Antivirals Effective Against Coronavirus?

IThinkImTurningJapanese

IThinkImTurningJapanese

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Hip said:
Does povidone-iodine dry out the skin then, or cause some other skin issues?
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It does. I now wear latex gloves when I'm handling it.

Under these circumstances, however, the irritation may well be worth the residual benefits.

Cipher said:
Source? From what I've read povidone-iodine has a very good skin compatibility.
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I have used it frequently as a sanitizer for cheesemaking.
 
Cipher

Cipher

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Hip said:
I can't figure out the concentration used in the studies you quoted.

In this paper you quoted on the povidone-iodine mouthwash test in a school, the mouthwash used was called Isodine, which this paper says is 7% povidone-iodine.

But the second paper says the Isodine manufacturer's instructions say to dilute with water 2 ml → 60 ml, equivalent to a concentration of 0.23% of the active ingredient.

So I am not clear on what concentration they used in the school study.
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Yeah, it's unfortunate that they left that information out. That study wasn't of very high quality, as it wasn't randomized. The other study regarding bacterial URTI didn't do that either, nor did they write the concentration povidone-iodine used. I guess you can see them as anecdotal evidence.

In this review paper regarding povidone-iodine and oral mucositis during cancer therapy, they found that 2 studies using 0.1% and 0.24% povidone-iodine did not show benefits, while 2 studies using 1.25% and 1 % did find benefits.

Hip said:
Wouldn't critical-care patients with COVID-19 infection require mechanical ventilation continuously for days? If you had someone in the house with COVID-19, you would not be able to ventilate them 24/7 with a hand-operated ventilator.
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It is a good idea to have a bag valve mask at hand if a family member suddenly deteriorates and need manual ventilation until one can find a hospital that may have a ventilator. In another scenario where you need to ventilate 24/7 at home because the are no available ventilators at the hospitals, it might be doable if at least 2 people take turns. Hand ventilation isn't that labor intensive, and can be used continuously for many hours:

Six Hours of Manual Ventilation With a Bag-Valve-Mask Device Is Feasible and Clinically Consistent
In summary, the results of this study suggest that a 6-hour period of manual ventilation is feasible and does not significantly affect the physiologic states of the care-giver. The subjects did perceive the task to take slightly more effort over time; however, the increase in average Borg scale score was minimal and could be interpreted as being the result of boredom rather than physical fatigue, as supported by the physiologic data.
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Now this was healthy caregivers, so depending on one's ME symptoms this maybe unfeasible. They had connected a tube from the bag to the mask, so that the bag can be placed on a desk for example without having to hold the bag right in front of the persons face. EDIT see below
vent.PNG


EDIT: From what I've read online there's a risk that CO2 builds up in the tube, so it's not safe to use a tube to connect the mask to the bag!

It would be a bit tricky to get the mask properly placed on the persons face with straps, but it seems doable. One straight on the mask, and another holding the chin up to ensure open airways.
 
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PatJ

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Mary said:
I had always thought colloidal silver was only effective against bacteria.
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Here is a post from @otherworldly about colloidal silver. I've quoted the post below and added paragraphs:
quick, cheap & no MD needed solution from a former bacteriologist (me) who doesnt use pharmaceuticals.

when i was still working, i tested various natural antibiotics on my own time in the lab: colloidal silver kills just about anything u throw @ it (even MRSA). i have been treating my own infections over 20 yrs w/cfs w/100% success rate 4 all known (as in, ones i can feel, no labwork needed) infections.

if u can get a nebulizer & add the silver 2 it even better, but if not just the colloidal silver should work just fine. its very safe. i use it all the time, about 1/2 doz x per yr. kills my sinus infections & any gi infections including food poisoning. its like magic. i’ve never used anything better.

research it if u like. u may herx a bit, but others wise no gi upset & other side affects that come w/drugs.
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As mentioned in that post a nebulizer is a good way to get CS into the lungs.

Here is an interesting collection of information from Steve Barwick. He's a well known promoter of colloidal silver, so he has a bias, but his articles are informative and generally cautious. He also has an article about short-term use of a nebulizer with colloidal silver.

And for mucus in the lungs:
from http://www.tbyil.com/Natural_Asthma_Remedies.htm
One extremely effective way to beat asthma is nebulizing with colloidal silver, lobelia extract and mullein extract (5 parts colloidal silver to 1 part each of lobelia and mullein) in order to help bring up mucous, heal the lungs and eliminate any pathogens present. Adding 1 part mullein can make the treatment even more effective. Mullein is an antispasmodic and anti-inflammatory herb which also fights respiratory viruses and aids in lung healing.
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Mary said:
About all we generally hear from mainstream medicine re colloidal silver is the risk of argyria, discoloration of the skin caused by a buildup of silver in the body. However, I've read that a lot depends on the product being used - the size or type of silver particles, the concentration of particles, etc. and also I think you generally have to ingest a lot over a long period of time to develop this condition.
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You're right, argyria is rare. This article from 2011 provides an overview of argyria, and this article from 2019 provides more information.

