Dr. Paul Anderson describes his second COVID infection, driven by co-infections rather than the virus alone. He used nebulized N-acetylcysteine and quercetin, high-dose IV vitamin C, hyperbaric oxygen, and weighted-pack hill walking to recover. He emphasizes vaccines reduce severe outcomes but don't prevent co-infections.
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Good day and welcome to Medicine Health with Dr. Paul Anderson. That's me, I'm Dr. Paul, and today's topic is COVID and Me Part 2. Didn't think I was going to do Part 2, uh, last week because Part 1 we, we talked a long time, uh, but I got a lot of really good, uh, Questions, lots of questions. And you know, a lot of you will maybe be on a PodBurner, or you'll be on the CTR Network or Facebook Live. Then we put it on YouTube. YouTube is where we'll find the links that I have and all of that stuff. So if you're looking for those, you need to go to the YouTube platform. But one of the things that happens with the magic of social media, you know, because I'm on different platforms. Platforms is I get contacted and questions and feedback, not just on the YouTube platform, but, you know, across all the other media. So I got so much really good, insightful questions. I got some feedback from friends of mine and some feedback from some doctor friends who felt like I should clarify a few things, which makes total sense. You know, when I— when you're telling your own story, You know, it's coming obviously from your personal experience, so it's maybe a little less organized, and, and I don't want to lead anybody astray or make them think weird things. So, uh, we want to just dive into that right now. Now, um, the first thing is we talked a lot about the specifics of what I did during my COVID treatment, and, uh, if you recall, it was sort of typical for the first few days with Omicron And then I started to get that second wave where you get worse, and a lot of times that's co-infections, which we're going to talk a lot about today because we got a ton of questions about that. And so I really kicked up the intensity of my treatment because I know how I and co-infections interact, and I don't— I can't give them a lot of room or they get me. And then at the end of it, I did a post, I think last week, where, you know, I'm, you know, recovering my physical health, my energy, and that. So I'm getting back into working out. What I do to work out is a lot of urban hiking, I call it. So while my neighborhood is literally next to a park, sometimes, like during the lockdowns, I did what I called hashtag outlaw hiking. Because you weren't supposed to be in the park, but I would go out and hike really beautiful big, big trees and stuff, and I was all alone in the park. But another thing I like to do is go to the nearby town, and it's on a bay or a sound actually, and big hills going up and then back down to the other side where the river is. And so I like to put a weighted pack on and go up and down the hills, and that helps my larger muscles get worked out. The more you do that after a viral illness, once you're ready— now don't, you know, don't take my advice for anything, I'm just telling you what I did— but once you're feeling, you know, up to it, your healthcare provider says, yeah, you can start exercising again, uh, doing whatever you do to exercise, even if it's walking around your house a couple times, is beneficial because it gets your mitochondria, the energy-producing parts of your cells, back online. It actually helps your immunity. Etc. So I went first with no weight, just walking up and down the hills. Then I graduated to the weighted pack. And then, you know, doing a bit more each time. Nothing crazy, you know, nothing stupid. I, I listened to my body, etc. So I did a post about that. And then that triggered a lot of, a lot of interesting questions too. So I want to go through some of these things. And the first thing is, is I always like to say, this is February 3rd, 2022. So if you're listening a year from now, you know, we could be talking about stuff that'd be totally different, right? If you go back a couple of years when we started talking about COVID just about 2 years ago, almost, you know, what myself and most other people in the healthcare or scientific world were saying is, we're forecasting, we're saying a lot of things, but they may be very different in a year or 2 years. Yeah. And what we're finding is some things are very different, some are the same. Same as now. Who knows what's going to be happening in the future? This is February 3rd, 2022. So if it's later, don't hold me to what I don't know about in the future. And one of the things that I wanted to be really clear about is I talked about some myself in this thing because it was my experience with COVID I'm going to reference some other patient experience. So, uh, first thing I want you to know is when I talk about patients, there's 2 main groups. One are direct patients that I have seen and helped with their COVID experience. The other are patients who have gone to hospitals, and I am acting as a consultant more with their doctor at the hospital. Because even if it's my patient, the way that it works is if you don't admit the patient to the hospital, you're not managing their care in the hospital. And that's very common, especially