Shorter, colder days have arrived and with them comes an increase in respiratory infections. The following are recommendations for minimizing your risk of infection as well as recommendations for how to manage a respiratory infection.
Prevention
For prevention please follow the standard requests. Wash your hands. Keep your hands away from your face. Wear a mask and avoid crowded areas whenever possible.
- Vitamin D3 500-1,000 IU per year of age for children. Adults take 10,000 IU and Vitamin K2 180-200 mcg per 5,000IU of Vitamin D3. We use the brands “K Force” or Sports Research Vitamin K2/D3 for a vegan option. These both have the combination of 5,000 IU D3/180mcg K2 we prefer. Those with a history of kidney stones should not exceed 5,000 IU’s and drink at least 6-8 eight-ounce glasses of fluid per day. Those who allergic to wool should not use K-Force or any non-vegan brand of Vitamin D. 1, 2
- Vitamin C 1000 mg a day. Blend with some juice/frozen berries and a tablespoon of grass-fed butter or unprocessed coconut oil. This will make it liposomal which allows for better absorption. 3, 4
- Melatonin 5-10 mg per day. Take about a half hour before bed.5
- Magnesium supplements. Epsom salt baths are the best. Place 3 cups in a bath, soak for 30 minutes. And/or Magnesium (chelated, glycinate, threonate, citrate or oxide). Take 300-500mg a day or more.6
- Zinc picolinate 20-50mg per day. 7
- Quercetin 250mg with zinc. 8
- Optional: Low dose baby aspirin 80mg, one a day. (adults only. Do not give to children.)
- Optional: Andrographis: If you happen to have “Quintessence” at home (which contains Andrographis), take one dropper full twice daily. If you have “Cocktail” at home, which also contains Andrographis, you can take 4 drops per day.
- Optional Propolis tincture or vaporizer.
If Symptoms Develop
If you do develop symptoms of a cold or respiratory infection consider the following:
Make a Korsakov Dilution
This method is useful for most acute viral illness especially if taken early and has frequently helped abort or mitigate acute infections.
- Obtain a small glass vial (1/2 oz to 1 oz is ideal) or small glass jar. Fill ¾ of the container with water.
- Get a sample of secretions from your throat or nose or lung (swab your throat with a Q-tip and/or cough hard onto a paper towel). Take the swab of the specimen with a Q-tip and swirl it into the container that is filled with water.
- Close the container tightly and pound it onto your palm repeatedly and vigorously 50 times. This method of shaking and mixing is called “succussing or succussion”. This solution is now called the mother isode.
- Take the mother isode container and gently poor out all of the liquid content into the kitchen drain without shaking the container. There is a remaining liquid that is coating the surface of the container. It is important that you leave this trace amount in the container.
- Fill this container ¾ back up with water that has this trace amount of the mother isode and then vigorously succuss the container by pounding it onto your palm. This is now called a Korsakov dilution (#K1).
- Repeat step 3 and 4 by gently draining out the water and succussing 50 times. Now you have a K2 dilution.
- Repeat steps 3 and 4 again to make a K3 dilution.
- Repeat steps 3 and 4 again to make a K4 dilution.
- Repeat steps 3 and 4 again to make a K5 dilution. This is the final dilution.
- Administer one drop of this final dilution under your tongue at least ½ hour away from eating, chewing gum, brushing your teeth or drinking a flavored beverage. Repeat every 6 hours until you feel well. Make sure you put your name on the container, so you do not mix it with other family members.
Supplements
Take an additional 10,000 IU of Vitamin D of one day and then continue vitamin D at 10,000 IU and Vitamin K2 180-200 mcg per 5,000 IU of Vitamin D3. As stated above, those with a history of kidney stones should not exceed 5,000 IU’s and drink 6-8 eight-ounce glasses of fluid per day. Also, if you were not on Vitamin D before the illness, take a larger loading dose of 20,000 IU’s of Vitamin D for two days and then take 10,000 IU’s a day.1, 2
Vitamin C flush. Increase your vitamin C to 1 gram every ½ hour to every 1 hour. Continue until you reach bowel tolerance i.e. you begin having loose stools or diarrhea. Add up the total dose that you took (4 to 12 pills depending on the individual) then take that dose every 4 to 6 hours (adjust to lower dose if causes diarrhea). Example: if you took 4000 mg in 2 hours before getting loose stool, you can try taking this dose every 4 to 6 hours. There is almost no upper limit. You can take as much as 30,000 mg a day as long as diarrhea is not severe.3, 4
Melatonin increase to 50 mg-100 mg a day. (if taking orally, divide to 12.5-25 mg every 6 hours).5
Magnesium supplements. Epsom salt baths are the best. Place 3 cups in a bath, soak for 30 minutes.6
Zinc 20-50mg (If you take larger doses you will need to take 1mg of copper with each 50mg increment of Zinc). 7
Quercetin 250mg with zinc.8
Aspirin 80-160 mg a day. There are some early reports that patients who happen to be taking low dose aspirin have lower complication rates when they contract COVID-19.
