Arbidol; a novel Antiviral and Immunomodulator

[Hip]

@halcyon most decent pharmacies will reship an item free of charge if it does not arrive first time around.

 

[eljefe19]

Looks like this is getting some love lately. My research on this led nowhere, until @Jesse2233 turned me onto Rapamycin. White it inhibits mTOR, it interferes with B cell receptors and brings down antigens. Will make a thread after a proper trial.

 

[Hip]

Has anyone been able to find an interferon suppository outlet (usually russian as well) that accepts pay pal?

If you get a relatively brain fog-free day, you might consider setting up a bitcoin wallet on your computer or tablet, as per the simple instructions in this post. Takes about 2 hours, but once you've done it, paying by bitcoin is easier and faster than credit card.

I am very pleased I set up a bitcoin wallet, as it makes dealing with online pharmacies a lot easier. Plus many pharmacies give you a discount if you pay by bitcoin.

 

[Charles555nc]

@Hip

I ordered stuff from medicinesdelivery.com, and they said to pay on western Union before the order would be shipped out, but they never told me who to pay on Western Union. I sent them two question emails and never heard back. How would I do that?

I am currently trying to order interferon suppositories and arbitol on pharma shipping.com.

 

[Hip]

@Charles555nc that sounds pretty incompetent of them. I have never ordered from medicinesdelivery.com, so I have no experience with them. Does it say in your order details email from medicinesdelivery.com the payee name you should send the money to?

I've used pharmashipping.net before, and they are fine. I paid by bitcoin.

When you receive your order invoice by email from pharmashipping.net, it just says: "Please make payment to my bitcoin wallet: 1NWvKDRAkDpCydP4MQbYZCAhczxRg1VDYC"

That long string of letters and numbers acts like an account number in the bitcoin system, and you paste it into you bitcoin wallet software, enter the amount of money to send, and then press the send button.

 

[eljefe19]

@Hip What sites give the best BTC discount?

 

[eljefe19]

Shit now i'm even going off topic.
This thread is about one thing. Arbidol. It's effects on pathogens ability to use IL-10 through B cells that keep viruses operational are simply amazing. And Arbidiol is the only observed substance to break this. I've been taking 3 weeks. Mind, I didn't have high CVB titers just CVA

 

[Basilico]

Shit now i'm even going off topic.
This thread is about one thing. Arbidol. It's effects on pathogens ability to use IL-10 through B cells that keep viruses operational are simply amazing. And Arbidiol is the only observed substance to break this. I've been taking 3 weeks. Mind, I didn't have high CVB titers just CVA

Have you experienced anything either positive or negative in the first 3 weeks?

How long do you plan to take it?

 

[Hip]

@Hip What sites give the best BTC discount?

The discount is not that much: www.buy-pharma.co give 10% for example if you buy using bitcoin.

 

[Steve4Andrea]

We have paused both the IVIG and the Arbidol to wait for the flare up of symptoms to lower. As has happened every time she has used an anti-virals in the past all of her symptoms flare up. This time I think it is worse because of the IVIG which has stimulated her immune system and given her an even greater response. She has always been a "high inflammation" patient and the IVIG has made it worse.

We got to 25mg. per day before pausing, we'll wait a few days and resume.

 

[Charles555nc]

We have paused both the IVIG and the Arbidol to wait for the flare up of symptoms to lower. As has happened every time she has used an anti-virals in the past all of her symptoms flare up. This time I think it is worse because of the IVIG which has stimulated her immune system and given her an even greater response. She has always been a "high inflammation" patient and the IVIG has made it worse.

We got to 25mg. per day before pausing, we'll wait a few days and resume.

Benedryl occasionally (not daily) is excellent at calming down my flare ups and helps me sleep. I also take alot of vitamins that help me quite a bit. Multi vitamins are poorly absorbed so I take single vitamin pills. NAC, phsphatidyl choline, niacinamide, molybdenum, selenium, and zinc in higher than usual amounts, are my major go to vitamins.

I hope to hear more of your experiences, as I wait for mine own anti virals to arrive.

 

[Jesse2233]

@Steve4Andrea did you ever resume Arbidol?

 

[Steve4Andrea]

We started back on Arbidol about 10 days ago, we did a 10 day trial of Rapamune first and then started directly on the Arbidol after we got no improvement from the Rapamune.

The Herx/IRIS reaction was much less after coming off of Rapamune so she was able to jump up to 100mg. of Arbidol per day after only 4 days, then the Rapamune effects wore off at day 6 and the Herx/IRIS hit full bore. She is now on 100mg. of Arbidol 2days on/1 day off and still struggling with elevated brain fog, body aches, headache, etc. We will hold at this dosage until things calm down and then ramp up to 400-600mg per day.

