COVID Sucks As Bad As FDA

Our experience with COVID B.1.617.2 (Delta) Variant

Disclaimer: we are not medical professionals and are not recommending any particular treatments in this article.

We have been careful since COVID first hit in 2019. We washed our groceries before brining them in, we wore gloves and masks everywhere we went before we knew more about how things spread, and I was working remote until September '21. Not that we have become that much more informed over time since the instantiation of COVID other than what media decides to advertise, but what we really learned fast was we weren't prepared to catch it and deal with it. Long story short, we should've researched and had a minimal set of medications on hand and we will keep stocked from now on!

– Day 0 : How it began

It all started for me in the format of a strange headache one evening that was controlled by ibuprofen. The lingering headache came back later in the night along with some bad pain behind the eyes which would remain the next 6 days. It wasn’t the normal feeling of a fever or being sick, so I just thought I didn’t have enough water and went to bed. In the middle of the night I woke up to feeling like my body was feverish. I eventually moved to the tile floor until the morning when we grabbed a COVID test.

– Day 1:

The next morning, Missy went and grabbed a pregnancy style antigen test by Abbott and my heart sank as both lines appeared. The thought of what I’d do for the next 10 days and how much I’d been around the family already put them all at risk, my head spun with thoughts and worry as I marched back and shut the door to my new quarantined ‘sick room’.

The remainder of the day the virus took hold while I listened to the family in the other room play and giggle. The headache and pain behind my eyes, chills from the fever, and complete exhaustion from restless sleep the night before distracted me enough that I can’t even recall if I took any more fever meds the remainder of the day.

I started searching the web for doctors to get some sort of medicine to help treat this because I had more fear of it turning into a hospital stay than anything else. I was given a couple different links from friends and I just went down the lists calling and emailing looking for some advice (I would provide them but I wouldn’t recommend any of them). With no avail Saturday, I decided to get some rest and revisit on Sunday.

– Day 2:

My second day started with more of the same from the previous day. I turned on cartoons for some happiness and started back down the doctor list. I reached my insurance telehealth option through teladoc. At this point I had already read and heard from multiple people that the infamous ivermectin was used to help avoid hospitalization. What I quickly found was disturbing though…

Teladoc was a joke, first of all. I waited for several hours for an “available doctor” after paying $50 and wondering whether it would be worth it or if my phone would error and I’d lose the cash. The young doctor was seemingly swatting flies from his cheap apartment instead of what I expected to be a professional in a clean environment. When he came on video he was quick to tell me “FDA strictly forbid [him] from prescribing ivermectin and he wouldn’t recommend nor supply any other option for antivirals”, but he was willing to give “Doxycycine” and it “might help a little”. The $50 call was done and over with in a matter of seconds and I had nothing but an antibiotic. Wow, way to start the day with disappointment. I also tried one other service, but I won’t mention their name because the doctor that came through also warned she likely wouldn’t be able to fill any antiviral, especially ivermectin, due to FDA restrictions.

I understand there has been some stupidity with Ivermectin: apparently the history is that after the hydroxychloroquine fad of 2020, people quickly jumped on ivermectin. It somehow quickly was banned so people were resourceful and bought the tube made for treating horses from tractor Supply for $6, but they were taking more than the amount allocated for their weight and swallowing the entire tube. You’ll find that since then, Tractor Supply no longer offers this and we don’t advise anyone go get this tube – get a doctor to prescribe you pill form for your specific weight as needed.

Let’s get back to basics though, this medicine has been used for years and is referred to as the “wonder drug” treating not only parasitics in Mexico/India/Africa, but also has been (according to doctors we talked to very recently) seeing amazing results the last year in patients with viral infections. Doctors even used it themselves… but where did they get it, I wondered?

Meanwhile, my wife had been finding another option for a local doctor and was told we would be able to get ivermectin prescribed, but we needed to find a pharmacy willing to fill it.

And so began the great pharmacy hunt. We quickly found that the FDA had maintained control not only over telehealth and many normal doctor resources, but also over the major pharmacies (CVS, Walmart, Safeway, Fry’s, etc). I myself have banned ever using these pharmacies again.

