Self-Treatment and Protection Amidst COVID-19

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INTRODUCTION

This post previously directed you to Dr. Brownstein’s site, but he has “been ordered by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to stop making any statements about our treatment protocols of Vitamins A, C & D, as well as nutritional IV’s, iodine, ozone and nebulization to support the immune system with respect to Coronavirus Diseases 2019 (COVID-19).”
I also linked to a 7-minute video of my good friend (Ralph Winter’s daughter) sharing her experience with self-treatment of COVID-19 using Dr. Brownstein’s approach, which I have followed myself. But YouTube has censored that video.

What follows is my simplified adaptation of Dr. Brownstein’s recommendations.

COVID–19 creates a rare opportunity for those who no longer fear death to lovingly serve and share hope with those who still fear death.

Most COVID–19 cases involve mild or no symptoms. So those of us without compromised immune systems may quickly get to a place of immunity (the other side of being infected ourselves), from which we can freely serve others.

But how can we most safely and quickly overcome a COVID–19 infection without hospitalization?

If you want to prepare in advance for self-treatment, skip down to SELF-TREATMENT WITHOUT HOSPITALIZATION

MY EXPERIENCE WITH SUDDEN LUNG CONGESTION

On March 20th I experienced sudden lung congestion and wondered, “Could I have COVID–19?”
After just a few hours of sleep, I awoke too congested to go back to sleep.
Four days earlier (3/16) a friend whom we were with on 3/7 had developed sudden fever and congestion.
(His illness went undiagnosed despite his doctor’s effort to have him tested because COVID–19 tests here were only available then to those requiring hospitalization.)

I never had any fever, but I began immediate self-treatment as if I had COVID–19. Thus it is possible that my use of high-dose Vitamin C suppressed a fever I would have had without Vitamin C.

Four weeks later (April 20th), I still have some congestion, light cough and difficulty sleeping, but have otherwise I been symptom-free and had full energy all month for exercise and daily activities.

Following is a record of my thoughts, self-treatment and insights from this experience.

Only God knows whether I had an unusual case of COVID–19 or something else.
And only He knows how this infection could enable me to serve others as the pandemic unfolds.

REFLECTIONS

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me. Yet what shall I choose? I do not know! I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body.

—Paul (Philippians 1:21–24)

Missionaries are often isolated from professional medical care, and thus are alert to simple, scientifically-based methods of self-care. When local hospitals are overwhelmed, this alertness to self-care options may become of much wider value.

The self-treatment suggestions below are adapted from the recommendation of friends who used to lead an international mission agency. Their role led them to care about the health of many families with very limited access to conventional medical resources. And this led my friends to study the simple, inexpensive therapies science was discovering that were unlikely to be profitable enough to gain widespread promotion.

On 3/17 Jackie and I had listened to a interesting message about the connection between:

  • faith in God (expressed in listening to and following Jesus),
  • belief that our Spirit-led actions make a difference, and
  • passion (engaging our emotions in alignment with our actions).

In the well-know “placebo” effect, the scientific community has confirmed the biblical principle that outcomes are strongly influenced by our belief. Any therapy or course of action is far more likely to “work” if you believe it will work. Believing in the efficacy of a therapy materially affects the outcome—whether chemotherapy for cancer or the treatment below for any form of infection.

Doubt and fear affect outcomes in the opposite way. Thus recent research indicates that stress is healthy, but fear of stress can be deadly. The deadliest approach to COVID–19 is focusing on the disease in fear and doubt.

The path to peace and health is faith and belief in God. Spend some time with God in Psalm 91.

AN ACCESSIBLE TREATMENT FOR COVID–19

While many are looking to the government and the pharmaceutical industry for a COVID–19 vaccine, a far more practical option is already available to anyone who may become sick without recourse to conventional medical care. The Chinese have affirmed its promise in approving three clinical trials.

The efficacy of Vitamin C therapy for a wide variety of serious diseases and conditions has long been established (see also video links below). As Dr. Andrew Saul of the Orthomolecular News Service writes of Dr. Cathcart’s and his own experience:

Dr. Robert Cathcart advocated treating influenza with up to 150,000 milligrams of vitamin C daily, often intravenously. You and I can, to some extent, simulate a 24 hour IV of vitamin C by taking it by mouth very, very often. When I had pneumonia, it took 2,000 mg of vitamin C every six minutes, by the clock, to get me to saturation. My oral daily dose was over 100,000 mg. Fever, cough and other symptoms were reduced in hours; complete recovery took just a few days. That is performance at least as good as any pharmaceutical will give, and the vitamin is both safer and cheaper. Many physicians consider high doses of vitamin C to be so powerful an antiviral that it may be ranked as a functional immunization for a variety influenza strains.