with COVID There's specialty teams that manage the care. In many cases, they will want information from whoever the doctor was before you got to the hospital. And so we try and provide that. But the other big group is people where they've read my research or seen some other thing about, you know, what they can do in the hospital and they want to interface about that. So that's usually not me going and treating the patient in the hospital, that's me talking to the doctor in the hospital. The last patient I managed in the hospital, it wasn't that long ago, who had active COVID was actually— I'm in Seattle, Washington in the US— was actually in another country. where I do some hospital work. So I don't want to get those 2 things confused. Very different being a consultant than primary management of the patient. Then there's a 3rd thing I do, which is I'm part of a consortium that not only monitors how hospitals, you know, are doing, what their protocols are and all that stuff, but monitors outpatient treatment, treatments like what I talked about last week. And the consortium is up to around 2,000 to 3,000 patients at this point. It's a lot of doctors spread out over North America who are doing similar treatments to what I talked about last week, maybe not as aggressive, but similar. Okay. And so I get feedback on that and how people are doing. So I just want to be clear on, you know, the different ways I interact with COVID patients. So that's number one. And next thing, because I had a couple really, you know, some people I really trust and, you know, people who listen critically to what I say. And they're all, you know, very, very kind and respectful. I have some friends who aren't, you know, they'll just be extremely blunt, but these are very nice people. And so I want to be really clear about something on the front end. Okay. I discuss things that are in the research and in the scientific community that sometimes are not represented in, uh, what you hear a lot of, especially in North America. Whereas if you lived in the United Kingdom or the southern end of Africa or certain parts of Asia where I've worked, you would be hearing different kind of parts of the narrative, and it doesn't make one right or wrong. It just makes it different. Okay. So one of the things that I want to be really clear about is I have never on this program ever, or in any interview that I remember doing, told anybody that they shouldn't get vaccinated for anything. Okay. What I always say is, is that you shouldn't take advice about any medical treatment from somebody on the radio or TV or YouTube or anywhere, no matter who they are. You need— that is a medical procedure that you and your healthcare provider or your healthcare team decide on. Okay. So I want to make it really clear that I have never, ever, ever said you shouldn't get vaccinated. Okay, so please don't think that or don't say it. Um, I am against talking heads like me giving that sort of advice, and that's why I say that's between you and your healthcare providers. There's risk-benefit things you do. There's, you know, my age and my, you know, all this other stuff. That's between you guys. Okay? You do that with your doctor, healthcare providers, et cetera. The other thing that I think confused some friends because, you know, they've known me a long time, uh, and I've been, you know, this is 3 decades, uh, as a physician. Um, they wanted me to, you know, be clear about this. I am not, uh, trying to be or you know, um, or are, uh, in quote-unquote an anti-vax person. When I was a primary care provider, which was 1,000 years ago now, but when I was a primary care provider, which was very early in my career before I got into cancer and chronic illness, uh, our clinic vaccinated people for all sorts of things because we were primary care. clinic, and, uh, and I even used to give, you know, uh, pediatric vaccinations and all, all that sort of stuff. So, um, I, I want people not to be unclear about that. Now, you know, there's other issues with, you know, COVID and the multiplicity of COVID vaccines and the different ones around the world, and that's not a part of my practice now. But please don't misconstrue that I ever told anyone not to get vaccinated or whatever. What I always say is that's a big calculus project that you and your healthcare provider or your team, if you're a chronically ill patient, have to decide. And taking advice from me or anybody else would just be dumb. Okay, so there you go. I think we've cleared that baby up. Also, The podcast is really, especially these, these two, is about my experience with COVID And so it's, it's my experience, okay? And I, I'm a physician, I'm still licensed, no one's taking my license away. But I'm not your physician, right? So this is for information only. Now, there will be some links up at the top. So the last week's podcast, in case you want to go back and hear that whole story. Also, there's a link link to a shorter little podcast I did, about 12 minutes, on B and T cell immunity and how we develop that when we get sick with COVID So whether you've been vaccinated or not, you do that, by the way. It is building your natural immunity. Then there's a link to You've Got COVID, Now What? And that's around general concepts, nutritional advice, some other things like that that