This is not medical advice. These are just a few of my thoughts and experiences regarding covid and the experience I had when it entered my body.
Covid 19 is an extremely complicated virus. When Sars-COV-2 entered the scene in 2020, I questioned whether or not it may be lab created considering the diverse way the body was reacting to it. Id’ never, in my 22 yrs of critical care, seen a virus do so many strange things to the body. Loss of taste and smell, micro clotting, happy hypoxia and bilateral ground glass appearance on chest film are a unique set of symptoms. I’d read about the research that was done in 2015 at North Carolina Chapel Hill where they added a spike protein to a virus and were amazed at how infectious it was to human lung tissue. As early as March 2020, I was trying to engage doctors in the conversation of whether it was lab created. That was a conversation the did not want to have.
I witnessed all those symptoms in many of the patients I took care of. Happy hypoxia has to be the strangest symptom. Never had I seen it! In the past, whenever anybody had a blood saturation below 85%, they’d be breathing fast and would have increased work of breathing. I witnessed many COVID patients with blood saturations below 80% who felt no shortness of breath and were breathing completely normal. Very strange. I can’t explain that but I would have to opine that the virus does something to the red blood cell in a way that the brain is not triggered to react to low O2 levels.
Bilateral ground glass appearance on chest film was also bewildering. The radiologists would read an x-ray and comment that it had an appearance indicative of covid pneumonia…bilateral ground glass appearance. What is that? Well, it is inflammation in the lungs. It is the bodies over-reaction to the virus. That is what I am getting at with this blog. The virus is one thing, but what the body does to fight it, and an over-reaction of the immune system is what has been lethal to so many people. What happens is that the body is stimulated to produce the pro-inflammatory interleukin-6, which can cause the dreaded ‘cytokine storm’. So, though the virus and it’s wicked spike can cause people to get sick, it is your own body over-reacting and causing a hyper immune response, that will get you admitted to the hospital.
I just had a personal encounter with covid. I was weak and achy for a few days and had a little nasal congestion along with a very mild morning cough. I lost my taste and smell. What did I do? First, I went to the supplement cabinet and grabbed my turmeric. Turmeric is a root that may help decrease inflammation due to covid and the hyper immune response. It can help inhibit macrophages from producing inflammatory cytokine proteins. Although the over 600 studied benefits of Turmeric are just now getting international attention and recognition in recent years, it has been used in Ayurvedic medicine for over 6,000 years. Western medicine ignores the benefits of many useful herbs and vitamins and their abilities to help the body stay healthy. Turmeric is just one of the herbs and vitamins I reached for when I became ill. Garlic capsules! Echinacea! Astragalus! Vitamin D, and lots of it. NAC, which increases glutathione can also help boost the immune system. Turmeric alone is difficult to absorb through digestion. This is because it is fat soluble. Without fat, the active component in turmeric, curcumin, has a difficult time making it past the stomach, into the small intestine, and into the blood where it can offer the greatest benefits. Another way to help with the absorption of Turmeric is to take it with black pepper. The compound piperine, which is responsible for the pungent flavor in black pepper, is also a potent inhibitor of drug metabolism. One of the ways our liver gets rid of foreign substances is by making them water soluble so they can be easily excreted. The piperine molecule, however, prevents that process. The bioavailability of curcumin (turmeric) will shoot up 2,000% when taken with piperine (black pepper). You need a quality turmeric supplement if you want to get the best results. Liquid form may be the best option, but not all supplements are created equal.
I don’t discount western, or allopathic medicine completely. It has it’s place. I will quote my friend, Dr. Matt Scott, “if I get gangrene, I want penicillin.” Same with covid and the sars-cov 2 virus. I used budesonide to help ward off the potential for inflammation in the lungs. Budesonide is a safe and inexpensive inhaled corticosteroid that has been used for many years. There was research done on the original sars virus that showed that budesonide can reduce ACE-2 in the lungs and also help to block some of the interleukins than can cascade into a cytokine storm.
We need to spread awareness in this country about nutrition and lifestyle and how to take control of our own destiny when it comes to our health and well-being. We need to build a parallel system beside the one already in place if we really want to become more vibrant and healthy and break the chains tying us to expensive medicine. We must contemplate the fact that the number three cause of death in this country is iatrogenic death, unintentional death caused by doctors and medicine. There are many things we can do so that we don’t need medicine and aren’t subjected to the ridiculously increasing cost of healthcare. The United States spends twice as much as the world average on healthcare and we’re ranked 34th in life expectancy after birth. We lead the world in heart disease and diabetes. For the first time ever, our life expectancy is dropping. What has gone wrong? That’s a complicated question to answer, but we can start with ‘SAD’, the Standard American Diet. We eat horribly. We eat food like substances, rather than food. We are stressed to the max. We don’t breath correctly. We watch too much television “PROGRAMMING”. The list goes on. We must begin to fix this problem.
Since I resigned as a respiratory therapist, I’ve decided to become a functional health coach. My wife and I are nearly done with the course and our training. We cannot wait to actually help people and show them an alternative that can actually help them maintain healthy and happier lives. If you’re interested in learning more, send me a message. I hope you are all well. I hope you will all continue to fight with me. I want to preserve freedom for our children and I want to educate them so that they can be wise, kind, compassionate and productive in a way that makes the world a better place.
Peace! Love! Freedom!
Mark Bishofsky