Overview

This monograph focuses on three different aspects of the COVID-19 viral infection:

  1. prevention
  2. acute infection
  3. chronic sequelae (often called Long COVID, Long Haul COVID Syndrome (LHCS), or Post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC).

    Please see conventional, complementary, and alternative medical treatments for important background information regarding the different types of medical treatments discussed on this page. Naturopathic, Complementary, and Alternative treatments that may be considered include:

Epidemiology

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control posts COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) Go to weekly updatesweekly updates. The report accessed on 02/22/2024 follows as an example [please follow the link above for updated information. Influenza and RSV data not shown here]:

Summary

  • SARS-CoV-2 activity was decreasing or low in all countries.
Virus Activity
  • The median sentinel primary care positivity for SARS-CoV-2 was 4% (pooled: 4%; IQR: 2-5%). This indicator has been decreasing since week 49, 2023. Both primary care sentinel and non-sentinel data at the country level show decreasing or stable trends in all countries reporting data to week 6.
Virus characterisation
  • The estimated distribution (median and IQR of proportions from 13 countries) of variants of concern (VOCs) or variants of interest (VOIs) was 92% (90-98%) for BA.2.86 (which includes JN.1 isolates), 2% (2-7%) for XBB.1.5+F456L and 0% (0-2%) for XBB.1.5-like. The proportion of BA.2.86 continues to grow, with XBB.1.5-like+F456L and XBB.1.5 showing decreasing trends.
  • UK ONS: Prevalence of long COVID symptoms and COVID-19 complications Dataset Go to LinkLink
  • UK ONS: Updated estimates of the prevalence of long COVID symptoms Go to LinkLink

Treatment

Conventional Treatments

  • SIGN: Managing the long-term effects of COVID-19 Go to LinkLink
  • NICE Guideline, No. 188: COVID-19 rapid guideline: managing the long-term effects of COVID-19 (NG188) Go to LinkLink
  • Management of post-acute COVID-19 in primary care [Greenhalgh2020  🕮 ]
  • Long COVID mechanisms, risk factors, and management [Crook2021  🕮 ]

Naturopathic, Complementary, and Alternative Treatments

Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN)

[Elsegood2022] reports that chronic COVID-19 (Long Haul COVID) is a condition that LDN could help. Dr. Weyrich has been trained to use Low Dose Naltrexone (LDN).

[OKelly2022  🕮 ] reports a clinical study lasting 2 months of 53 patients with ongoing symptoms 12 or more weeks after initial infection with COVID (i.e. Long COVID). Of the 38 participants who took up to 2mg LDN/day, significant improvement (p > 0.001) was seen in the patient's "recovery from COVID-19, limitation in activities of daily living, energy levels, pain levels, levels of concentration, and sleep disturbance." Improvement in mood was almost significant (p = 0.054). The study design was not very powerful, the dose given was less than the standard dose of 4.5mg of LDN/day, and the study duration was short. None-the-less, the results are encouraging.

Dr. Angus Dalgleish, a prominent researcher in the United Kingdom reported at the 2003 Worldwide LDN Conference, several dozen cases he has observed treating both Long COVID and Post-Vax Syndrome (paraphrased below):

Case 1: 50-year-old male had acute COVID and never recovered. He had severe shortness of breath and severe muscle pain when climbing stairs. He had brain fog and severe fatigue. After adding LDN to his conventional treatment protocol, he improved within three weeks, but relapsed when he stopped taking the LDN. He restarted it, and he improved within the day of restarting it, and continued to improve. His pulmonary function completely returned to normal within 6 to 8 weeks. He discontinued LDN at six months, with no subsequent relapse.

Case 2: Female in her 40's had acute COVID. She had severe fatigue, muscle pains and stomachache that persisted for over two months. She responded within three weeks, and discontinued LDN after three months.

Summary: Almost all of the dozens of Long-COVID patients treated with LDN have had a complete remission of the symptoms, except for one who continues to remain on it after 18 months now, because if he stops, he gets worse.

In general, brain-fog improves within days of initiating LDN treatment. Other symptoms take longer.

Post-Vax Syndrome Case: A super-fit 20-year-old athlete had recovered from mild acute COVID. Ironically, in order to go to college, he had to be vaccinated, which resulted in severe fatigue, myocarditis symptoms, tachycardia and POTS symptoms. After not improving with conventional care, he was given LDN, after which he showed a slow recovery.