Dr. Cathcart writes:
“The sicker a person was, the more ascorbic acid they would tolerate orally without it causing diarrhea. A person with an otherwise normal GI tract when they were well would tolerate 5 to 15 grams of ascorbic acid orally in divided doses without diarrhea. With a mild cold 30 to 60 grams; with a bad cold, 100 grams; with a flu, 150 grams; and with mononucleosis, viral pneumonia, etc. 200 grams or more of ascorbic acid would be tolerated orally without diarrhea. The process of finding what dose will … eliminate the acute symptoms I call titrating to bowel tolerance.

“The ascorbate effect is a threshold effect. Symptoms are usually neutralized when a dose of about 90% or more of bowel tolerance is reached …”

Nutritional Treatment of Coronavirus

To bolster your faith and belief in the potential of this therapy, I include here my first experience treating a serious illness with saturation Vitamin C, and the other “confirming testimony” in the links below.

My first experience with immediate relief through Vitamin C saturation therapy

My biochemist friend Steve was the son of Stanford‘s head of family practice medicine. He (Steve), like others, had a running feud with the FDA over its promotion of drugs and opposition to vitamins. Steve and I discussed the role of Vitamin C in health with my wife one morning, prompting her to pick up a quantity of 1 gram Vitamin C capsules.

When she returned, I just “happened” to have developed a fever and rapidly-spreading skin infection across my lower face (chin to just below the eyes). It was very painful and looked like a bad sunburn. My family and I had planned to leave the next day on a road trip, but suddenly that trip was looking uncertain.

I called Steve and explained the situation. He described to me the saturation Vitamin C therapy described below. I started that, then drove to urgent care where I continued taking Vitamin C while I waited.

When I was finally seen several hours later, the doctors wanted to check me into the hospital and put me on IV antibiotics. But by then I was feeling well enough that I decided to head home. Around 2am my fever broke completely and I slept normally the rest of that night. The next day I was completely well, and we proceeded with our trip as planned.

Since gaining this experience, I have not taken any more antibiotics.

Steve’s simple recommendation:

• Take 1g of Vitamin C and wait 1 hour
• Repeat, reducing the interval each time by 5 minutes until the symptoms disappear.

Today I would start much more aggressively, probably with 5g.
But this was good for me with no prior Vitamin C experience.

Because of this and our family’s other experiments with vitamin therapies I already had most of the items mentioned below when I suddenly developed lung congestion on the night of 3/20.

Thus when I awoke coughing and congested early on 3/21 I applied the recommendations below and felt immediate relief.

At the bottom of this page is a shopping list of items, with Amazon links.

SELF-TREATMENT WITHOUT HOSPITALIZATION

FEVER

Mild fever assists the immune system in overcoming most infections, including COVID–19. Let fevers between 99 and 101 run their course (a wet washcloth on the head can help relieve discomfort). IF your fever goes over 101, the SAFEST response—for babies, children and adults—is a bath with room temperature water, or a cool shower.

Do NOT use aspirin, steroids or other NSAIDS to control a COVID–19 fever:

  • steroids (like prednisone and cortisone), or
  • NSAIDS (like ibuprofen, Aleve, naproxen sodium, and also anti-inflammatory aspirin).

In small amounts, Tylenol (acetomenophen/paracetamol) is OK for ADULTS ONLY.

See this ten-year old research linking the extraordinarily high death rate from the Spanish Flu (100 years ago) with the widespread overuse of aspirin.

The high case-fatality rate—especially among young adults—during the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic is incompletely understood. … In 1918, the US Surgeon General, the US Navy, and the Journal of the American Medical Association recommended use of aspirin just before the October death spike. If these recommendations were followed, and if pulmonary edema occurred in 3% of persons, a significant proportion of the deaths may be attributable to aspirin.

LUNG CONGESTION

a) Killing the virus: Put boiling water into a wide cup or deep bowl. Add one dropper (15–20 drops) of Lugol’s iodine (2%). Use a beach towel or sheet over your head to make a hood and breathe in the steam. The evaporating iodine will kill virus on your face, eyes, nose etc. When breathed into your lungs the iodine will also help kill CoVid19 virus in your lungs. Do this until the water cools or turns clear (until all the iodine has vaporized).

b) Opening your lungs: Carbon dioxide quickly and powerfully opens up lung channels (making breathing and coughing mucus out easier). Increase CO2 in your lungs by:

  • holding your breath for a count of 10 to 15, or
  • rebreathing your air for a minute or two (with the towel over the iodine water, or with a paper bag).

Increased CO2 helps to open (dilate) your lungs and your blood vessels (reducing blood pressure and delivering greater oxygen to the cells).

c) Breathing through your nose. This 40-minute video describes breathing exercises to deal with COPD, asthma, anxiety and panic disorders. I personally have found this VERY helpful.

Hyperventilating (breathing heavily and frequently) is NOT GOOD because it reduces CO2 in your lungs and constricts the lungs and blood vessels, increasing panic and making it harder to cough out mucus.