are going on again. Not medical advice for you specifically, just things to think about. And then the next thing, which a friend pointed out to me, which I had missed, when you're listening to this on YouTube— so we do this on CTR Network Live, we stream it to Facebook Live, and CTR is my home base. They do all my production, and then they put it up on YouTube. So on YouTube, when I put the links in, so yeah, there's references and resources and stuff. Some weeks it's not much, some weeks it's pages of them. So today there'll be a lot. Where do you find them? So if you're on a computer, you go down usually below the video on the left-hand side, and in the description box it will say show more. And if you click on show more, it'll expand, and then down there will be all the links and stuff. Okay, so show more if you're on a computer. If you're on a phone, uh, it's different. If you're on, you know, an iPhone or a device that's handheld, uh, there's a little screen with the video, and then down on the, um, right-hand side, just underneath, there's a little chevron. It's like an arrow, but there's no line. It's just a little V pointing down. You click on that, and that will open up all the links and stuff like that. So that's where the links are. And I really do try, you know, last week it was my own personal experience. There weren't a lot of links there because, you know, it's me. This week, because there have been some questions and some clarity, and there's going to be a lot of links down there. All right. So the next thing is, and I'm saying this with all, you know, candor and honesty, I got some feedback from someone who is a colleague of mine, and I believe truly, you know, wants the, you know, the best for me, wants me to be clear with my communication, and I want the best for them, you know. So this is not like some random person sending, you know, some feedback or whatever. And they did a really nice, you know, little message. And it was one of those sandwich messages, if you've ever gotten those, like feedback from work or whatever, where you got positive and then the constructive criticism, and then the positive on the other end. Those are— that's the best way to, you know, really, you know, kind of a high emotional IQ way to, you know, transmit, uh, that you'd like either clarity or maybe you disagree or whatever. Um, so there were some very, you know, nice things on the front end. Uh, you know, they, they agreed with my treatment that I did for myself. all of that. That was great. But they brought up, you know, an excellent point, and it's sort of probably the hub of what I want to talk about today. And what they brought up was, you know, and they did say, you know, thanks for sharing your personal experience. How many people have doctors or primary healthcare providers that can give them access To— and then, you know, they listed all of the things that I did that I talked about last week. Okay. Now, the first thing that they brought up, and I'm going to generally talk about these, and I'm going to specifically talk about, you know, why I did what I did in just a couple minutes. The first one they brought up, I'm not sure they— I don't think they put them in any particular order. I'll just read them the way they did, was the nebulizer. Okay, so for those of you that have seen, you know, my social media posts, I have one with, you know, a little mask over my face, looks like oxygen mask, actually a nebulizer. Nebulizers are very commonly used in hospitals. They're used by people with asthma at home and other respiratory problems. And essentially what they do is vaporize a medication, usually a medication, and you have the mask and you breathe it in. You do it with little kids, you do it with adults, all sorts of stuff, right? Now, here's the thing. I use 2 particular medications. And so their point was, who, you know, how many primary care doctors, let's, let's just say, you know, North America, um, where, you know, where my colleague is in North America, uh, have access to nebulizing And there were 2 medications. One was N-acetylcysteine. The drug name is Mucamist, or used to be, but it's N-acetylcysteine. It's an amino, and it helps to open your airways and clear out mucus secretion, does all sorts of cool things. And then the other one was quercetin, which is, if you're in Europe, an easier drug to get. In America, it's very hard to get. Okay? So the answer to that one, how many doctors, is 2 totally different answers. Yes, if you're talking about nebulizing quercetin, it's a little more of a unicorn thing because you got to find a doctor who's done it before and also knows what pharmacies have that, which is not very many. Um, so quercetin, yeah, kind of, kind of a unicorn, and you're probably not going to get that unless you know, you know, a unicorn doctor. is a respiratory drug that was approved in 1962 or 1963. It has been— so every doctor alive today in the whole world knows about prescribing N-acetylcysteine. So to that particular point, 100% of doctors are going to be able to prescribe it. It's covered by insurance in both Canada and the US and probably other parts of the world. It is of the most commonly prescribed non-bronchodilator respiratory drugs. So the N-acetylcysteine, everybody could get and really should if you look at the research