Additional suggestions
Fevers: studies show that fever reduces the speed of viral and bacterial growth. Generally, we prefer you avoid acetaminophen, ibuprofen and Naprosyn if possible. Instead, go to bed and pile on the blankets. Allow your fever to break naturally. One medical paper pointed out that taking pain/fever reducing medication actually prolongs the viral shedding, will more likely mask your illness and make you feel well enough to socialize or go to work, spreading your illness to others. Stay home and rest.9
Self-quarantine at home. Sleep in a separate bed. If coughing in the house, wear a surgical mask, this will reduce the amount of virus you spread in your home. Wash your hands frequently.
Avoid going to the doctor’s office if at all possible. Most offices do not have on site testing for flu or covid-19. Going to the doctor usually does not reduce the duration of the illness better than following the above recommendations. For our patients, you can call us for a telemedicine appointment. During evenings/nights/weekends call our office to get our answering service; we will respond to advise you as to how to manage.
If you develop difficulty breathing or your blood oxygen level dips below 90% go to the emergency room. If you do not have a pulse oximeter, a home self-test called the Roth score can give you a rough estimate: Take a deep breath and count out loud in your native tongue as quickly as you can while watching a watch with a second hand ( a stop watch on the iPhone). If you run out of breath before 8 seconds, you are considered likely to have an oxygen level below 92%. You should administer this test and see how many seconds it takes before you get too ill so that you can have a baseline. The relative change may be a better marker for severity than the absolute number.
To find a testing center near you: https://my.castlighthealth.com/corona-virus-testing-sites/
The information contained or presented on this website is for educational purposes only. Information on this site is NOT intended to serve as a substitute for diagnosis, treatment, or advice from a qualified, licensed medical professional. The facts presented are offered as information only in order to empower you – our protocol is not medical advice – and in no way should anyone infer that we, even though we are physicians, or anyone appearing in any content on this website are practicing medicine, it is for educational purposes only. Any treatment protocol you undertake should be discussed with your physician or other licensed medical professional. Seek the advice of a medical professional for proper application of ANY material on this site or our program to your specific situation. NEVER stop or change your medications without consulting your physician. If you are having an emergency contact emergency services.
As a convenience to our patients the office will have available : “Winter prevention kit”:
- Vitamin D3/K2
- Magnesium
- Zinc picolinate
- Vitamin C, 1,000mg
- Melatonin 5mg
- Glass vial to make Korsakov remedy.
Citations
- Bergman, P., Lindh, A. U., Björkhem-Bergman, L., & Lindh, J. D. (2013). Vitamin D and Respiratory Tract Infections: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials. PloS one, 8(6), e65835. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0065835
- Martineau Adrian R, Jolliffe David A, Hooper Richard L, Greenberg Lauren, Aloia John F, Bergman Peter et al. Vitamin D supplementation to prevent acute respiratory tract infections: systematic review and meta-analysis of individual participant data BMJ 2017; 356 :i6583
- Marik PE. Vitamin C: an essential “stress hormone” during sepsis. J Thorac Dis 2020;12(Suppl 1):S84-S88. doi: 10.21037/jtd.2019.12.64
- Carr, A. C., & Rowe, S. (2020). The Emerging Role of Vitamin C in the Prevention and Treatment of COVID-19. Nutrients, 12(11), 3286. MDPI AG. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nu12113286
- Martín Giménez, V. M., Inserra, F., Tajer, C. D., Mariani, J., Ferder, L., Reiter, R. J., & Manucha, W. (2020). Lungs as target of COVID-19 infection: Protective common molecular mechanisms of vitamin D and melatonin as a new potential synergistic treatment. Life sciences, 254, 117808. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lfs.2020.117808
- Reddy, Pramod MD*; Edwards, Linda R. MD Magnesium Supplementation in Vitamin D Deficiency, American Journal of Therapeutics: January/February 2019 – Volume 26 – Issue 1 – p e124-e132 doi: 10.1097/MJT.0000000000000538
- Jothimani, D., Kailasam, E., Danielraj, S., Nallathambi, B., Ramachandran, H., Sekar, P., Manoharan, S., Ramani, V., Narasimhan, G., Kaliamoorthy, I., & Rela, M. (2020). COVID-19: Poor outcomes in patients with zinc deficiency. International journal of infectious diseases : IJID : official publication of the International Society for Infectious Diseases, 100, 343–349. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2020.09.014
- Colunga Biancatelli RML, Berrill M, Catravas JD and Marik PE (2020) Quercetin and Vitamin C: An Experimental, Synergistic Therapy for the Prevention and Treatment of SARS-CoV-2 Related Disease (COVID-19). Front. Immunol. 11:1451. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2020.01451
- Dai YT, Lu SH, Chen YC, Ko WJ. Correlation Between Body Temperature and Survival Rate in Patients With Hospital-Acquired Bacteremia: A Prospective Observational Study. Biol Res Nurs. 2015 Oct;17(5):469-77. doi: 10.1177/1099800414554683. Epub 2014 Oct 12. PMID: 25313306.