Marcus Aurelius said:
Rev any anecdotes on day 1-2 HCQ treatment for COVID-19? Getting this ? a lot. I'm not seeing these folks that early.
Yes i have had quite a few. Most impressive being a 91 year old with diarrhea for a day than spiked a 103.1 fever with cough and some mild shortness of breath the next day. Daughter did not want to go to hospital because she was afraid they would never see him again, since they don't allow visitors in hospital. He lives with daughter and we all three discussed it. He has history of A-fib so instead of Zithromax we used doxycycline. (I have done this twice him and a lady with a history of prolonged QT who I called the cardiologist for. He said not to worry just don't use zithromax it is more dangerous than the HCQ. So i substitute doxy) This guy really kind of scared me though being at home at 91 and I didn't have a pulse ox or reliable vitals since this was a televisit.
I gave strong warnings to ER if fever increases, palpitations, tachycardia, chest pain or increasing shortness of breath. Daughter and him really wanted to try this at home first so we agreed. He started on this around noon that day. I called him and daughter after work about 8 pm he had 102.1 temp still and still generally felt bad but says he thinks he is breathing better. Next day at 9 am i called and he had 100.5 temp but diarrhea and cough were improving some. No shortness of breath at that time. Next morning i called at 9 am daughter said he was afebrile and felling fine. Only symptom was a mild cough. I got him on the phone and he was eating breakfast and told me he feels normal. I said wow that's really impressive but lets make sure nothing else happens today. I forgot to call that evening but did call the next morning and he said he is fine and cough is almost resolved.
Another is a 52 y/o with diabetes, HTN, hypercholestemia, obesity and history of coronary stent. He came in with 3 days of fever, cough, shortness of breath. He actually presented to my clinic unfortunately. He had a pulse ox of 92%, temp 103.4, BP 146/94, pulse rate 104 and respiration rate of 22. His chest X-ray in the office looked terrible and bilateral peri-hilar infiltrates with a ground glass appearance. He could barely talk in the office and we had use a wheelchair to get him to X-ray. He looked really sick. I told him that clinically he has covid-19. He had that scared look in eyes back at me that all of doctors have seen when like when you tell someone they are having an MI or CVA. He said "I know I do! I have been sick 100 times in my life and never felt anything like this. I feel like I am being hung from the ceiling and beaten with sticks like a pinata."
He also did not want to go the hospital I told him to go get tested, isolate and we will try the HCQ/zithromax. I called him after work about 9 pm and asked how is doing. He said "I'm still breathing but that's about it." Still had fever of around 103 that night. I called in the morning and was breathing better. Pain was better and fever down to 101. That night about 6 pm he was afebrile pains were gone, still coughing and mildly short of breath. But voice on phone now sounded normal. Next day he felt fine but still coughing. He actually never went and got tested. Told me he felt too bad to mess with it, so we ran antibody testing weeks after which was positive.
Few others but those are most impressive as they had risk factors and were clinically pretty sick at the time but responded very rapidly. My feelings are if us in the community jump on this we have a good chance to stop it before it gets severe, I have spoke with a number of primary care doctors and we are similar anecdotal results. I know if I catch it I will be treating it as soon as possible with HCQ/Zithromax.
And FYI I really appreciate all the updates you and the others at the hospital have been giving us. It gives me a lot of insight to how things are going after they get admitted and results you all are getting with treatments in the hospital.
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