Did you see 60 Minutes on Sunday (March 7, 2021)? Dr. Lenze discussed his study on a generic, cheap medicine that was shown to be effective as a treatment for COVID-19. The medicine is fluvoxamine, an antidepressant that may be useful as a repurposed medicine. The problem is, it got very little press and few doctors know about it.
The study involved 152 participants from April through August of 2020 who were randomly assigned to receive either 100 mg fluvoxamine or placebo 3 times daily for 15 days. Clinical deterioration (defined as shortness of breath, hospitalization for SOB, pneumonia or oxygen saturation of less than 92% on room air) occurred in 0 of the 80 patients in the fluvoxamine group, but in 6 of 72 patients in the placebo group. It’s a small study, but it did meet criteria for clinical significance. A larger study is currently underway and may be released as soon as April 2021.
Other treatments and preventive therapies also have mounting research studies behind them. Ivermectin, as used in the I-MASK protocol created by Dr. Paul Marik is an example. I-MASK also incorporates vitamin D. Vitamin D has numerous studies showing its effectiveness for prevention and newer studies finding it to be an effective treatment for COVID-19.
Your doctor may not know about these therapies to offer them to you. Therefore, links have been included here for you to find out more information and to share with your doctor.
References
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/fluvoxamine-antidepressant-drug-covid-treatment-60-minutes-2021-03-07/
Lenze, EJ, Mattar C, Zorumski CF, Stevens A, Schweiger J, Nicol GE, Miller JP, Yang L, Yingling M, Avidan MS, Reiersen AM. Fluvoxamine vs Placebo and Clinical Deterioration in Outpatients With Symptomatic COVID-19: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA. 2020 Dec 8;324(22):2292-2300. doi: 10.1001/jama.2020.22760. PMID: 33180097; PMCID: PMC7662481.