Got it first time in late September this year during a trip to the European paddlesports expo in France. Had a nine hour flight and failed to mask up - my fail. Runny nose started two days later. If I hadn’t tested, I would have assumed it was just a mild cold (runny nose and sneezing, but no headache or fever). Was planning on getting the booster the week before I left but they weren’t available yet, so I was running on booster fumes from earlier this year. Sense of smell was off for about a month, but no lingering affects that I’m aware of.
Just a comment on that metallic taste - I have to shoot my B12 due to the ostomy and short gut and know a bit more about the effect of B12 deficiency than most people end up learning.
The earlier stage of too low B12 on taste is that things feel like they are burning in your mouth more easily, acidic stuff like grapefruit juices or some strong spices.
But when your B12 gets quite low it shifts your taste buds so that all food tastes metallic. I ended up in the hospital with a gall bladder having a revolt a couple of years back and the hospital was still extremely short staffed from the worst of the CoVid impact. I got the surgery I needed (bye bye gall bladder) and hauled out of there a couple of days too early because I could not even eat the food.
I have been in and out of this hospital for over 40 years and their doctors have always been a whole lot better than their food. So it never occured to me as a symptom of anything.
Realized I should do my B12 the first evening I was home. Food tasted normal, and good, the next morning. I looked up the metallic taste thing.
Doh. I have only been shooting B12 for 40 years. Should have figured that one out sooner.
She caught Covid at the hospital, they didn’t treat her. Her doctor gave Ivermectin and a Z Pack. Pretty common treatment apparently. If you read up on it, doctors were using it around the world with success if Covid was caught early. Insurance even covers it.
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My wife and I had the metallic taste for over a week. I was told not to take multivitamins until the Covid cleared up. I started taking them yesterday and the taste is gone.
Insurance was often covering ivermectin thru at least last summer despite a significant dispute about whether there is any empirical evidence because it is cheap. And there is the matter of picking your battles.
Paxlovid became available in December 2021 officially, though frankly there were a few months where it was not the easiest thing to actually get between supply issues and docs getting accustomed to writing the orders for it. I picked it up for a friend in early 2022 and there was only one CVS pharmacy that had it, she had to get her doc to rewrite the script for that one branch.
That foolishness has since resolved and getting Paxlovid is easier now.
As to ivermectin’s offical status for treating CoVid, it is still allowed as an “Off Label” use in human strength under many insurances. The human strength part matters; there were poisoning episodes early on where people were not attentive to the details and tried the horse med. It is a common dewormer for horses.
It is still not considered by the NIH to be an approved drug to treat CoVid, just is listed as one that is being tried by providers.
Having ridden and owned horses in my younger days, and having had zero issues with the Pfizer shots, if I got CoVid I would personally go for the Paxlovid. I still remember getting the taste of DMSO in my mouth at the same time I was putting it on a horse’s leg, even sometimes with gloves on.
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Z pack is an antibiotic. Again, has no impact on RNA viruses per multiple studies and it is strongly contraindicated in covid treatment by all major medical governing bodies. Properly prescribed for bacterial pneumonia so may have been indicated for secondary infection in someone with weakened lungs.
Sorty to say, there are an unfortunate number of family doctors who do not stay current on best practice drug use and write inappropriate off-label prescriptions, either ineffective or, worse, harmful.
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Your post made me realize that my previous post contained the wrong date. You’re right; COVID was detected on the west coast in late February.
My wife and I had COVID at the same time. Her doctor gave her Paxlovid, mine didn’t (I was outside the 5-day window). She definitely recovered quicker, but had a mild rebound case after. Overall, I’d say she still recovered quicker than I did. Such a weird disease.
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Contracted Covid from a very sick co-worker at a meeting at November of 2022 within 4 weeks of receiving booster. Flu & overnight fever, then cold symptoms for a week. Felt strong, but short sporadic spells of near fainting/dizzyness lasted for several weeks.
Twice. Late March-early April 2020 and then December 2021. The first time I had cold & flu symptoms for a week and pink eye and light-headedness for 4 months. The second time I had flu-like symptoms for about a month.