There may be some minor improvement in her symptoms of CVB4 infection (severe nausea and abdominal bloating) but it is too soon to really tell.

As is so often the case, I'm either treating her or torturing her- I just don't know which yet.

 

[Jesse2233]

Thanks for the update @Steve4Andrea

It makes sense that the IRIS returned once the immunosuppressive effects of Rapamune wore off

I would think that for a longstanding CBV4 infection Arbidol would take some time to work, so it's promising that you're seeing a diminishing of certain symptoms

Has she ever had any cytokine panels done? And if so was IL-10 elevated?

 

[Steve4Andrea]

This is no fun... one month in on 100mg per day of Arbidol and still fighting the IRIS reaction- increased nausea, fevers, body aches, brain fog etc. This is not a traditional herx reaction so the antihistamine or detoxing protocols do nothing, this is her immune system reacting to either the now exposed CVB4 or to other viral infections. We have seen some decrease in the abdominal distention or swelling, not all of the time and not completely but a decrease none the less.

This is not our first time on anti virals- we've done Equilibrant, Famvir, Epivir, an ethanol extract of Woodfordia fruticosa (EWF) w/ injections of GCMAF and several other herbal anti virals. Every one of them has created the same IRIS reaction, we went at least 90 days on each to test the effectiveness.

Only the EWF /GCMAF combination worked, unfortunately she "over did life" and regressed back further than before and we have not been able to replicate the success. Our source of injectable GCMAF disappeared and the alternatives have not proven to be as effective.

From the EWF experiment we learned that dosage matters, until we got to 10ml. per day (we started with 2ml. ) she showed no improvement and then things started to work. We were hoping to increase the Arbidol to 200mg next week but right now the flare from 100mg is as much as she can handle.

A side note- Arbidol does not play well with grapefruit juice; the CYP3A4 pathway alters the absorption of the metabolites, increasing some and decreasing others.
http://aac.asm.org/content/early/2013/01/22/AAC.02282-12.full.pdf

@Jesse2233 We have not had a cytokine panel done, most of our testing has been driven by either Infectious Disease Dr.'s or Immunology Dr.'s and none of them have wanted it done. Once we got a confirmed CVB4 diagnosis from a combination of Dr. Chia's lab analysis of a muscle biopsy of the small intestinal wall and ARUP testing (greater than 1:640 for CVB4) I have focused more an finding an effective anti viral than more lab analysis.

Since we don't have a good explanation for the presence of the infection in the muscle cells then IMHO it is simply trial an error to find an effective anti viral ( a true N=1 study). I'm encouraged by the study on Arbidol showing its effectiveness on a "persistent" CVB4 infection, I have emailed one of the authors twice asking for an English language copy of the prior study but I've never heard back (middle aged white guys with an internet connection don't command much respect in medicine).

 

[Jesse2233]

Here's an English version (not sure if it's the study you're referring to)

It references another CBV4 antiviral called Rupintrivir I've not yet seen referenced elsewhere

 

[JES]

This is no fun... one month in on 100mg per day of Arbidol and still fighting the IRIS reaction- increased nausea, fevers, body aches, brain fog etc. This is not a traditional herx reaction so the antihistamine or detoxing protocols do nothing, this is her immune system reacting to either the now exposed CVB4 or to other viral infections. We have seen some decrease in the abdominal distention or swelling, not all of the time and not completely but a decrease none the less.

This is not our first time on anti virals- we've done Equilibrant, Famvir, Epivir, an ethanol extract of Woodfordia fruticosa (EWF) w/ injections of GCMAF and several other herbal anti virals. Every one of them has created the same IRIS reaction, we went at least 90 days on each to test the effectiveness.

I feel your pain. This is the reaction I get as well from most antivirals/immunomodulators. The worst came when I trialed valacyclovir, even at minimal dosage it revved up my immune system so that I could barely sleep at all in the nights. LDN has been the only immunomodulator that I've managed to tolerate. In my tests, I've seen nothing to suggest this IRIS type reaction would reduce over time. I'm currently thinking of combining some of the immune modulating supplements with anti-inflammatory supplements like those in this thread, to see if I could tolerate the combo better. Might be that both cancel each other out though, who knows, but at least the antiviral effect should remain.

 

[Hip]

This is no fun... one month in on 100mg per day of Arbidol and still fighting the IRIS reaction- increased nausea, fevers, body aches, brain fog etc.

As you know, it may be Arbidol's ability to reduce CVB4-induced secretion of IL-10 (a Th2 cytokine) which explains the increased symptoms your wife is getting. By its action on IL-10, Arbidol would appear to be a Th2 to Th1 shifting immunomodulator.

