The odd thing about this video is this guy has had long covid for over 9 months. I am sure he wanted to prove ivermecin didn't work He buys some and reports that he feels completely normal after taking it. But, a week later the symptoms return. Take some more!

permalink

He tells people to check out the (non-committal) Dr Mike Hansen video on whether he will give ivermectin, and the meta-analysis by Dr Andrew Hill of University of Liverpool.

He does mention Aguirre Chang (Peru) studies on using ivermectin + aspirin to reverse taste/smell loss.

He however he is wrong to say Aguirre Chang has not followed up - since they have released more papers - but may be true that not followed up the same people for longer perhaps.

However, what this video is more useful for are the comments on his video by long haulers saying it has helped them.

 

And interestingly it includes a first person account of him using ivermectin

At the 4:30 minute mark:

(I assume he is a long hauler ie was infected some time ago with presumably no or little live virus, but is experiencing the symptoms known as long covid or long hauler syndrome)

He says he procured ivermectin (sourced from India) and took it. On days 2,3,4 he felt better. On days 3 and 4 he felt almost normal.

But 2 weeks later he was back where he was before in terms of long hauler symptoms.

He however attributes this to one of ivermectin's purported properties ie anti-inflammatory effect. And conjectures that perhaps this is because the effect of Ivermectin is only for so long.

But if the inflammatory processes are ongoing then it may not be curable with a single dose - either because of continuing dysregulation of the immune system for some reason, or more intriguingly from the possibility of viral persistence ie while majority of live virus is gone by day 8, there may be small reservoirs of live virus left on place in places in the body that are immuno-protected (like the brain, testes etc.) from the immune system (as can happen with some viruses).

If viral persistence is at play, that may explain the renewal of long hauler symptoms after a while.

But then immune dysregulation could also be a thing.

Note he does concede ivermectin's very real benefit for acute disease, and suggests if viral reservoir is an issue (as evidenced in some studies where presumably live virus was found in intestine biopsies etc.), then ivermectin could have a role to counter that.

He concludes by saying he doesnt advise others to do what he did ie source ivermectin on his own.

And he points out ivermectin is still not freely available over the counter in US and UK.

NOTE: I should point out that while some long haulers anecdotes suggest benefit, there are long haulers who say ivermectin did not help then - some instead say that Famotidine helped them more.

So there could be an explanation for this - that different people have different reasons for their long hauler syndrome - some could be organ damage related, some to immune syndrome, and some to viral persistence perhaps.

permalink