From the second article:
How Argyria Happens

It’s important to understand exactly how argyria happens. This is widely misunderstood. But I’ll keep it as simple as possible. So here goes:

Argyria results when so many excessive doses of colloidal silver have been ingested, regularly, over long periods of time (months/years on end), that the body’s mechanism for eliminating colloidal silver gets overwhelmed, and the body eventually begins storing, in the internal tissues and organs, the excess silver it was unable to eliminate.

Then, when a saturation point is reached internally, the silver-laden tissues and organs begin GRADUALLY pushing the excess silver out to the lower layer of the dermis (i.e., the skin’s lower layer), in an effort to get rid of it.

And once enough silver accumulates under the lower layer of the dermis, and gets exposed to bright sunlight (or a tanning bed) the silver particles tarnish, staining the skin a bluish or grayish color, much like a tattoo.

The fact that it takes such a long time to acquire argyria, even when drinking ungodly amounts of colloidal silver, is precisely why you hear so many people say, “I’ve been drinking eight or ten ounces of colloidal silver per day for the past five years, and I haven’t turned blue yet.”

Yes, they probably have been drinking those large amounts for five years. But the only reason they’re not blue or gray yet is because their body has been storing all of that excess silver in their internal tissues and organs.

Their body simply hasn’t yet begun pushing it out to the skin. Or, not quite enough of the stored silver has yet been pushed out to the skin to tarnish in bright sunlight and stain the skin gray or blue. But eventually, it will.

That’s because, once a saturation point has been reached internally, the body will indeed begin pushing more and more of that excess silver out to the skin. And, upon exposure to bright sunlight (or a tanning bed) it will tarnish and stain the skin blue or gray.

Sluggish Mechanism for Eliminating Silver

Another issue you have to take into account is that in some folks, the body’s mechanism for eliminating silver is very sluggish, while in other folks it’s very active or energetic.

So a person with an active or energetic mechanism for eliminating silver can go for a long time drinking excessive amounts of colloidal silver before the silver particles begin to accumulate in the tissues and organs, and are eventually pushed out to the skin.

But a person with a very sluggish mechanism for eliminating silver can’t go nearly as long.

So biological individuality certainly plays a role in who will end up with argyria, and how long they can take excessive dosages before it happens. My question is this: Why take the risk at all, by using such excessive dosages? Why not use colloidal silver responsibly instead of abusively, and still reap all of its many healing, infection-fighting benefits?

Again, I’m talking about people who take extremely high daily dosages of colloidal silver for months or years on end. Not people who, on rare occasion, might take a higher-than-usual dosage for a few days, or maybe a week or so, to help the body fight off an active infection, such as a flu, or food poisoning, or something like that. And certainly not people who take relatively small amounts of colloidal silver, daily, as a nutritional supplement.

But this is why some people who have regularly ingested excessive daily amounts of colloidal silver have turned blue in as little as two or three years, while others might take as long as ten years or so. The fact that some people process and eliminate silver better than others means some people who use colloidal silver abusively will turn blue faster, and some slower. But turn blue they eventually will.

One gentleman I corresponded with several years ago had his skin turn blue in only six months of colloidal silver usage. But that poor guy was drinking a quart a day. Why anyone would drink that much, I have no idea. It’s just courting disaster. When I asked him what could have possibly driven him drink that much colloidal silver every day, he just replied, “I don’t know. I guess I just overdid it.”

Understatement of the year!
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Mary

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@PatJ - thanks for all the info on argyria.
colloidal silver kills just about anything u throw @ it (even MRSA).
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Several years ago during a MRSA scare, my doctor gave me info on using colloidal silver for MRSA. I've read that bacteria do not become resistant to colloidal silver as they do with regular ABX. It seems to be the perfect ABX. But it's very surprising to me that it apparently can be effective against some viruses as well! It seems the only drawback is that no one can make millions or billions on it because it can't be patented!
 
Fighttolive

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Just got done reading this forum. I don’t know how I’d administer intravenous VIT C, but buying Liposomal is the next best thing.

coconut oil, Liposomal vitamin C, echinacea and Allicin for the next 6 months I guess. Anyone have recommendations for high quality products? Or any interactions?

Regarding Povidine-Iodine 0.23 percent as a daily gargle, is this safe? What if you have shellfish allergy? Can you gargle with 1 percent? Any source? @Hip @Cipher
 
Hip

Hip

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Fighttolive said:
Regarding Povidine-Iodine 0.23 percent as a daily gargle, is this safe? What if you have shellfish allergy?
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Shellfish allergies are not caused by to an allergy to iodine, so no problem there.

Though I don't think the povidone-iodine gargling is greatly effective, but it may help to some degree. If you look at the study, the study, the found the absence rate at schools due to illness changed from about 26% to 20% as a result of the gargling.

An alternative is the salt water gargling and nasal irrigation detailed in this post.