on it. So yeah, the quercetin, kind of a unicorn thing, kind of special. It's something that I used to utilize with my patients, so I knew about it, but it's very hard to find and it's difficult to get. So on the order of the nebulized drugs, every doctor either can click a couple times and figure out how to order the nebulized drug, or they've already done it. And they've certainly in their training seen it in the hospital. So that's, you know, okay. Or— so this is the next point from my colleague, you know, know how to prescribe all of those drugs that you were taking. Now that's a very good point. Now there's the theoretical side which would say, you know, in a perfect world during a pandemic, doctors would be thinking more about broader prescribing when you got co-infections, not for COVID really, but for all those other infections. Okay. But my colleague makes a good point in saying, you know, how many of the primary healthcare system would, would even know how to put that combo together? Well, that answer is probably, at the state of the way things are right now, not very many. Um, I have a couple of reasons why I know, uh, and it comes from a long history with chronic infectious disease patients where we do these combinations. And also it comes from a history of using some of those medications in research in cancer as repurposed drugs. So I had a not only familiarity with the research around those drugs and how they interact and all that stuff, but I had a history of using them and also training doctors how to use them before COVID for other problems. Okay. So Yeah, but the other thing is there are times when you get to the hospital where, and we'll talk about this, where there's this big chasm and the infectious disease doctors will start to look for co-infections. And darn it, if they find them, they will give you whatever combo of drugs, you know, is required. So that does happen. But, you know, to their point, that's a little less common. So do I have a Benefit being that I know how to do this, and I was the sick person, or my patient is a sick person. Yeah. Do I have some implicit privilege? Yeah. I mean, I I do. I am a you know a Caucasian physician in the United States who has access to everything pretty much that I want. Uh, for a healthcare situation? Yeah. I mean, I'm not saying everything is easy, okay? And I'm not saying my experience can be everyone's experience. Well, let's turn that around a little bit. So yes, I, I, you know, definitely have a leg up both in the knowledge of what to do and also the access. But here's the other thing. Let's say your, you know, mythical healthcare provider in North America, and certainly in other countries, I know, because I know doctors from many places around the globe. But let's just take North America. Every single drug that I told you about last week, if prescribed by your healthcare provider for a legitimate, you know, like I said, that list of infections I had and all that stuff, is covered in the US under our private healthcare, you know, insurance system or Health Canada. There may be things that are and aren't available in one country versus another, but as far as access and cost, if, if I've had a patient who's on, you know, public assistance, you know, healthcare insurance You know, at that level, we've had them, you know, cover any of those drugs. Okay. Sometimes you have to fill some forms out, sometimes other stuff. But as far as access goes, it's not simply about, do I have the money to buy all of those things? But if your doctor is saying, I need these, or certainly if you're in the hospital and they say you need them, your insurance will get billed for them. And, you know, whatever your deal is with your prescription plan will cover them. Now, the other point they made— so this is another one where there's 2 answers to one question. What, you know, what about all the nutrients? Well, most of the nutrients are considered over-the-counter. Your insurance doesn't pay for over-the-counter, as you know. So it generally won't pay for, you know, Tylenol if you buy it over-the-counter or, you know, cold and flu or Pepto-Bismol or any other thing that you buy over-the-counter. Some people have healthcare savings plans which cover for over-the-counter. So that would be helpful there. But the supplements, no. So if somebody is really on a restricted income and maybe they got insurance to cover, you know, the drugs, they're still gonna have to, you know, come out of pocket unless they have an HSA savings plan for the supplements. So they may have to be very, you know, focused on that. Now, I'm gonna put links in to, you know, I have a you know, what do you do when you have COVID video back there, but I have a write-up on the research behind certain supplements. And in there I try and give some guidance of if you've only got money for 1 or 2 things, kind of focus on these guys. Okay. And they tend to be the most affordable things. And I talk about that in that newsletter. So I'll share that. And then they make a really excellent point. And they said, you know, you You, uh, prescribed for yourself, uh, high-dose vitamin C intravenously. Uh, not everyone can just run out and get that or even afford it because that is considered usually outside of the medical system if you're not in the hospital. So yeah, that