2023 COVID Update – what to do if I’m feeling sick – do I keep OR cancel my appt
It’s a good idea to keep a home COVID test around or to purchase new ones before the uptick in COVID anticipated, progressing from fall 2023 into 2024.
Check expiration dates on the COVID tests you do have – yes, they do expire – especially the free ones the government sent out last year.
Have any of the following symptoms, consider COVID as a possibility:
· Fever & Chills
· Cough
· Fatigue
· Body Aches
· Headaches
· Sore Throat
· Congestion/Runny Nose
· Nausea-Vomiting/Diarrhea
· Sudden or recent loss of sense of taste or smell
If you are experiencing these symptoms and
you have an appointment with Dr. Cohen in the office
please do a COVID test at home first, to see if it is positive.
If the test is negative, I urge you to please wear a mask, ideally an N95, KN95 or N94 and to KEEP YOUR APPOINTMENT – explanation why below.
IF YOU TEST POSITIVE FOR COVID please let Dr. Cohen know so he can send you his immune and respiratory boosting regimen from Fullscripts. Express-ship the regimen and start immediately. Or you can order it directly by following this link:
Scroll down below for current information on what to do if you tested positive for COVID to expedite recovery.
But why wait? Boost your immunity now: You may want to consider starting this regimen now. Recall, an ounce of prevention is worth etc…..
If you want to start an immune boosting regimen now here’s the list of what to order: https://us.fullscript.com/protocols/wcohen1692755610-immune-support-and-covid
Why keep my appointment if I’m feeling sick but don't have COVID?
Dr. Still, the first osteopath said most disease is a “want of supply or an excess of waste” to the infected and affected areas of the body.
Osteopathy originally made its name treating infectious diseases, specifically bacterial and viral infections that included everything from pneumonia to cholera to whooping cough to scarlet fever and on and on. When Osteopathy was first practiced in the 1800s by Dr. Still, there were no antibiotics and no vaccines. The first antibiotic wasn’t invented until 1928 and vaccines that were effective came even later. Diseases we now avoid contracting by getting vaccinated; or take for granted, by treating with antibiotics often resulted in death before the 20th century.
Osteopathy as practiced by Dr. Still and continuing to this day improves blood supply and lymph drainage to areas of infection, gets ribs back in place from excessive coughing and the major diaphragms of the body moving all to optimize healing capacity.
For more checkout my other two blog posts on this subject:
https://www.findinghealth.info/post/osteopathy-boosts-immunity-helping-protect-against-covid-19-a-more-technical-overview Osteopaths including Dr. Cohen have been treating people with influenza and pneumonia and other infectious diseases since the 1800s. While Dr. Cohen advocates isolation for the safety of staff and other patients if you’ve tested positive for COVID, he advocates coming in and getting treated for common colds and other infectious diseases to hasten recovery and decrease severity of symptoms. Dr. Cohen continues to wear a N95 mask to protect himself against infection, reducing risk to others. Dr. Cohen also takes the same regimen to boost his immune system that is suggested below.
WHAT TO DO IF YOU HAVE COVID? –
AND SOME THOUGHTS TO PREVENT IT:
The best offense is a good defense
PLAXOVID and other antivirals: If you’ve contracted COVID and have tested positive within five days or less you may wish to consult your PCP Primary Care Physician to see if you are a candidate for Plaxovid, which has been FDA approved for the treatment of COVID.
Dr. Cohen advocates boosting the immune system with the following products which can be ordered through the Fullscripts Website:
If you’re having trouble ordering the immune boosting-COVID regimen, please call
858-587-1822
The following is a suggested supplement package to help boost the immune system through the fall-winter season.
Order the supplements detailed below by clicking on this link:
The best offense is a good defense, and the supplements below are a good support for our immune system as well as many vital functions in the body. Doing comprehensive testing of individuals utilizing NutraEval testing by Genova Dr. Cohen and his colleagues find most people are deficient in these nutrients critical to optimal immune function and healing from infectious diseases:
1.) Liposomal Methyl B-Complex by Quicksilver Scientific: Many individuals lack the gene to properly process Vitamin B12 and so it needs to be methylated. The suspension of the Vitamin B complex in fat makes it more bioavailable. Dr. Cohen took Vitamin B capsules for years and when he started taking this in the mornings, found an instant and noticeable boost to his energy. Vitamin B12 injections are also available in the office during appointments if requested.
2.) C Liquazome by Apex Energetics – Vitamin C in individual packets 1000mg suspended in a fat. Like the Bs above, the Vitamin C suspended in fat is far more bioavailable. ALSO GREAT FOR TRAVEL. This product is also available in bottles on the Fullscript Site or from Apex Energetics if you’ve signed up there.
