Possibly of Use: Special COVID Edition

[swan_tower]

Last week, after four and a half years of successfully dodging it, my husband and I got hit by the covid bullet. Not too badly, and Paxlovid helped to reduce our symptoms more rapidly (at the cost of, yes, a very unpleasant metal taste that came and went for five days), but it nevertheless wiped us out pretty hard. A week after first testing positive, I still don't quiiiiiiite have a negative test result, and I am still sleeping far more than I used to.

This experience prompted me to experiment with two things that -- per the mission statement of these posts -- could possibly be of use to others. Big asterisk this time, which is that I'm about to pass on Internet Medical Advice, and we all know what that's worth . . . but hey, this at least one comes with PubMed citations? It's also stuff that in most cases will, at worst, do you no harm, which puts ahead of some of the other Internet Medical Advice out there.

The straightforward one first: melatonin. A friend linked me to this study, which says that in addition to helping address the sleep disruption caused by covid, it may -- more studies are needed -- actually do something against the virus itself, up to and including making vaccination more effective. Since I got absolutely shitty sleep the first two nights I was sick, I figured that if all it did was help me sleep better, I was already ahead, and if it did more than that, bonus! It made a massive difference in my ability to rest, which is good for healing all on its own. (I did, however, have to check for potential interactions with the small mountain of other medications I was taking. The only real flags were that it + dextromethorphan, aka cough suppressant, might make me extra drowsy -- oh no, don't throw me in that briar patch -- and that ritonavir, one of the components of Paxlovid, might make the melatonin less effective.)

The slightly less straightforward one comes from this blog post, which collects sources in support of a certain antihistamine protocol. The short form is that combining two classes of antihistamine -- one found in most OTC anti-allergy medications, and one found in most OTC acid controllers -- may improve your chances of full recovery and reduce the risk of long covid, improve the symptoms of long covid, and (weaker evidence here) even lower your chances of catching covid in the first place. There's more explanation there if you're interested, along with the specifics of the protocol.

Take all this with a grain of salt, of course (provided there are no negative interactions between salt and any other medications you might be on). IANA doctor of any stripe, your own personal medical situation might include factors that make one or both of these a bad idea, and all of them need more study. But in my case, there was no compelling reason not to try them. Whether they helped against the virus itself, I don't know -- but at least I got some better sleep out of it.

Comments

[yhlee]

I am glad they helped at least with sleep!!

I've seen that blog post re antihistamines and I am unfortunately so sensitive to the sedation effects of every one I've tried that the protocol as written would probably be actively dangerous to me but I have known weird reactions. (A single regular dose of any antihistamine I've tried will typically knock me out for 20 hours if not more. I have to knock it back to 1/3 or 1/4 the regular dose, and the other side effects are terrible too. But again - I am at the weird end of the bell curve.)

[swan_tower]

Boo, I'm sorry to hear it. This stuff is so weirdly idiosyncratic to personal biology.

[starlady]

Also not a doctor, but I do think my copious antihistamine usage (including Rx nasal spray) has helped me only get Covid once. (I probably have subclinical MCAS.) I've been in situations where I had a confirmed exposure (in 2022 I even shared a hotel room with someone who turned out to have Covid!) and not gotten it. Of course, I have no idea where the exposure that gave me Covid in 2023 happened. But the Covid/mast cell linkage is well established among leading long Covid researchers at this point, and I'm definitely going to do the antihistamine pre-protocol before my next covid jab.

[jreynoldsward]

Also probably subclinical MCAS here, and have been paying attention to the likelihood of Covid/mast cell linkage ever since the reports of a cytokine storm as part of severe Covid. I have lots of allergies and control of them only really started happening once I started addressing mast cell formation through the use of montelekast (Singulair). That drug was a life-changer for me. But I have the privilege of being able to isolate so that makes a difference. Interestingly, going to a daily dose of H2 antihistamine is helping my IBS as well as the allergies, so...

(I was prescribed Pepcid for managing the aftereffects of a bee sting years ago so I knew about its antihistamine properties. Makes sense.)

[swan_tower]

And IBS may be interlinked somehow with ME/CFS, which may have a lot in common with long covid, which which which . . . It's going to be really interesting to see how our treatment of a whole cluster of conditions changes over the next few years, with covid driving a lot of research into those underlying factors.

[swan_tower]

I wouldn't be surprised if kniedzw, with his allergies, is in a similar situation. He got less sick than I did, this past week, though if I'm right about the vector, I probably also got a more substantial exposure than he did.

[pameladean]

I'm glad you're recovering reasonably well! I've made a note of the melatonin. I don't feel it's likely that I'll never ever get COVID, bar some fantastic breakthrough that nobody seems in a hurry to make.

I've got lots of famotidine (Pepcid) lying around -- it didn't adequately control heartburn, so I had to switch meds -- but it won't expire for a while; and I always have Allegra on hand. A strange dragon hoard to be sitting on, in truth.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

P.

[swan_tower]

bar some fantastic breakthrough that nobody seems in a hurry to make

Just saw the news today that they have discovered an antibody which seems to provide broad-spectrum protection against not just all the variants of the virus that causes covid, but other coronaviruses as well. So the research is ongoing, and it may have taken a big step forward! (Now, to figure out how to get our immune systems to reliably produce that antibody . . .)

[ruthling]

paxlovid mouth was something else for sure.

[mindstalk]

grapefruit aftertaste, all week long!

[swan_tower]

It managed to wake me up from a dead sleep -- I was napping and then POW, metal taste punched me in the mouth.

But I still prefer that to unchecked viral replication.

[alexseanchai]

I wonder if that's why I'm so much less flattened by yesterday's covid and flu shots than I expected? bc I don't think I took melatonin last time and I definitely did last night

[swan_tower]

I dunno what melatonin does with it! The stuff I saw about aiding with the vaccine was for the antihistamine combo. Glad you weren't flattened, though!

[mindstalk]

Another anthistamine/long covid article from my journal, not sure if your link included it or not in her sources. https://www.news-medical.net/news/20220214/Antihistamines-may-offer-hope-for-long-COVID-patients.aspx

[swan_tower]

Thanks!