I think 1 or 2% povidone-iodine may work better as a hand sanitizer, applied before you go out in public, as in theory this should help kill any viruses that contaminate your hands when you are out and about. This is because the iodine remains on your hands for about 4 to 8 hours (see this post). Whereas with alcohol, that evaporates away after a few minutes.
 
Hip

Hip

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Mary said:
it's worth investigating whether or not colloidal silver or silver nanoparticles may be effective against COVID-19.
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Generally speaking, I think colloidal silver does not work for viruses. However, this paper says that silver nanoparticles are actually effective against HIV, because these particles bind to gp120 protein of HIV in a manner that that "prevents CD4-dependent virion binding, fusion, and infectivity, acting as an effective virucidal agent against cell-free virus". But I am not sure of the exact mechanism by which silver nanoparticles have this antiviral effect on HIV.

It so happens that the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus also contains this gp120 protein. However, I have no idea whether silver nanoparticles might also have inhibitory effects against SARS-CoV-2 by means of an effect on gp120.


Also, I think some colloidal silver products have particles too large to be considered nanoparticles. The nanoparticle scale is between 1-100 nm.

This article says:
Most ionic silver products have been found to contain particles in the 10 to 100 nm range. Silver protein products typically contain extremely large particles in the 2000 to 10,000 nm range.
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So you would want an ionic colloidal silver product rather than a silver protein product if you want to have silver nanoparticles. And I think the Mesosilver brand is supposed to have very small particle size.
 
junkcrap50

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anne_likes_red said:
What type of nebulizer do you use - handheld....compressor/nebulizer?
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I don't know its so old (20+ years). It's toaster sized compressor and then nebulizer mouth part with hose at the end. So I believe it uses jet nebulization technology/type.

I don't see why any handheld / portable nebulizer wouldn't work. Whatever is cheapested online would work.

However, if one were to nebulize a peptide or something "fragile", then I'd think the ultrasonic style nebulizers likely would break the peptide.
 
Mary

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Hip said:
Generally speaking, I think colloidal silver does not work for viruses.
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This was always my understanding too, until I saw the study about it being effective against HIV-1 (I linked the same study in my earlier post that you did above). And this study also talks about silver nanoparticles being effective against a couple of viruses: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3993170/

I've read that the silver nanoparticles either won't cause argyria or are much less likely to cause it as well, compared to silver protein particles, so size is important in more than ways than one.

It just seems to me that this would be worth trying in the absence of any effective treatments for this virus. Who knows - it might work! or not, but worth a try I think --
 
junkcrap50

junkcrap50

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Hip said:
Generally speaking, I think colloidal silver does not work for viruses.
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Silver nanoparticles as potential antiviral agents.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22024958

Inhibitory effects of silver nanoparticles on H1N1 influenza A virus in vitro.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21945220

Inhibition of A/Human/Hubei/3/2005 (H3N2) influenza virus infection by silver nanoparticles in vitro and in vivo.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24204140

Inactivation of influenza A virus via exposure to silver nanoparticle-decorated silica hybrid composites.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30014367

Silver nanoparticles are broad-spectrum bactericidal and virucidal compounds. [mentions HIV]
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21812950

Antiviral activity of mycosynthesized silver nanoparticles against herpes simplex virus and human parainfluenza virus type 3.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24235828

Metal nanoparticles: The protective nanoshield against virus infection.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24754250

No idea if it'd work on coronavirus, but worth a shot I think. It also can help prevent secondary infections of bacterial pneumonia.

Very interesting case report on use of colloidal silver in COPD patient with bacterial infection: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2443992/
 
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Hip

Hip

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junkcrap50 said:
No idea if it'd work on coronavirus, but worth a shot I think.
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Of those studies you found, the study demonstrating efficacy against H3N2 influenza virus seems the most convincing:
H3N2-infected mice were post-treated with AgNPs [silver nanoparticles] or oseltamivir on three occasions over a 24-hour interval, and lung virus titers were evaluated after the killing the mice.

Post-treatment with AgNPs or oseltamivir resulted in significantly decreased lung viral titers compared with titers in untreated mice (approximately 3-fold log10).

This obvious control of lung viral replication indicates that AgNPs may play an important role in inhibiting virus growth in vivo compared with oseltamivir, suggesting that AgNPs may have an obvious anti-H3N2 effect in vivo.
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In this study, the silver nanoparticles they used had a mean diameter of around 9.5 nm. So I guess to replicate this, one might need to find a colloidal silver product whose particle diameter is similar.

Usually the product specifications supplied by colloidal silver manufacturers themselves are highly inaccurate, so you need to find independent lab testing to measure the particle diameter. One such independent lab is here www.silver-colloids.com.

This lab also points out that the three types of consumer products labeled as "colloidal silver" can be categorized as follows:


I am not yet convinced that silver nanoparticles have any useful clinical effect against viruses in general though. To be convinced, I'd like to see studies showing that silver nanoparticles can reduce the duration of the common cold say; or allow HIV patients to stop their regular antiretrovirals.

And note that virucidal effects of silver nanoparticles on surfaces is not the same as antiviral effects in the body.
 
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