Stopping The Invader At The Gate

When it comes to pain, I like to look past conventional wisdom in search of truths that mainstream thinking misses (or chooses to ignore).

And right now, I feel compelled to speak up.

Because there are some profound parallels between the pain industry and mainstream medicine’s approach to the coronavirus.

The first is that lifestyle approaches such as…

• nutritional therapies,
• exercise and movement
• and supporting the body’s overall state of balance

… aren’t interesting to pharmaceutical companies because they can’t make any money off them.

That’s why all we hear from mainstream media is that our only hope lies in the development of a vaccine.

But here’s the unfortunate truth:

Even in the best-case scenario, developing a vaccine will take much longer than a few months (if it’s even possible at all.)

Vaccine safety and efficacy are hotly debated topics. The development of these vaccines is being heavily rushed from the 2+ years that is normally the "fast track", and it behooves us to all be very careful – and also realistic.

The world is in a panic, and pharmas know that medically-related fear is an excellent environment in which to harvest enormous financial windfalls.

Recent trends that come to mind are the overprescription of opiates in inappropriate and unnecessary settings, costing hundreds of thousands of lives; the explosion of drugs for chronic lifestyle illnesses such as high blood pressure, depression, anxiety, diabetes, ED and many others.

Here’s another factor to consider:

The financial reward for developing a COVID vaccine will dwarf any other successful drug, past or present.

So it’s understandable (in a cynical kind of way) that it’s all we hear about.

Now I don’t watch a lot of normal television, but when I do, I’m dumbfounded by how many pharmaceutical ads run all day long.

For more background on this topic, I highly recommend The Hacking of the American Mind: The Science Behind the Corporate Takeover of Our Bodies and Brains by Robert Lustig, MD. I’ve found this book to be incredibly transformative, and consider it a must-read for those of us entrusted with guiding our clients through healing.

Personally, I’m not going to wait around for a COVID vaccine to save me.

What is never talked about in mainstream media is the fact that we have specific ways to support our immune system, minimize progression to severity and mitigate the symptoms and severity of COVID patients with enlightened treatments.

Treatment

If someone does develop severe symptoms, there are some very hopeful studies emerging that put into question the current standard of care of putting patients on a ventilator and hoping for the best. This virus doesn’t behave like traditional respiratory diseases, and mechanical ventilation has shown a very poor outcome with COVID-19.

Several leading critical care specialists at academic centers and major hospitals have formed the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Working Group. Based on available research, the experience in China reflected by the Shanghai expert commission, and their decades-long professional experiences in Intensive Care Units around the country, these experts have since developed the MATH+ COVID-19 Early Treatment Protocol for patients presenting with low oxygen rates, breathing difficulties, or other symptoms of the disease in hospitals.

A key part of the MATH+ protocol is IV infusion of high dose vitamin C, along with anti-inflammatory steroids and blood thinners.

High dose vitamin C has now been studied extensively and very successfully over a period of decades in treatment of many viral conditions, including COVID.

Vitamin C is a powerful antiviral at high doses, and also can interrupt the cytokine storm that often produces mortality in these patients.

The medications used in the MATH+ protocol are widely available generics, which of course make them far less interesting to pharmas than expensive, patentable vaccines.

Prevention

We can’t all isolate forever, even though it does drop infection rates. This is a highly infectious disease. It isn’t fake and it is highly lethal for some people. There are certain genetic variations that make people highly susceptible, dangerous comorbidities have been noted, plus we’re just beginning to understand the role that insufficient vitamin D levels play in making certain groups very vulnerable.

I follow a personal protocol, based on solid science and clinical experience, that supports the immune system and mitigates the likelihood of a severe inflammatory response (which is what kills severe patients).

Before I share it with you, let me just say this:

I’m not a medical doctor. Please don’t mistake this for medical advice. This is simply what I’m doing to support my immune system based on my reading of the evidence that’s out there. I encourage you to read the sources and come to your own conclusions. Simply consuming mainstream media will not give you the complete story.

With that out of the way, here’s my protocol.