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You are pretty much spot on when it comes to ivermectin. Ivermectin was definitely shown to inhibit cellular uptake of coronavirus in vitro in cell cultures. Of course, an in-vitro benefit in no way guarantees that is will be effective in humans in-vivo.
There were studies done in other countries, however, that suggested that it had prophylactic benefit in reducing the risk of covid-19 infection and others that suggested it reduced the severity of infections and decreased hospitalization times when taken early after diagnosis. Although these studies were not of large size and the study designs were suboptimal, there was, in fact, a body of evidence suggesting benefit.
In the past, an inexpensive drug that is shown to demonstrate definite evidence of benefit in-vitro against a severe viral infection would definitely have merited a prospective, randomized trial to have been conducted to test its efficacy in-vivo. And it would have been very easy to conduct such a trial in this country early in the pandemic given the huge number of infections and given the safety and low cost of ivermectin. But such a study was never done in the US which begs the question “why?”
The fact that treatment of covid-19 infection or prophylaxsis against such infection constitutes an off-label use of the drug is no condemnation or argument against a randomized trial of it’s use. Many drugs and medical devices are are used for off-label treatment of a huge variety of conditions everyday.
I find it profoundly disturbing that a proper randomized trial of ivermectin for covid-19 was never done in this country. I also was disgusted by the CDC’s attempt to portray ivermectin as a horse de-wormer. The fact is that ivermectin has been a true wonder drug for the treatment of a wide a variety of helminthic diseases in humans as well as scabies. It is inexpensive and well-tolerated. Two individuals won the Nobel Prize for its invention.
That is not to say that there is any conclusive evidence of its efficacy for treatment of covid-19 infection or prophylaxsis, but it is possible that no such evidence exists because the proper studies were never conducted.
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There are drug company’s that produce ivermectin who would love to be able to flog it as a magic pill for covid but so far nothing has indicated that will ever be the case. There are clinically approved preventives and treatments for SARS -2 Covid now – how much longer are researchers supposed to waste time and effort on beating this dead horse?
The CDC’s comments on VETERINARY ivermectin were issued as a warning to people who were sourcing that high potency version (Stromectol) of the drug without medical supervision thanks to irresponsible propaganda that arose during the early hysteria of the pandemic. In fact a recent survey revealed as many as 5% of US adults admitted to dosing themselves with ivermectin without a prescription out of fear of covid (most reported that their decision was based on information they got from CNN, Fox News and/or Facebook.) Here is what the CDC actually said:
There were indeed studies including randomized trials of ivermectin relative to treatment and prophylaxis for covid 19 and they have continued through this year. There are white papers from the US, the UK, Brazil and from Asian research sources on those studies and there has been as yet no compelling evidence of reliable usefulness of the drug for covid to decrease transmission, improve recovery or reduce mortality.
In fact, a studies in 2022 by the British Medical Journal and the Infectious Diseases Society of America of major trials involving ivermectin found serious ethical and methodology faults in more than half of them, including incidents of toxicity in subjects to whom the drug was administered without their knowledge. And for results in the studies without strong fraud or error concerns, the rates of efficacy were small and could not be separated from placebo effect.
A Duke University randomized trial published earlier this year had the same results. No clinically significant benefits were detected in ivermectin use.
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I finally got it in January of this year. Someone came to work with it, and I started feeling symptoms about 24 hours later. Kind of an annoying feeling deep in the sinuses, like behind the nose.
Just didn’t feel well, but no fever at first. Was a strange feeling, so I tested with RAT for it. Positive, so I did another one and that was also positive.
It was really strange, as the symptoms progressed one after the other. One would come, and then be replaced by another as the previous one faded… Like the nose, then a really bad sore throat for a bit, then headache. Fever didn’t start until 24 hours after the first symptoms, but it went to about 38.5°C, and went away after 8 hours. Was about three days all in, and right at the end, I lost smell and taste at about 50%. That returned to 100% after about 3 days. The worst was the sore throat. I don’t like taking pills unless absolutely necessary, and the sore throat was unbearable without ibuprofen.