one, it's just like a supplement. Um, I have access to it. I know how to prescribe it. I've published papers on how to prescribe it, so I did it. But can, can all of my patients get that? No. Do a lot of the patients I see in that first group of people where it's where I'm directing their care as an outpatient, are a lot of them able to access that? No. And so there are other things that you can do, but in my case, no, I did that for me. I do it for people that can now. Here's another one where there's 2 right answers. Outpatient, it's not going to be covered by insurance in US or Canada. Intravenous vitamin C was approved by the Food and Drug Administration as a drug because we use it in sepsis and other stuff in the hospital. It's called Ascor, the drug name, which is just vitamin C. C500. And when I wrote and published the hospital use protocols, I tell the hospitals the name of the FDA-approved version of vitamin C and where to get it. Now, it's not because I have no connection with the people that make it, it's just that the pharmacists at the hospital aren't used to buying intravenous vitamin C. If you are in the hospital, and we have had this happen where you know, I was called as a consultant and they said, okay, we read your paper about, you know, doing vitamin C for COVID in the ICU. Uh, we've read about the controlled trials and there's some, you know, positive ones, etc. Family wants to try it. ICU doctor says, I want to try it. Uh, how do you do it? Because they've never done it before. So I tell them how, resend them the paper, how to do it exactly, the dosing and everything. And then I tell the pharmacy, you know, what to get, the FDA-approved vitamin C intravenous drug that is covered by your insurance. Okay, it's part of your ICU stay. It's probably the cheapest part of your ICU stay. In the very few times where I've talked to the ICU doctors or the intensivists, and the few times where they've actually said, yeah, we'll give them IV vitamin C if you tell us, you know, how to do it, I have seen people get off ventilators. I've seen people who were going downhill plateau and eventually get out of the ICU. It's just that it doesn't happen that often, you know. So if you do message me and say, you know, how would I get IV and CIV, you know, if I go to the hospital, my answer is normally, unless the hospital is already doing it, like for sepsis, or they're doing it for COVID, or they're in a research project, It's really hard to get them to do because— think about it, the ICU, if you've got COVID, the ICU doctor has a billion things on their mind, most of which are trying to keep you alive. And learning a new treatment in the middle of it is not the highest priority that they have. Now, is that right or wrong? It's just how us humans are. We have a limit to what we can do. Also, if the hospital doesn't realize it's an FDA-approved drug, intravenous vitamin C, They don't understand, you know, that they can get the pharmacy, they can bill for it, and, and all that business. So there's that. Now, uh, they didn't mention it, but I'll just throw it in because I did talk about it— hyperbaric oxygen. I happen to have access to a hyperbaric oxygen chamber system, and I did do that because there's research that shows that that's helpful in the, you know, acute and the healing phase. And that requires a certain list of diagnoses, and COVID is not one of them to be covered for insurance. So that would be out of pocket too. So again, that's, that's me and a privileged thing. Would the patients have the knowledge of a location offering the treatments, and could they afford them? Totally going to depend on the patient. And as I said, When I'm working with patients, if they say, you, the sky's the limit, we'll do everything, I tell them everything and, you know, we work out how to do it. If they say, I can get my, you know, my pharmacy part of my insurance to pay for the drugs, I can afford 2 supplements to take orally, and you tell me how to eat and whatever, and that's all I can do. That's what we do. Okay. Um, now the next thing that was brought up, and I think this is very good because I mentioned it just through that last time, as I shared some research that, you know, naturally acquired immunity may in fact be stronger now with some of the research coming out than some of the vaccine-induced immunity, especially the Omicron. But, you know, they bring up that, well, you're rolling the dice if you get a natural infection because, you know, how do you know if you're going to be one of the people with an easy time or a medium time or a super hard time with Omicron? You don't know. Okay. It's generally a very survivable, mild disease, but if you get a bunch of co-infections, it may not be, as we'll talk about. So One of the things, you know, that they brought up was, um, you know, why not look at it that we— you get so-called quote-unquote free shots, you know, uh, depending on who you are, 2 or 3 vaccines that we get, uh, for COVID. So why not get those? Um, and then, um, you know, that, that by and large, uh, reduce serious hospitalization, long-term side effects, and death? Sure. Okay, definitely what we believe is that the vaccines, even though with Omicron, remember, you have in different studies 60 to 80% breakthrough infections, meaning you're vaccinated but