3.) Vitamin D3: Not only a huge immune booster but a critical player in many biochemical processes. Patients say: “but I’m out in the sun all day” and the response given is “how much of your skin is truly exposed” and are you wearing sunscreen? Bottom line, most patients are D3 deficient and taking a large dose when you're sick is a good boost. Normally advise 5,000IU daily for most people who are not sick or have been boosted with the 10K dose initially.
4.) Zinc 30mg has long been proven as a good immune booster and this a great brand. I do find manufacturing matters and to that end brands matter in choosing what I put in my body.
5.) My Community is a blend of 17 mushrooms by mycology guru Paul Stamets. For a wonderful documentary on the medicinal and healing powers of mushrooms check out: https://watch.fantasticfungi.com/
6.) Quercetin-Phytosome by Thorne: Only suggest taking this IF you have SARS-COVID19 or any disease that is adversely affecting your respiratory function such as a pneumonia, bronchitis, or other respiratory illness. Quercetin is an excellent anti-inflammatory for the lungs and respiratory system, and Dr. Cohen first came across it, treating the Amish, who avoid prescription drugs and used it both for themselves and their children for any respiratory illness, in rural Iowa and Missouri during Dr. Cohen’s residency training. It was used routinely for the same when working with Mimi Guarneri, MD a leader in integrative medicine at Pacific Pearl-La Jolla, the first three years of Dr. Cohen’s professional practice.
SUPPORTIVE CARE GUIDELINES
Most COVID-19 infections can be cleared with “supportive care” – meaning the kinds of care you grandmother or your mother engaged in when they were sick.
Isolate:
People should isolate for 5 days from the first sign of symptoms.
CDC states you can end isolation after five days, if … you have been fever free for 24 hours without fever reducing meds and your condition has improved.
The five days are counted as follows: Day Zero is the first day of symptom onset – Day 1 is the first full day of symptoms.
CDC – and common-sense recommendations are as follows:
Wear a high-quality mask if you must be around others at home and in public.
Do not go places where you are unable to wear a mask. For travel guidance, see CDC’s Travel webpage.
Stay home and separate from others as much as possible.
Use a separate bathroom, if possible.
Take steps to improve ventilation at home, if possible.
Don’t share personal household items, like cups, towels, and utensils.
Monitor your symptoms. If you have an emergency warning sign (like trouble breathing), seek emergency medical care immediately.
Also:
· Rest is key – especially in the first day or two. Thereafter do move around from time-to time – to keep the body moving which pumps blood, lymphatics, and nutrients through the body. Just lying in bed for days on end should be avoided if possible after the first days or even earlier as tolerated.
· Regularly disinfect surfaces, handles, door knobs that can be touched by others
· Wash hands frequently
· Practice diaphragmatic breathing: Inhale deeply through your nose breathe out through your lips (pursing the lips may help) focusing on the movement of your diaphragm. To do this, place a hand on your belly. Try to push the hand on your belly upward towards the ceiling as you lay flat, forward if seated upright. Then push all the air out. Practice for one to three minutes hourly.
· Stay well hydrated by drinking water or fluids with electrolytes.
· Remember to eat, even if you don’t feel like it. Broths are good because they will hydrate and contain some fats and nutrients. Consume solid foods as tolerated. But do eat, to maintain energy to help your body to heal.
· Over The Counter Meds like Ibuprofen and Advil (NSAIDs) are okay for alleviating symptoms like body aches and fighting fever. But if experiencing a fever below 100.4 you may want to initially let it run, as a fever is part of your body's own defenses to help fight infectious disease. Consult with your pediatrician on acceptable fever temps to allow to run their course in children, as the allowable temperature is often higher than in adults. Avoid Ibuprofen and NSAIDs if you have GI or kidney issues. Consider Tylenol instead of Ibuprofen or NSAIDs. If absolutely necessary, alternate between NSAIDs and Tylenol every 4-6 hours, and ideally less frequently, every 8 or 12 hours, if possible. Benadryl can also be used to alleviate symptoms but may make you drowsy.
GET MEDICAL HELP – CALL YOUR PRIMARY CARE PROVIDER or go to the EMERGENCY ROOM IF…
· You have a high fever, above 100.4F that persists for days, even when taking OTC meds for fever
· You’re having Chest Pain
· You’re having Shortness of Breath or trouble breathing. Another sign of this is pale, gray or blue colored skin, mouth lips or nail beds of the fingers or toes.
· Nausea and vomiting that prevents you from getting nutrition.
· Suddenly have a hard time walking
· Suddenly have a change in your cognitive abilities to recognize people, reason, do basic tasks
VACCINES:
Dr. Cohen hopes he won’t lose any patients for posting about this - and even having to express that thought - is indicative of the fraught and stressful times all those providing healthcare have been working under since the start of COVID in March 2020.