If you search Google, there are some studies examining the important role of IL-10 in maintaining viral persistence, and how persistent viral infections can be cleared by blocking IL-10.

Does your wife have any other chronic active infections in addition to CVB4, by the way? Because EBV, HHV-6 and cytomegalovirus all make their own "fake" version of human IL-10, in order to shift the immune system away from the antiviral Th1 response. This is one way that these Coxsackie B viruses and herpes viruses thwart the immune system.

So if you have coxsackievirus B plus co-infections with these herpes viruses, they will all be making lots of IL-10 to thwart the immune response. And perhaps one would need to simultaneously address any active IL-10-producing herpes infections, in order to reduce IL-10 and thereby shift the immune system to Th1.

I am looking at trying the antiviral tenofovir at some point, which strongly inhibits IL-10, and has been successful in improving ME/CFS in a number of patients (people assume its the anti-retroviral action of tenofovir that is responsible; but I think its potent reduction of IL-10 is more likely the reason this drug works for ME/CFS).



Did you see this new thread about the possible requirement for vitamin D in order for oxymatrine and LDN to work properly? I am going to be retesting both oxymatrine and LDN (which did not work for me in the past), but this time after supplementing with high dose vitamin D3 for a month beforehand, to build up blood vitamin D levels.

 

[Steve4Andrea]

@Jesse2233 That is the study I have also, I'm referring to the line in the abstract "Previously, we showed that in addition to inhibiting Coxsackie B4 (CVB4) infection, Umifenovir also down-regulates IL-10 induced by persistent CVB4 virus infection in vitro and in vivo." I emailed the author J. Cui at her listed email asking about the "previously" and if it was published in English, I saw she had spoke at a couple of English Oncology conferences so I guessed she spoke English- as I mentioned I have not heard back.

My hope was that the prior work would have more information on the anti viral action and less on the method of IL-10 pathway inhibition. The Rupintrivir was used as a control since it doesn't inhinbit IL-10, that is the essence of our problem. Just because it shows anti viral properties to CVB4 does not mean that a compound will be effective against the "persistent" intra- cellular infection we're dealing with.

@JES That mimics our experience with Equlibrant, 1/16 of a pill was all she could tolerate and even then she was very sick, in our case any immune stimulation is too much. We tried a 10 day course of Rapamune (an actual immune suppressor with a reported history of CFS/ME effectiveness) before starting the Arbidol and she got no relief but the IRIS flare did not start right away with starting the Arbidol, it took about a week for the flare to start. We also did 6 IVIG infusions this spring so her immune system is at full strength which means the bad is even worse.

She has a nearly non-functioning small bowel as a result of the infection present in the muscles, 2 years ago there was one layer of muscle which had more than 50% of the cells which tested positive for enteroviral infection. What we do know is that our treatment with the Woodfordia fruticosa/GCMAF combo eventually led to almost total remission for several months, that treatment started out the same but at about 60-70 days and after reaching a full dosage the flare of symptoms decreased.

@Hip She has tested high for both HHV-6 and EBV, in our first conversation with Dr. Chia I came away with the impression that those were primarily a re-activation and that we should chase the CVB4 first and foremost. This was before we had a biopsy of her small bowel to analyse, now I'm even more certain that it is the CVB4 that is the key to everything.

Interestingly, Arbidol is starting to be looked at for more applications as well- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26739045

We supplement her with 10,000 to 15,000 iu. of vit. D daily, even so her blood levels are just mid range, when we had success with the Woodfordia fruticosa/GCMAF combo we also included 20-30 minutes of full body sun exposure 3-4 days per week. Unfortunately she is currently too sick to do the sun now but if we get progress we'll add it back in.

 

[Hip]

Just because it shows anti viral properties to CVB4 does not mean that a compound will be effective against the "persistent" intra- cellular infection we're dealing with.

My guess is that antivirals which inhibit enterovirus RNA replication will work both for regular lytic enteroviruses, as well as the non-cytolytic enteroviruses that live inside cells as an intracellular infection. I don't know this for sure, but it makes sense, because when non-cytolytic enteroviruses want to replicate, they need to replicate their RNA.

If you look at my list of enterovirus antivirals, and check the "Antiviral Mechanisms" section, you'll see that some antivirals work by inhibiting viral RNA replication, so these might work for non-cytolytic infections. These RNA inhibitor antivirals include: fluoxetine, pirlindole, itraconazole.

I think dipyridamole might also work against non-cytolytic enteroviruses, as it "remarkably enhances the antiviral activity of interferon-alpha", and interferon-alpha is what switches on the intracellular immune system.