbs, is a good thing to do while sick, as high blood sugars have been associated with poorer outcomes. Check out the papers on PubMed about metformin and COVID risk reduction and mechanisms of action. Thank you for your posts.