Data on Ivermectin Toxicity

smorgasmic | 3 points | Dec 11 2020 08:49:07

Data on Ivermectin Toxicity

Does anyone have a study that shows the rate of ivermectin toxicosis in humans at typical dosing (e.g., 200 mcg/kg)? As I understand it some small percentage of people can develop partial paralysis and neurological symptoms, which usually resolve if you can get to medical care.

Assuming you want to just test how well you tolerate ivermectin, does it make sense for a first dose to be under-powered, maybe 100 mcg/kg? Or would taking the low dose potentially be dangerous in that it might allow any pathogens targeted by ivermectin to develop resistance?

[-] rraak | 2 points | Dec 11 2020 14:02:07

Not a 1:1: match, but this may be useful.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5929173/

[-] smorgasmic | 1 points | Dec 11 2020 14:23:02

It is useful.

Does anyone know the mechanism by which ivermectin causes harm if it gets into the central nervous system?

[-] TrumpLyftAlles | 3 points | Dec 11 2020 18:30:20

Why bother asking? The study that rraak provided covers about 17 years of ivermectin use in Mass Drug Administrations, at least 3 billion doses. Look at Table 1 in that study for the details about the 28 cases that the researchers deemed severe. All but 2 recovered. Out of billion(s) of people who took the drug.

I'm only aware of two cases of CNS effects, a teenager with a mutation who went into coma, and a woman who took 12mg of ivermectin every day for two weeks and was brought to the hospital because she was confused, her speech was wonky, I forget what else.

Both of them recovered in 48 hours.

A big deal is made about ivermectin possibly crossing the blood-brain barrier under certain circumstances, such as having a weakened BBB due to meningitis. As far as I can tell, that is a theoretical concern. "Meningitis weakens the BBB, so don't take IVM if you have it!" I don't have exhaustive knowledge, there may be a case or study out there, but AFAIK that's never actually happened. Could be wrong.

[-] smorgasmic | 2 points | Dec 12 2020 00:10:10

It is worth understanding the mechanism because maybe the problem is actually not ivermectin getting into the brain. Maybe ivermectin commonly gets into the brain, and maybe the real problem is some other condition that interacts with it. Or maybe it is about the level of ivermectin in the brain rather than the fact that it is there at all. Some of the Herpes viruses (there are about eight variants including Epstein-Barr) can become resident brain infections, and it would be interesting if ivermectin ended up being a treatment for that, assuming it easily enters the brain.

[-] IcyEven | 1 points | Dec 11 2020 22:29:35

http://www.awca.net/drug.htm, if you want to slug through it, the mechanism is outlined. The same safeguards exist for us. As I understand it, the person who reacted severely to ivermectin was found to have a gene abnormality, extremely rare https://www.nejm.org/doi/pdf/10.1056/NEJMc1917344 .

[-] smorgasmic | 1 points | Dec 12 2020 06:58:37

I guess these mutations are not viewable through a partial genetic scan like 23andme? This is not a test being offered commercially? You would need a full gene sequencing together with a geneticist?

[-] IcyEven | 1 points | Dec 11 2020 21:44:30

I doubt there has been a study using humans. Most data comes from animal trials for human drugs. There have been toxicosis observed in individual human cases, but I don’t expect a study. Splitting a first dose sounds like a good idea. My pcp has advised me to do this with other meds when starting and I did that on the first dose of ivermec...... felt nothing, nada, waited 5 hours, took the second half, now I take the full dose every 6 days. There has been no evidence of resistance which is surprising given the years it’s been used.

[-] smorgasmic | 1 points | Dec 12 2020 00:12:15

Some basic science that could be done in animal studies is to give ivermectin in different doses and schedules, and then sacrifice the animal and measure how much ivermectin stays in different tissues of the body. How much of it gets to the brain in healthy animals that had no side effects?

[-] luiskguess | 1 points | Dec 12 2020 05:07:46

As I remembered from the last PSUR and RMP I did, the possible ways that Ivermectin could cross the hematoencephalic barrier and cause CNS side effects (like convulsions, headache, tremor amnesia, cns sequels) is that the brain could be swollen (stroke, alzheimer, meningitis, traumatism, epilepsy etc) and a certain polymorphism of p glycoprotein.

There could other mechanism but besides those, no one has confirmed any other.

There is a report of this signal on Uppsala Monitoring Centre

[-] smorgasmic | 1 points | Dec 12 2020 06:51:34

Are you aware of any study where they give animals ivermectin and then sacrifice them and try to measure the amount in different tissues including the brain?

[-] luiskguess | 1 points | Dec 21 2020 22:36:59

Unfortunately I dont, well maybe there is some data from any antibiotic including Ivermectin and its derivates from residual concentrations in meat products from any goverment especially from Costa Rica But I dont have access or I dont have any documents that I could share