GENERAL VITAMIN THERAPY

a) If already sick:

• 50,000 IU of Vitamin D3 (plus 500 mcg K2 as MK7) daily for 1-4 days
• 100,000 IU Vitamin A daily for 1-4 days
• 50 mg (not mcg) of iodine daily (20 drops of Lugol’s 2%, or Iodoral tablets)
• 500 mg Magnesium daily (chelated magnesium—magnesium threonate or magnesium citrate—not oxide)
• 200 mg Selenium daily
(Magnesium and Selenium both help with the absorption of the previous nutrients as well as having other health benefits.)

b) if potentially EXPOSED to COVID-19 but not yet sick:

• 50,000 IU of Vitamin D3 (plus 500 mcg K2 as MK7) WEEKLY
(and/or get plenty of sunshine, or take 4-5,000IU/day)
• 25,000 IU Vitamin A daily
• 12.5 mg (not mcg) of iodine daily (5 drops of Lugol’s 2%)
• 100 mg Magnesium daily(chelated magnesium—magnesium threonate or magnesium citrate—not oxide)
• 40 mg Selenium daily

SATURATION THERAPY WITH VITAMIN C

Vitamin C (ascorbate, ascorbic acid) has varying activity in the body at varying levels of intake.

At low levels of consumption, vitamin C is like a trace nutrient: you need very little of it to stay alive, but without any at all you die. Even a few milligrams a day will suffice to preserve life.

At moderate levels of consumption, say 500 to 1,500 mg per day for an adult, the vitamin works to build health in a positive sense. Statistically, fewer colds will be reported; incidence, severity and duration of influenza will be less. (Stone, The Healing Factor, 1972 and Pauling, Vitamin C, the Common Cold and the Flu, 1976).

But it is at high levels, say 8,000 to 40,000 mg per day for an adult, that we begin to obtain therapeutic properties for the vitamin.

At the proper (high) level, vitamin C has antihistamine, antitoxin, antibiotic, antipyretic (fever-lowering) and antiviral properties.

The pharmacological effects of a vitamin at high concentration do not disqualify our continuing to call it, and think of it, as a vitamin. Money still buys things even if you have a lot of it; its nature has not changed but its power has. If it takes 50 gallons of gas to drive from New York City to Albuquerque, you simply are not going to make it on 10 gallons, no matter how you try. Likewise, if your body wants 35,000 mg of vitamin C to fight an infection, 7,000 mg won’t do. The key is to take enough C, take it often enough, and take it long enough.

QUANTITY, FREQUENCY and DURATION are the keys to effective orthomolecular use of vitamin C. So many people hold a philosophical viewpoint such as “I shouldn’t have to take so much of a vitamin.” That’s certainly true; you do not have to. This is America, where everyone has the right to be sick if they want to.

But if you want swift recovery, and if you want to use vitamin C, you might just as well use it effectively. What we are interested in is results. High doses of vitamin C get those results as well or better than any broad-spectrum drug on the market. Rather than take what we think the body should require, we take the amount of C that the body says it wants.

The safety of vitamin C is extraordinary. There is not one case of vitamin C toxicity anywhere in the world’s medical literature. There is not one case of vitamin C-caused kidney stone ever proven …

Notes On Orthomolecular (Megavitamin) Use of Vitamin C

Vitamin C is essential for many body tissues and processes, including collagen formation and repair, and is central to our immune system. Yet our bodies cannot create Vitamin C.

Vitamin C blood levels drop by 50% every four hours in a healthy person. However when fighting infection the blood levels of Vitamin C can be depleted to health-critical levels very rapidly, and the immune system can begin robbing Vitamin C from body tissues, contributing to the short-term Scurvy-like symptoms associated with many illnesses:

  • generally feeling unwell
  • fatigue
  • loss of appetite
  • nausea
  • diarrhea
  • fever
  • painful joints and muscles

The amount of Vitamin C necessary to overcome these symptoms reveals the strength of the infection you are fighting and the level of its drain on the immune system.

One approach to reaching bowel tolerance of Vitamin C:

  • Start (first dose) with a slightly heaping teaspoon (about 5 grams) of Vitamin C.
  • Set a timer for half an hour, then take another 2 grams of Vitamin C.
  • Repeat setting the timer and taking 2 grams, but cut the interval each time by five minutes.
  • Stop reducing the interval at 10 minutes.
  • Increase the dosage every 10 minutes by one gram until you get “gassy” or have a soft stool.
  • As symptoms disappear, stay close to saturation by gradually reducing Vitamin C.

When I’m healthy my body can absorb just a gram an hour before reaching saturation.
Today (3/21) my body absorbed at four times that rate—33 grams in the first 8 hours.
And after this first 8 hours my body felt well, except for a stuffy nose and runny eyes!