First an anecdotal thought from Dr. Cohen’s own life experience, on how vaccines have changed the course of human history:
As many patients know, Dr. Cohen spent almost 20 years in the New York City area. He made frequent trips to rural – upstate New York for a number of years; the Berkshires during residency; and trips throughout New England. This is the older part of the country and with it, come older cemeteries. It was always bewildering to walk through the cemeteries and to imagine the suffering endured by those earlier pioneers, those who founded this country. There were family plots with multiple tombstones of children, who died at ages 1… 2… 3… 4… 5…. years old, sometimes only months. Those deaths were mostly due to infectious diseases.
Vaccines changed all that. Today most parents don’t have to worry about losing children to mumps, measles, diphtheria, scarlet fever, whooping cough. Vaccines have made the vast majority of people’s lives longer, safer and better.
Dr. Cohen believes in math.
Dr. Cohen believes in science.
Dr. Cohen can understand vaccine skepticism in December of 2020 when the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines were first introduced. Even though the new vaccines boasted efficacy in the low 90s – a very high rate of efficacy for any vaccine - (the flu vaccine that people have embraced for years is only effective in the mid to high 50s in preventing influenza) the technology was newer. What would be the long-term effects of the vaccines? Were the vaccines adequately tested?
Now in 2023 – three years later - After billions, yes, with a “b” billions of doses of vaccines administered, most people have had no or very minimal and transient side effects to the COVID19 Vaccines.
As an osteopath, we are often seen as “physicians-of-last-resort” and consequently, osteopaths do see more people who have had vaccine reactions than many physicians in other specialities. Vaccine reactions are real and a risk, but everything medicine has to offer comes with risk, even taking an aspirin, an NSAID or Tylenol.
SO WHY DO SOME PHYSICIANS OPPOSE VACCINATIONS?
If you’re a worm living in a jar of mustard your whole world is mustard. It’s easy to understand the misconceptions of those physicians, who are against vaccines, because sadly, a higher concentration of people who have had vaccine reactions (relative to the general population) comprise their patient population. That does not mean the whole world is suffering from vaccine reactions or the data supports any prevalence warranting recommending against vaccination for most patients. Often vaccine-reaction patients had or have underlying conditions or illnesses which made them susceptible to a reaction or whose systems were poorly organized and lacked access to their own “Health” first laid down in embryology (more on this in another post).
Evaluating risk by the numbers and not emotion or personal belief; after billions of vaccine doses administered and millions of COVID deaths: Patients have a greater risk of dying - yes death – than patients have risk of getting a COVID vaccine reaction. That’s the basic math when compiling all the data after three years and billions of doses of vaccines and sadly, millions of deaths from COVID as of this writing in late summer 2023.
Given these numbers – this is basic math –
almost all patients should get vaccinated.
Viruses are forever ...
Once you contract a virus it never completely leaves the human body.
Examples includes Herpes Zoster, which commonly manifest(ed) as chicken-pox. It manifests less so now because of a vaccine against chicken pox. Later in life, with decreases in immunity, the same Herpes Zoster Virus you contracted as a kid can reemerge as shingles.
Herpes Simplex Virus, HSV is impossible to get rid of. Ask anyone who suffers from repeated cold sores or genital herpes.
We do not know the long term effects of contracting the SARS-CoV2 virus, COVID, and how those who contracted the disease may be affected by it in the future.
What are some the risks of not get vaccinating?
Vaccine reactions do occur but far more people are suffering from long-COVID than vaccine reactions.
What about the risks of living with long-COVID?
The symptoms can be as, or more, debilitating than vaccine reactions.
Vaccine reactions are real and a risk, but everything medicine has to offer comes with risk AND ... not getting vaccinated, statistically puts you at a higher risk for death and long-COVID.
If you have questions or concerns, I understand and would be happy to discuss these with you but request we do it during a telemed appointment versus our time committed to hands-on osteopathic treatments.
Because Dr. Cohen works to help patients better organize their bodies and access their Health first expressed in embryological development of each individual being – few of Dr. Cohen’s patients have had vaccine reactions and no patient who sees Dr. Cohen on a regular basis has, to his knowledge, had a lasting vaccine reaction.
Over the past years Dr. Cohen has come to value the non-fiction book “Thinking Fast and Slow” which details incredible research resulting in its author Daniel Kahnemann winning a Nobel Prize. The book details how we have two brains: One brain makes snap decisions necessary to function in the moment. The other brain works much slower and is needed to read, research evaluate and consider complex information and data.
While Kahnemman wrote his book before COVID, his research explains why humans decide not to get vaccinate for fear of a vaccine reaction, even though data and the math clearly show: the riskier proposition is dying from COVID and long-COVID, not from getting vaccinated.
Dr. Cohen is here to support all individuals regardless of their personal decisions and beliefs and wishes everyone the very best health. Again, if you have questions Dr. Cohen is here to help.