All in all, it wasn’t even as bad as a bad cold, and nowhere near influenza. I stayed pretty isolated in the house, but my wife never caught it from me.
As a side note, having actual Covid had no effect on my heart, but the second Moderna vax did. AF and tachycardia. Severe swings between sweating and chills so bad I couldn’t stand. Spent the evening in the hospital for that one.
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Never vaxxed - caught the flu in 2021 but didn’t do the PCR test as they don’t differentiate between the flu and COVID. No big deal - it was the flu and got over it in 3 days without side effects.
Totally healthy/sickness free ever since despite being around sick relatives and friends who were all vaxxed/boosted. I take the following almost daily:
- Zinc
- Vitamin D3 (5k units)
- NAC (to combat spike protein shedders)
- Quercetin (2x per week)
- Magnesium Picolate
- Multi vitamin
Sorry to hear about those suffering the effects - but it is never too late to start taking supplements.
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Ivermectin is available as a generic at relatively low cost. Ridiculously low cost compared to a drug like Paxlovid. Therefore, there was very little incentive for drug companies to conduct research to investigate possible benefit for prophylaxsis against covid-19 infection or amelioration of disease severity.
I believe that the facebook link below put up by the FDA was a deliberate and significant misrepresentation of the drug ivermectin. The click-bait photo and post is clearly intended to suggest that ivermectin is only intended for veterinarian usage.
As for the ACTIV-6 study, the design did not test possible benefit of ivermectin as a prophylactic against covid-19 infection in individuals with known contact which had been suggested in at least one study. Furthermore, the inclusion criteria allowed entry of individuals who had been symptomatic for up to 7 days prior to treatment and up to 9 days prior to a positive test result. Studies that suggested possible amelioration of disease severity emphasized early treatment after onset of symptoms. Lastly, the results of the study were confounded by the fact that the majority of individuals in both the treatment and the control limbs had been vaccinated. So the results really tell us nothing as to whether ivermectin might have been of benefit during the time before vaccines became available.
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Ivermectin is an anti-viral medication that is world-renowned and VERY effective against “COVID”. Anyone who says anything different is clueless.
I have been infected twice but hardly had symptoms and less the second time - a moderate to mild cold. Vaccinated and have continued with boosters. Simply don’t want the down time or lingering effects. So far the theory is working.
I haven’t been sick since Covid became a thing.
I also have been fully vaccinated for small-pox, tetanus, flu, RSV, MMR, shingles, and Covid. I now mask when going indoors be it medical offices or shopping.
I do take multivitamins.
I also take D3 5000 units daily, since I have an autoimmune disorder which can be triggered by UV light so have to reduce my sun exposure. I always wear hats, long-sleeved shirts, and long pants outside. I don’t use sunscreen.
Zinc only twice a week as I eat meat, seafood, beans, and nuts in my diet which are good sources of dietary zinc. Too much zinc reduces the level of copper in the body which can cause neural damage.
I also take a Magnesium supplement twice a week as there are many dietary sources like zinc. Too much of ether can cause problems.
You should check to see if any medication you are taking are impacted by any of these supplements.
Never taken Ivermectin, Paxlovid, Remdesivir, or Z pack. I have taken Hydroxyquinoline for about a month years before Covid became a thing for my autoimmune problem but was taken off of it as I didn’t do well with it.
I also trust my doctors. They have saved my life twice. I think that is a good thing, but others might not! 
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A widely circulated idea on social media, but false.
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Neither my wife or I have had it. Probably a combination of being fully vaxxed and boosted, avoiding large crowds of people in confined spaces, and luck.
Also been vaccinated for flu, RSV, TDaP/DT/Td, pneumonia, and shingles among other common vaccines. With my health issues, a serious case of covid probably would not end well.
I have a masters in biochemistry and have taken pathology and pharmacology courses. Needless to say I believe in science, not Fox news, influencers that are giving advice about subjects which they have no qualifications in, and I don’t use or pay attention to social media as a news source.
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