MY RECENT EXPERIENCE WITH VITAMIN C

Whatever I have been fighting this past month has enabled me to experiment with maximizing and simplifying Saturation Vitamin C (to bowel tolerance) in treating a serious disease.

While taking Vitamin C to saturation I have been mostly symptom free (no fever, aches or loss of energy). I am still suffering plugged sinuses, a dry cough, and mild chest tightness when resting.

I started by making 1 gram capsules of Ascorbic Acid and taking two to four of these (2–4 GRAMS) every ten minutes while awake (150–300 GRAMS/day).

This is an adaptation of how I have self-treated infections (and everything else) over the past 20 years with Vitamin C rather than antibiotics, etc. During these two decades I don’t recall taking any form of medication other than a very rare pain pill (not repeated) when sciatic pain was interfering with my sleep.

Midway through this recent month, I was persuaded to switch to Sodium Ascorbate and read up on making Sodium Ascorbate from Ascorbic Acid and Baking Soda.

My suggestion for transitioning to Vitamin C as your primary “medication”

  • Take 4 grams of Vitamin C (1 teaspoon of Ascorbic Acid powder, moistened, or as Sodium Ascorbate) morning and evening.
  • Increase each dose by a gram/day to bowel tolerance (a soft stool).
  • Adjust according to observable benefit. Enough Vitamin C to be symptom free.
  • For long-term consumption switch to Sodium Ascorbate.
  • When treating illness, increase frequency to bowel tolerance (up to every 15 minutes).

Simple Sodium Ascorbate recipe

When fighting infection I mix Sodium Ascorbate solution in a glass:

  • a quarter-inch of water
  • 1/3 teaspoon Baking Soda
  • 1 teaspoon (4 grams) Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C) powder

AFTER the foaming stops, dilute to a full glass and drink at a rate that keeps stools soft.
(2–3x/day when well, up to bowel tolerance when sick.)

STAYING HEALTHY

  • Soak all fresh raw produce (including organic) for 30 minutes submerged in a half dropper-full of Lugol’s iodine per gallon of water. This kills all viruses, bacteria, parasites and fungus.
  • Soak separately in water with 1 tablespoon of ascorbic acid to detox pesticides and herbicides.
  • Dissolve 1–2 tablespoons (15 grams) of powdered sodium ascorbate (buffered Vitamin C) in 1–2 liters of water. Sip all day.

REFERENCE ARTICLES

Overall, reported flu and cold symptoms in the test group decreased 85% compared with the control group after the administration of megadose Vitamin C.

NIH (U.S. National Institutes of Health): The effectiveness of vitamin C in preventing and relieving the symptoms of virus-induced respiratory infections

NIH (U.S. National Institutes of Health):
Vitamin D for influenza
This study said it was a “serious blunder” that set the recommended dose at 600 IU when 8,800 IU D3 per day is needed to reach “normal” levels. In this study one to 3 days of 50,000 IU of D3 knocked out the flu:

In those patients who do have influenza, we have treated them with the Vitamin D hammer, as coined by my colleague. This is a 1-time 50,000 IU dose of vitamin D3 or 10,000 IU 3 times daily for 2 to 3 days. The results are dramatic, with complete resolution of symptoms in 48 to 72 hours. One-time doses of Vitamin D at this level have been used safely and have never been shown to be toxic. We urgently need a study of this intervention.

International Society for Orthomolecular Medicine:
Vitamins Against Viruses: Implausible Pro-Vaccine Publications Contrasted Against Ignored Public Health Campaigns and Double-Blind Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trials
This study documents the active suppression of Vitamin D efficacy against viruses by the British Medical Journal in order to promote a vaccine as the only solution (then selling the non-peer-reviewed articles to pharmaceutical companies).

REFERENCE VIDEOS

45 min: Vitamin C: Cure to all known virus and bacterial infections. Antidote to all known toxins (2013)
by Thomas Levy, MD, author of Curing the Incurable

55 min: High Dose Vitamin C Therapy for Major Diseases (2016)
by Andrew Saul, PhD, author of:
• Fire Your Doctor! How to Be Independently Healthy (2005),
• Doctor Yourself: Natural Healing That Works (2008),
• Orthomolecular Medicine for Everyone: Megavitamin Therapeutics for Families and Physicians (2008), and
• Vitamin C: The Real Story, the Remarkable and Controversial Healing Factor (2015)

65 min: Vitamin C Basics (2016)
by Suzanne Humphries, MD Internist and Nephrologist

SHOPPING LIST

The items below are all available for swift home delivery via Amazon.
Acquire these NOW to minimize symptoms the next time your household battles ANY infection.
(“Similar” links to a variety of Amazon products, only some of which match. To guide you toward the product and quantity suitable for your situation.)

Once you have these items, prepare by trying out the protocol above for those who are not yet sick.

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