you still get Omicron, we still believe that on the other side of that, it saves you from bad outcomes. Okay, might still go to the hospital, might still have other stuff, but it saves you maybe from bad outcomes. So it's not stopping you from transmitting the disease, getting the disease, or even being hospitalized, but it's saving you from bad outcomes. So, so that's the point they're making, and I'm, I'm fine with that. If, if that is the way that you and your healthcare provider have decided to, you know, move forward with vaccination, that's great. And the other thing is that as the data comes out and we get all these, you know, high-level breakthrough infections, meaning you're vaccinated but you still got Omicron, uh, um, the benefit is whether you're vaccinated or not, you still then get the natural immunity, uh, building through your B and T cell families, etc., which I've got that short video about linked above, linked down in the description. So the benefit, if you will, is if you get COVID as a breakthrough and you're vaccinated, or you get COVID as a primary infection and you're partially vaccinated or unvaccinated, you still come out with better immunity. Now their point is, why not just, you know, just tell people, you know, get the shots, they're free, you know, which is true. I mean, someone's paying for them, obviously, but and lower the amount of bad outcomes and other stuff. One of the things that you have to keep in mind in the days of Omicron especially is when we went from Delta to Omicron, the level of breakthrough infections with vaccinated people has risen and risen. The ability to transmit from, uh, say, you know, me. Let's say I'm vaccinated, uh, and I get a breakthrough infection. I may not know it, but I can transmit all the COVID I want to you, um, the same as an unvaxxed person who may have more symptoms, you know, early on. The other thing, and I'll put this in the, you know, in the links below, as I got some questions from a different, uh, person about this, is some of the healthcare systems where I I feel they're doing, you know, really like nice job giving you real-time hospital numbers. Some of the hospital systems now have, um, 70% vaccinated in the hospital with COVID hospitalization and, you know, 30% or so unvaccinated. That's totally flipped upside down from what we had with Beta and Delta. And You can see that in Europe. I list some data that you can open up if you want to and look at it. I looked at it this morning and it was roughly something like that. So, you know, that's changing the narrative too a little bit. So yes, what vaccine really buys you, if you will, is protection from if you do get COVID, are you going to slide into these other bad things? But what it doesn't get for you, and this is where I wanted to make a, you know, a distinction to some of the feedback I got, is a vaccine may indeed keep you from getting the bad version of COVID It's appearing in many hospital systems to be shifting where the breakthrough infections, You might get hospitalized still if you had the vaccine, but you may not die, you know, have worse outcomes. But the thing that it doesn't do for you is the, the COVID vaccine does nothing for the entrée of co-infections, which was a big part of what I talked about last time. COVID vaccine doesn't stop any of these other bugs, okay? And the entrée to the co-infections either coming in or reactivating in your body is not whether you're vaccinated or not. It is the presence of your body starting to fight with COVID So if I'm vaccinated and I have a breakthrough infection, I can still get all those co-infections. Vaccine doesn't slow them down. If I'm unvaccinated, get all those co-infections. So that's the— that's where the playing field becomes level. Now, what I want to talk about with respect to that, and what's going to be at the end in the description box below— and remember, If you're on your computer, go to the left-hand side below the video and you will see show more, and that'll open up the box and all the links and stuff. If you're on your phone or most devices, video lower right corner, there's a little upside-down V. Click on that, that will open the description box up. So I'll put in there the last set, and it's about 3 pages long. of references are my teaching references. So these are peer-reviewed scientific journal references, not the whole journals, but all the references are there. And it is just the modern— so COVID's 2 years, let's say, with us. It's just the more recent and broader scientific references about co-infections and COVID. And the incidence of them is all over the map depending on how many people they put in their study and all this other business. But the bottom line is pretty much any chronic, uh, and some acute infections that you can find, whether they're bacterial, viral, fungal, even parasites and other stuff, can happen with COVID And that was my problem. Okay, the COVID really wasn't probably such a big deal for me. It was the other infections. And remember, one of the ways that I knew maybe they were coming, and I, and I got tested, was I had that, you know, initial viremia, sick, and I started to get a little bit better, had about a 24-36 hour, you know, kind of, oh gee, I'm getting better, and then wham, I got the second wave. Now, as I've said, the