Understanding treatment for covid 19
Covid- 19 is a viral disease caused by the SARS- CoV- 2 virus. Covid infection usually begins with mild symptoms similar to a common cold – sniffles, stuffy nose, tickle in the throat and maybe a cough.
This is all some will experience, especially younger people with healthy immune systems and no underlying, complicating health conditions. In adults, after about four days, this “cold” sometimes progresses to influenzalike symptoms with infection spreading to the lower lungs, high fever, headache, and muscular aches and pains. As with flu, this stresses the immune system. Then pneumonia can develop, with difficulty breathing. With some patients Covid-19 does not stop there. When a person’s immune system has been weakened due to cancer, uncontrolled HIV, diabetes, kidney or heart disease, obesity, or old age; Covid-19 can progress to the most serious stage characterized by extreme difficulty breathing, primarily caused by a condition called DIC.
DIC stands for disseminated intravascular coagulation. It is a condition Covid-19 shares with Ebola and other hemorrhagic fever virus diseases. What causes DIC? DIC is caused when certain viruses trigger a ferocious counterattack by immune system macrophage cells. To eliminate viruses, like a flamethrower, macrophages spew highly oxidative chemicals that damage capillaries and blow holes in blood vessel walls. In response, blood platelets aggregate, gumming up the circulatory system’s plumbing. DIC clogs the blood-flow in arteries, veins and capillaries and reduces the amount of oxygen getting to cells. This happens when minute capillaries lining the alveoli cells in the lungs rupture, reducing the lungs’ ability to exchange oxygen into the bloodstream that carries it to the rest of the body. When blood-oxygen is reduced, cells get sick and organs are damaged. A few cases of Covid-19 have seen blood ooze from bodily orifices, just as with hemorrhagic fever diseases. However, most people suffering from severe Covid-19 just feel they are suffocating, gasping for air. These patients require oxygen therapy. Some require mechanical ventilation. Most survive, but 20% requiring intrusive ventilation do not.
No one wants to die from Covid-19. However, 2% to 3% of confirmed cases will. Those are mostly people over the age of seventy, or those who suffer from two or more co-morbidities including cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, kidney disease, morbid obesity, or who are already immune suppressed. How can people avoid this? Since Covid-19 first came to light in January 2020, researchers have conducted clinical trials on hundreds of drugs. Several drugs have been falsely claimed to help; but to date only one has received international approval - dexamethasone. It has only been approved for use in late stage disease, once someone is hospitalized, already on oxygen or a ventilator. What is dexamethasone? Dexamethasone is a steroid, hormone-like drug that has been used since the early 1960s. It is a strong anti-inflammatory. Inflammation plays a central role in most viral diseases. However, dexamethasone is not a cure. It cannot be recommended for prevention because using steroid drugs for longer than two weeks causes serious side effects. So what should a person do who wants to prevent Covid-19 or treat its early stages if they suddenly come down with what seems to be a cold, cough and fever? Many governments in Africa have advised people to take vitamin C. Is this likely to prevent or help treat Covid-19?
Vitamin C is an antioxidant. Taken at high doses it can reduce the frequency of colds in children and in hard- driven, high- stress athletes or military men in training. It does not prevent colds in most people. Vitamin C benefits one aspect of immunity and helps in respiratory disease. At high doses it helps prevent pneumonia and reduces the length of pneumonia and hospitalization. Vitamin C is highly effective against lung infections when given intravenously at high doses. It will not prevent Covid-19 but can help treat Covid.
Viruses know a secret. They know how to enter cells and seize control of the cellular protein factory. And they know how to switch cellular factories into overdrive to produce more viruses faster, increasing viral load, making a person sicker. What is their secret? They know how to release the human protein nuclearfactor kappa-binding – or NF-kB. NF-kB works like cellular rocket-fuel to stimulate inflammation and viral replication – in HIV, Covid-19, and most other viral infections. NF-kB is the common stimulant of viral replication. If one can inhibit NFkB; inflammation, viral replication, and the disease process slows. All antioxidants may do this to a limited degree. However, NF-kB inhibitors are a quantum degree more effective.
Dexamethasone and other corticosteroid drugs are strong inhibitors of NF-kB. They reduce inflammation, viral replication, and the intensity of Covid-19. But steroid drugs can only be used safely for two weeks. They cannot be used to prevent infection or during early illness.
They must be reserved for severe, later stage disease. But other NF-kB inhibitors can and should be used from the start to reduce viral load Aspirin and ibuprofen both inhibit NF-kB, inflammation, viral replication, and viral disease. Once dubbed “the miracle drug”, aspirin has been used successfully since 1900 to treat colds and influenza. Aspirin is a proven antiviral drug. Both aspirin and ibuprofen are effective against many symptoms of Covid-19 including fever, pain, and blood coagulation.