However, Dr. Weyrich has not treated any cases of Long Haul Covid with LDN, but he strongly believes that LDN is a very beneficial intervention for treating Long Haul Covid, and he is actively recruiting patients.

Please see What is Low Dose Naltrexone? for more information.

FLCCC Protocol

See Go to Long COVID ProtocolLong COVID Protocol and Go to Post-Vax ProtocolPost-Vax Protocol

Pathophysiology

  • SARS-CoV-2 Cell Entry Depends on ACE2 and TMPRSS2 and is Blocked by a Clinically Proven Protease Inhibitor Go to camostat mesylatecamostat mesylate [Hoffmann2020  🕮 ]
  • Tissue distribution of ACE2 protein, the functional receptor for SARS coronavirus [Hamming2004  🕮 ]
  • COVID-19 and what comes after? [Hopkinson2021  🕮 ]
  • Long COVID: to investigate immunological mechanisms and sex/gender related aspects as fundamental steps for tailored therapy [Ortona2022  🕮 ]
  • Development of ACE2 autoantibodies after SARS-CoV-2 infection [Arthur2021  🕮 ]
  • COVID-19 and what comes after? [Hopkinson2021  🕮 ]
  • A cross-sectional study of persisting symptoms, biomarker and imaging abnormalities following hospitalization for COVID-19 [Mandal2021  🕮 ]
  • Patient outcomes after hospitalization with COVID-19 and implications for follow-up: results from a prospective UK cohort [Arnold2021  🕮 ]
  • Sixty-Day Outcomes Among Patients Hospitalized With COVID-19 [Chopra2021  🕮 ]
  • Post-acute COVID-19 syndrome [Nalbandian2021]
  • Pulmonary post-mortem findings in a series of COVID-19 cases from northern Italy: a two-center descriptive study [Carsana2020  🕮 ]
  • Long COVID and Post-infective Fatigue Syndrome: A Review [Sandler2021  🕮 ]
  • Chronic fatigue syndrome and long covid: moving beyond the controversy [Newman2021  🕮 ]
  • Persistent Symptoms in Patients After Acute COVID-19 [Carfi2020  🕮 ]
  • Persistent fatigue following SARS-CoV-2 infection is common and independent of severity of initial infection [Townsend2020  🕮 ]
  • T cell immunobiology and cytokine storm of COVID-19 [Luo2021  🕮 ]
  • Marked T cell activation, senescence, exhaustion and skewing towards TH-17 in patients with COVID-19 pneumonia [Biasi2020  🕮 ]
  • Reduction and Functional Exhaustion of T Cells in Patients With Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) [Diao2020  🕮 ]
  • Investigation of Long COVID Prevalence and Its Relationship to Epstein-Barr Virus Reactivation [Gold2021  🕮 ]
  • What can chronic Lyme disease teach us about long COVID? [Kinderlehrer2022]
  • fights SARS-CoV-2: The Vitamin D - Inducible Peptide LL-37 Inhibits Binding of SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein to its Cellular Receptor Angiotensin Converting Enzyme 2 In Vitro [Roth2020] [Kahlenberg2013  🕮 ]
  • Preliminary evaluation of the safety and efficacy of oral human antimicrobial peptide LL-37 in the treatment of patients of COVID-19, a small-scale, single-arm, exploratory safety study [Zhang2020]
  • Redox imbalance links COVID-19 and myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome [Bindu2021  🕮 ]

Hypotheses

There is much misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation regarding COVID-19, and different "experts" disagree on what is "The Truth™" Dr. Weyrich collects below articles expressing various points of view. Dr. Weyrich considers all articles listed to fall on a continuum of "completely true" to "completely false." However, in the tradition of the scientific method and the classical liberal viewpoint of free speech being foundational to democracy, Dr. Weyrich considers all credible points of view to be both worthy of consideration, criticism, and further investigation. On this web site, Dr. Weyrich determines what is sufficiently credible to merit posting.

All of these articles are listed as "Hypotheses" worthy of further investigation and testing. The only absolute "Truth" that Dr. Weyrich accepts in this context is that COVID-19 is caused by a Corona Virus. All else is fair game for public debate.

References