We finally found two pharmacies and had prescriptions in place. We also had a good list of other supplements recommended for viral infections (though if you search you’ll find that nothing is recommended for COVID, odd). But what we were yet to learn was that FDA sucks even worse than controlling doctors and pharmacies, now they’re getting into controlling supplements and vitamins as well!

Some tips on supplements - just realize these may disappear from shelves!

Included is a list of items that our doctor recommended, but please don’t take our word as medical advise and seek professional guidance. We would advise, however, that you at least grab these from the stores for future supply because we were told that FDA WILL be removing things from shelves:

NAME	Purpose
Quercitin	effective on treatment and prophylaxis of other SARS like coronavirus infections, as a strong antioxidant and scavenger flavonoid without any adverse events.
N Acetyl cysteine (FDA is REMOVING)	antioxidant
Zinc	lessens symptoms of viruses
Vitamin D	essential vitamin to avoid and treat sickness
Vitamin C	Immune system booster
B complex	reduces pro-inflammatory cytokine levels, helps improve respiratory function, reduces hypercoagulability, and promotes endothelial structural integrity
Jarrows brand methyl folate, methyl B 12, and P5P combination	Bioavailable Form of Vitamin B-12 That Helps Maintain Brain-Health, and Vitality
Turkey tail mushroom powder	improve gut bacteria balance, which can positively impact your immunity.Nov
Apple cider vinegar	Helps treat nausea

– Day 3:

By this time I had suffered through the majority of the headaches as I battled with not wanting to setup medical leave from work. We only had setup 75% short term pay and I might also have to deal with buyback of PTO with holidays around the corner. Meanwhile the kids were playing outside and the feeling of quarantine and isolation were pretty depressing. I think this was the worst part of this sickness, exhaustion and isolation from family.

Missy was wonderful throughout the 3 days I endured so far and we worked out a system of delivering plates of food and drinks at the door. I’d open and grab it quick to dump it onto a plate/bowl I kept and cleaned inside my sick room. Props to my wife for being amazing!

Missy had cleaned the backyard and started to have some congestion but she was convinced it was just allergies from yard work. She had picked up medications and I was started on ivermectin and she also had a small dosage given to her because of her asthma and worry that COVID would possibly hit her harder if she caught it.

Come to find out, my isolation was in vain because COVID already spread to the family.

– Day 4:

At this point, the kids had come down with fevers and snotty noses but Missy was still holding strong to not being affected… or so we thought. Ibuprofen and tylenol were prevalent in the house and we were halfway convinced the kids might have the child version of COVID. Mornings for me were complete with waking up in sweats (multiple times over multiple pairs of clothes) but at least the headaches were gone, though the eye aches were still annoyingly lingering inhibiting my ability to watch much TV to distract from the sickness. More especially, standing up and doing much of anything was accompanied by dizziness and the popular head fog everyone talks about. What I couldn’t get over was the constant bad taste in the mouth that countless mouthwashes of listerine nor tea would get rid of, the best distraction from it was chewing gum.

By the evening, Missy felt like she had a mild fever and it only registered around 99 so she wasn’t sure it was real but we figured by this point, everyone was exposed in one way or another. I cleaned the sick room with microban sanitizing spray and came out of isolation to be with the family.

– Day 5:

With everyone in the house sick by this point, Missy had her own prescriptions and i was starting to feel more human. Night sweats were a common theme in the house but the littles had pretty well recovered fully in a mere 2 days. Ethan, Missy and I were able to continue enjoying the Vid.

The final symptoms had just began though: I could no longer smell or taste my coffee. Ethan was pretty low on energy and eye strain, not as much eye ache but he didn’t want to open his eyes. I finally started to break fever but still had head dizziness while starting to help take care of Missy and the kids.

– Day 6:

Life finally began to get back to normal while Missy battled chills and the last fever. She and Ethan only lost a small amount of tasting things like coffee, but thank God it stayed out of our chests and lungs. I have a bit of an annoying cough to try clearing the smallest congestion but I was more concerned since the onset of keeping all congestion out of my chest.

We are recovering well now and pray if you or friends experience this sickness that it is as mild as ours was. We’re so thankful to be through it and able to focus on our favorite holidays coming up!

One last note and thank you to all our friends that helped us with meals, meds, and checking in on us along the way! You made our hearts full and if you need anything we want to be there for you too!