My Personal Daily COVID Protocol:

• 5000 mg Vitamin D3/K2
• 3000 mg Liposomal Vitamin C
• 20-50 mg zinc + copper
• Magnesium
• Melatonin
• Propolis nasal and throat spray
• Hand-washing, mask wearing in public, social distancing

The Critical Importance of Vitamin D Supplementation

Vitamin D plays an essential role in supporting immune response and many other processes in the body. Most relevant, several studies have shown a high correlation between serum Vitamin D levels and the reduction of severity and morbidity in COVID-19.

The following illustrations are taken from How We Can Fix This Pandemic In A Month, by Damien Downing, MBBS, MRSB, Orthomolecular Medicine News Service.

Vitamin D plays a role in upregulating the ACE2 receptors that are the targets of the spikes on the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Upper-normal levels of this nutrient have been shown to dramatically reduce the progression to immune overreaction that produces severe symptoms and death in so many. Please see Rhonda Patrick’s excellent article on this topic, Vitamin D May Reduce Susceptibility to COVID-19 Lung Injury.

It has been shown in many studies that people of color have higher risk for severe COVID symptoms and death. This trend also correlates with vitamin D serum levels, because higher melanin in skin reduces the efficiency of vitamin D production from sunlight. The elderly are also far less efficient producers of vitamin D from sun exposure.

Nearly everyone in non-equatorial latitudes is deficient in vitamin D, particularly in the US, where our obsession with sunscreen virtually guarantees that we not only eliminate natural vitamin D production, but also saturate our skin, our most absorbent organ, with many known carcinogens.

Vitamin C: A Potent Antiviral

"I have not seen any flu yet that was not cured or markedly ameliorated by massive doses of vitamin C." (Robert F. Cathcart, MD)

Vitamin C is another nutrient that has gotten far less attention than it deserves. It has been identified since the late 1940s as an effective intervention in many very serious viral illnesses. http://www.doctoryourself.com/klennerpaper.html.

Part of the reason for its lack of acceptance has been a failure to understand the importance of dosage. In the small amounts recommended in the American RDA (100 mg/day or less) it is only really useful for avoiding scurvy, but has no antiviral capability.

Several studies, including in Wuhan, have shown that megadoses of vitamin C (10-50 grams/day) administered intravenously was of tremendous value in avoiding severe symptoms and death from COVID.

The maintenance dose recommended during the pandemic by the Orthomolecular physicians is 3g/day, which is what I take. 

Liposomal forms offer much higher absorption and less likelihood of producing bowel tolerance (which causes diarrhea, its only known negative effect). Bowel tolerance can be avoided by splitting up doses.

Conclusions

Unfortunately, our corporate health care system has inherent financial motivations that are not aligned with the goals of supporting our health.

Nearly 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug, and more than half receive at least two prescriptions. 20% of Americans are on 5 or more medications.

Rates of obesity, diabetes and endocrine disease are at epidemic proportions in our country according to Dr. Lustig, himself an endocrinologist who wrote his book because he got tired of seeing younger and younger kids already desperately sick from the inevitable consequences of the Standard American Diet.

This situation, combined with the fact that the vast majority of Americans have major vitamin D and vitamin C insufficiency, is a perfect setup for the storm that is COVID-19 in this country. We are discovering that asymptomatic cases are much more prevalent than previously thought, which means that the mortality rate is lower than anticipated. However, it is a highly contagious organism, and preys on particular comorbidities, genetic and medical characteristics, including insufficient vitamin D levels. 

If we can prevent most cases from becoming severe by providing proper nutritional support, it changes the game entirely, and removes our dependency on big pharma and the holy grail vaccine, and would allow us to responsibly open our societies again without fear of overwhelming the critical care infrastructure.

Corporate medicine doesn’t make any money when we are well. And a viral pandemic is a staggering financial windfall opportunity for vaccine developers. It is very sad, but not surprising that nobody in the mainstream talks about these humble nutrients that enable the body to do its job and defend itself against pathogens.

As I say in my pain work, knowledge is power – and understanding the true sources of pain allows us to pursue treatments that support our own body’s natural intelligence. I’m applying the same principles here.

Thanks for reading, and as always I welcome your questions and comments.

Be safe, Chuck