second wave is where I see people need more medication, more Uh, you know, all sorts of stuff. This is where I see people get hospitalized, uh, and even this is where I've seen people get hospitalized, get on a ventilator, and die. So I was not going to take, you know, any chances with that. No, we'll talk about my co-infections, you know, coming up. Um, and then, you know, this person said, look, you know, I, I believe we should count natural immunity the same as vaccine immunity. I think, you know, more of the world, certainly scientific community, is coming to that idea. But by the same token, you know, we shouldn't be trying to get the disease. And those are 2 different, you know, things, certainly, which— and I agree totally, you know, the, like, natural immunity is very robust now that we have newer research, and vaccine immunity, you know, is there. So that together makes herd immunity. We need to treat them equally now that we know that, you know, they both can be robust. And I think that that is important. So that's, you know, that's one side of that. The biggest problem with Omicron is even, you know, whether it's Dr. Fauci or the people in the UK I interact with, or in Asia, or Germany or wherever, they say pretty much good luck, everybody's going to get exposed to Omicron, and you're either going to have it or you're going to have maybe an asymptomatic version of it, or maybe you won't get it because you have some really good immunity, but everyone's going to get exposed. So the idea of isolating Now I've told you, I actually know people who isolate completely and they may never get it. But everyone's going to get it is a qualified statement. In the days of— with Delta, maybe not, but in the days of Omicron, you don't have to go out of your way to get exposed. I'm not recommending you go out and have a COVID party, certainly. you know, like the old chickenpox parties and stuff. But you're just— by living, you're going to get exposed. Okay, so, you know, there's that, you know. And, and they, you know, they ended with some nice things, but, you know, their final thing was, I just, uh, I just find your protocol unrealistic as an approach for the masses. Okay, that's a fair point. Um, Do I think that in these two years we could have informed doctors better about co-infections and how to treat them? Yeah. Do I see co-infections being a problem that get people in the hospital and even kill them? Definitely. So I do think it's a big deal. Is that the reality, as my friend pointed out? No, it's not the reality. There are countries where they do. Empiric, meaning they don't even test, they just give you a group of drugs to take along, you know, with your immunization if you get COVID, and they, they cover, you know, a lot of these bugs, right? So I just wanted to spend a minute on a couple of other type of comments. So one, you know, one person commented, look, I had Omicron. I wish I had every illness was like Omicron, easiest illness I ever had, barely sick. Then I had another person who has chronic illness, but they said, really all I did is I rested and I stayed hydrated and I sailed through the Omicron. Then I had another person comment, I got really sick and I'm still sick. And I'm worried about— you could have post-COVID. And as I told you last week, you know, I had more than one, but we'll stick with Omicron patient that was offered, you know, sort of the 360-degree, all-encompassing, you know, treatments. decided to go a different way, which is, you know, it's your choice, it's your body, you do what you need to do. But, uh, problem was that they, they had that second worsening I was telling you about. They had co-infections and, uh, they were not, you know, coming, you know, to see me. And, uh, as I said, they were sort of doing something else. Um, they get hospitalized and, um, communicated to the staff and said, uh, you know, please, based on the symptoms, please check them for co-infections. They said, well, we're just going to run the normal hospital protocol that we do here. Every hospital has their own protocol they do, uh, but this one included an antiviral and, and a couple other things. Um, and then they needed respiratory support. And then that got worse and they needed, uh, you know, to be put into a coma and put on a ventilator. And they finally called an infectious disease specialty to check, and indeed they had multiple very, very aggressive and dangerous infections. Okay. Kind of like I had only You know, this, this person didn't get all of that treatment, you know, early on. By the time they discovered it, the person is in a medically induced coma and they're on a ventilator. And so then they try to start to treat it. Well, when you're that sick, you don't need any other co-infections, and you certainly are going to be behind the 8-ball. And the poor infectious disease doctors, you know, just come into the case there at the end. Um, if they could have got in earlier, done the testing, and treated this person, probably different outcome. Now you can't say, you know, uh, you know, because I've had people say, well, you know, what if, if the people who chose to do something else, you know, and here some of them do fine, you know, doing, you know, very little, and some, you know, don't do fine, uh, if they choose to, you know, wind all