Ivermectin for the Immunocompromised with COVID-19

Photo by Yehor Milohrodskyi on Unsplash

Hi, Friend! 😊 A couple quick finds recently first...

You know how I get excited about finding healing stories where the person had an infection? (Because that's the basis for one of the treatments I received, Coley's Toxins...) I found 3 more! All associated with leukemia, 2 specifically in Philadelphia chromosome-positive acute lymphoblastic leukemia (Ph plus ALL). Scroll down to leukemia on my bibliography page to check it out: https://www.baileyobrien.com/bibliography I also found something very interesting about niacin and skin cancer! 500mg niacin helped with DNA repair due to sun exposure and reduced the incidence of nonmelanoma skin cancers in this study!! Nicotinamide for skin cancer chemoprevention. Just be careful with niacin because even 50mg can give a person a really good niacin flush!! 😅 Now back to COVID-19 again...While asymptomatic transmission is not common, it does happen. We we can't know if we will get COVID from someone who presents with no symptoms, and though most who are generally healthy will recover, those with compromised immune systems are at greater risk of serious effects. Since we can't protect ourselves completely without living like hermits, I set to find out if Ivermectin would be safe and effective in people who are on chemotherapy or who may be immunocompromised. I found this study on people who were in active treatment for cancer: Outcome of ivermectin and doxycycline in cancer patients with COVID-19: A positive experience in Bangladesh The authors studied the efficacy of ivermectin combined with doxycycline in 8 people (yes, a small sample size) with pathology-confirmed cancer and PCR-positive COVID-19 who had been in active treatment when they developed symptoms. Exclusion factors included a history of chronic heart, liver, or kidney diseases; pregnant or lactating women; multiple primary malignancies; and those in other clinical trials. When COVID symptoms began and infection was confirmed, cancer treatments were postponed and Ivermectin and Doxycycline were administered twice daily for 5 days. On the 6th and 7th days every person tested negative for COVID and all symptoms were alleviated after that time! The patients' cancer treatments were resumed under close surveillance and there were no acute side effects from the COVID treatments. They were not immunocompromised as their white blood cell counts were normal; however all of them were on drugs that suppress the immune system, including chemotherapy, letrozole and methotrexate. I also found a list of a few dozen practitioners from the FLCCC website who prescribe Ivermectin to see what experience they have in people who are immunocompromised or are taking chemotherapy. I reached out to the 40 who had phone numbers listed to call and I recorded their responses on this document (linked). What I found from conversations with the practitioners/their office managers confirmed the study above, which is that Ivermectin has been used safely in people who have cancer (it also has anti-cancer properties) who have been in active treatment. For those who are immunocompromised from organ transplants, Ivermectin can increase the level of certain immune suppressing medications such as Tacrolimus, so the FLCCC website recommends close monitoring when administering Ivermectin as a treatment. On the positive, I spoke to a nurse practitioner yesterday who treats patients in all 50 states and he has experience successfully treating people with organ transplants with Ivermectin. He said you can't give one broad recommendation for everyone, because each person is an individual and should be treated accordingly and according to how the person responds to their treatments. One doctor who helped establish the FLCCC group recommends against Ivermectin and/or Hydroxychloroquine, but I reached out to several other doctors for their personal experiences with it and found a few who have pretty good experience and/or knowledge on the topic. One is a doctor who is on the list of founders who specializes in kidney health and transplantation and he recommended following the FLCCC guidelines. I also reached out to Dr. Pierre Kory, the face of FLCCC, who said that he doesn't have experience treating people with organ transplants but he doesn't think Ivermectin is contraindicated, though they would probably need close monitoring of drug levels. I also tried reaching out to a kidney transplant surgeon at the Mayo Clinic in Michigan I believe it was but the hospital policy is that doctors can't talk to me without an appointment, bummer. (I will try reaching out to others though, maybe on LinkedIn!) It seems to be a mixed bag on this one with doctors' recommendations. However, I did also find a couple of encouraging studies for many of us, which suggest that diet, lifestyle and social factors such as higher BMI, low education and poor living conditions contribute the most risk to death from COVID-19 in organ transplant. There was a study which showed that mortality rates were similar between organ transplant and non-organ transplant recipients. There were also a couple of case studies which showed that organ transplant recipients on immune suppressing medications recovered fully, when their medications were adjusted and various treatments were administered. If you'd like to read more about this topic, please visit the COVID-19 page on my blog. Well that's it for now, Friend!

I pray you have a wonderful day! You are loved! 🌞 Bailey TobyMac - Help Is On The Way (Maybe Midnight)