the, you know, their life back 15, 20, 30 days, um, would they have lived? You can't say that, okay? Nobody knows. We don't have a crystal ball. Probably, okay? If the infectious disease doctors would have been called in on the front end, as I was gently and more strongly trying to advocate for, uh, the ID doctors could have probably pulled that person out. So, you know, when it comes to why are you so aggressive, why do you do these things, why did you treat yourself the way you did— number one, I know my body and I don't tend to get simple illnesses. I get when there's something very new and unique. For those who are longtime listeners, um, I, I had the swine flu in the '70s and then in the 2000s. I'm that person. I didn't get the regular flu, I get the swine flu twice. I had an atypical SARS virus that almost killed me that I got in China 3 years ago. We're still not sure which SARS that was. Hoping someday to get some genomic testing done and sorted out, but who knows? I just get those things. I knew this time, I knew Omicron, I was going to get exposed. I knew, you know, regardless of vaccination status, the stats were you're going to get a breakthrough infection, and I know my propensity for co-infections. So beginning, I was moderately intense, mostly natural stuff. When I got that second wave, I did testing and I started right away with the drugs for the co-infections, and that's why I treated it the way I did. So that's why. Now, I really feel like, you know, everything had a place. The nebulizer was wonderful. As I say, I just got the standard, you know, N-acetylcysteine, the drug that we all use. Every doctor uses it. And then I did all of the over-the-counter things that I was talking about. And the important thing with co-infections is when you're feeling better from COVID You treat them a little longer. Now you do this with a doctor who does it. You don't have to worry about this, but you treat them a little longer because if you have, say, a Mycoplasma pneumoniae, that doesn't die usually in the first week or so. You got to treat a little bit longer, and some of the viruses and fungus. So I believe that that's very important. Now, there's going to be, as opposed to last week where it was more just my story and all that stuff, today Today's— when we put it over, move it over to YouTube, down in the description box, I'm going to have a bunch of links, and the last 3 pages of links are going to be just the data on co-infections. So this is not like some harebrained idea that just some, you know, weird fringe doctors talk about. The very first data, when I translated from Mandarin. I don't speak Mandarin, but thankfully we have auto-translators nowadays. When I took the original data, as I was looking at their intravenous vitamin C use in China, when I took their data and I translated all of it and I was looking, they started to talk about co-infections from the get-go in Wuhan. Okay, and there's some bad actors in there. Now, co-infections are different in different parts of the world. Ones in Italy, the bad guys there are going to be different than Wuhan, different than here. But the universal part is they're more common than we think. And often we don't, as doctors, check for all of these opportunistic infections. We check for particular ones. And then if we don't find those, you know, 2, 3, 4 particular ones, we say there were no co-infections. Well, it's not true because we didn't check for the other ones. So anyway, that'll all be in there. There'll be a lot of links in here for those of you who like to dig into that stuff. As I said, I'll have some links to some of that, you know, flip-flopping on— we go from Delta where it's more unvaxxed in the hospital, and then with Omicron, some of the hospital systems are flipped the other way of that data. And I have things about, you know, vitamin C, nutrients, vitamin D, and, you know, and protection and all of that business in there. But What we are seeing right now is, I believe we are just down to the last, uh, probably the last minute of this program. So, uh, remember everyone, um, look down in the description box. If you're on your laptop, lower left corner, show more, click that, it opens up. If you're on your phone or your device, upper right corner, a little upside down V, click on that, opens the description box. If you're on YouTube, please like, share, subscribe. If you're on a PodBurner, please, you know, like and subscribe. We really were— the community is growing, getting a lot more viewers, and I really appreciate all of that. Appreciate your interaction. And the whole reason I did today was to just talk about some of these more specific things and hopefully clear up some of those things that, you know, maybe were a little bit muddy. We're all going to get through this. Now all of the science is showing that COVID is headed to endemic, meaning it's going to be just like the flu. It's going to be with us forever. There will never be a time in your life or mine where there's not COVID, but we're going to come to a little more peace with it immunologically. Well, that's it for today. I'm Dr. Paul Anderson with Medicine Health with Dr. Paul. Please do like, share, and subscribe. Come back again next week and we'll talk about something else exciting in medicine and health. Thank you very much.
