Multiple Sclerosis, Zidovudine (AZT), Epstein Barr Virus.

[andyman123]

Figured I'd share it here as it's immoral not to share something that may permanently put this into remission.

While Zidovudine (AZT) will not cure a person's MS, it might put it into remission.

While there may be more species of herpes viruses responsible for the pathogenesis of MS, Epstein Barr virus infection seems to be critical for the disease to manifest.

Another clue that the virus is critical is that studies have shown that consuming AZT may cause MS to go into remission, and AZT ONLY WORKS ON GAMMA HERPES VIRUSES (EBV KSHV) Most people with MS do not have KSHV.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211034818300828

I don't have MS and I consumed Duovir, the equivalent of Combivir (Zidovudine/Lamivudine). While not as pleasant as Acyclovir, it's very tolerable at today's recommended dosage.

Below are Duovir which I got off of alldaychemist, the reduction in disease and brain lesions from the science direct article.

Last comment. AZT was the first drug FDA approved for treatment of HIV. Side effects are much milder or don't happen at all anymore as it was learned that though AZT had a shorter half life in plasma, the intracellular half life was much longer.
The other thing is a DNA virus like EBV does not mutate like HIV, so it will probably work the life of the person taking it.

Usually if you get Zidovudine you're going to get it packaged with Lamivudine, side effects low for Lamivudine so usually not a problem.

 

[heapsreal]

I used tenofovir and a combo of tenofovir/lamuvudine. I had an intial improvement but this improvement did come to a halt. I think at the time i read it had anti inflammatory effects on certain cytokines.??

The drug that has helped me the most famvir, isnt available at the moment in australia and valtrex doesnt cut the mustard. I do have about 3 weeks worth of tenofovir Im trying, so time will tell. Its been a couple of years since i looked into arvs but interesting that tenofovir now has studies showing it effective against hsv2. So im hoping it works on the other herpes viruses like ebv and cmv but also only 3 weeks supply so hoping famvir also is resupplied here in oz.

Alldaychemist is shut due to all this covid19 stuff. So fat chance of getting anything from there at the moment.

I also ordered a supply of immunovir/isoprinosine from india before all the bans started happening but still nothing, maybe its missed the boat and sitting somewhere waiting for mail to resume.

 

[heapsreal]

Last comment. AZT was the first drug FDA approved for treatment of HIV. Side effects are much milder or don't happen at all anymore as it was learned that though AZT had a shorter half life in plasma, the intracellular half life was much longer.

Not sure i understand. Are you saying a lower dose of AZT is needed as the intracellular half life is longer then plasma half life, so lower doses are used and much less side effects are seen?

 

[Art Vandelay]

I also ordered a supply of immunovir/isoprinosine from india before all the bans started happening but still nothing, maybe its missed the boat and sitting somewhere waiting for mail to resume.

I have two parcels that have been sitting in Melbourne for about a week. The cancellation of flights everywhere has meant that mail is really held up.

 

[andyman123]

Not sure i understand. Are you saying a lower dose of AZT is needed as the intracellular half life is longer then plasma half life, so lower doses are used and much less side effects are seen?

Lower dose of AZT may work. I wouldn't worry about it like HIV (assuming negative status) as herpes doesn't mutate like HIV does. Most resistance to Acyclovir or other guanosine analogs is via viral thymadine kinase, AZT doesn't need that.

AZT intracellular half life (inside the cell) is much longer than the plasma life. When first prescribed it said every 4 hours, now it's every 12 hours at a lower dose. TDF is preferred over AZT but AZT is still used.

If it's going to work you should know in 3-5 days, as reported in that Science Direct article.

 

[heapsreal]

Lower dose of AZT may work. I wouldn't worry about it like HIV (assuming negative status) as herpes doesn't mutate like HIV does. Most resistance to Acyclovir or other guanosine analogs is via viral thymadine kinase, AZT doesn't need that.

AZT intracellular half life (inside the cell) is much longer than the plasma life. When first prescribed it said every 4 hours, now it's every 12 hours at a lower dose. TDF is preferred over AZT but AZT is still used.

If it's going to work you should know in 3-5 days, as reported in that Science Direct article.

Is there any research showing azt effects other herpes viruses such as shingles, cmv and hhv6?

 

[heapsreal]

I have two parcels that have been sitting in Melbourne for about a week. The cancellation of flights everywhere has meant that mail is really held up.

Are they from India but quarantined in Melbourne?

 

[andyman123]

Is there any research showing azt effects other herpes viruses such as shingles, cmv and hhv6?

AZT is only effective against EBV (HHV4) and later KSHV (HHV8) both Gamma Herpes viruses. It doesn't work at all on other herpes viruses, image below. Not to get carried away, looks like AZT-triphosphate is very active against influenza A https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30739239
Interestingly enough ganciclovir, and to some extent, even acyclovir may have better inhibitory effect per unit than AZT.

https://aac.asm.org/content/aac/32/2/265.full.pdf

One thing to know is of all the HIV drugs (antiretrovirals) AZT has one of the most penetrative effects (gets throughout the body). What makes AZT so effective is it seems to induce some kind of apoptosis in all infected cells, does much much more than just inhibit viral polymerase.

Aside from MS, AZT (in combination with other drugs) seems to be very effective in use with many EBV and KSHV related lymphomas.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3002745/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3143547/

 

[Hip]

Intriguing finding. The discussion from this study is interesting, as the authors suggest antiretroviral nucleoside drugs may work even when there are low-levels of viral replication (as is found in ME/CFS):

2. Discussion
Multiple cases of patients with HIV and MS who experienced indefinite remission or resolution of MS symptoms on HAART regimens have been reported in the literature (Maruszak et al., 2011, Skarlis et al., 2017, Chalkley and Berger, 2014).

These have raised an important question of whether or not it is HIV infection that modulates MS or if treatment with HAART could directly impact MS. We report this case of an HIV-negative patient on antiretroviral therapy to support the possibility that antiretroviral drugs may directly affect MS. In particular, this case supports careful examination of drugs in the class of nucleoside/nucleotide analogues.

Addressing the question of mechanism is critical to guide future clinical studies in MS and most importantly, to inform drug selection for these studies. Several mechanisms have been proposed for the impact of HAART on MS. These mechanisms include treatment of a human endogenous retrovirus by inhibition of an endogenous reverse transcriptase (Maruszak et al., 2011), and chemical similarity of the fumaric acid component of tenofovir disoproxil fumarate with dimethyl fumarate (Skarlis et al., 2017, Chalkley and Berger, 2014).

We propose a different mechanism. Given the link between EBV and MS, it is possible that nucleoside analogues could have a direct effect on EBV, a dsDNA virus, by inhibiting lytic EBV DNA replication. Zidovudine, a component of Combivir, is known to inhibit EBV DNA replication.

However, any mechanism must account for the lack of clinical efficacy of acyclovir-class drugs in MS and infectious mononucleosis.

Acyclovir drug metabolism is different from drug metabolism of antiretroviral nucleoside analogues because acyclovir requires a viral kinase for phosphorylation. Bypassing this requirement facilitates the accumulation of active drug intracellularly. This unique feature of antiretroviral nucleosides may be important during low-level viral replication or for pre-treatment during a period of viral latency prior to reactivation in the CNS.

So there might be some treatment implications from this study that apply to ME/CFS, a disease which is linked to viral infections, but usually smoldering, low-level infections rather than fully-active infections.

If these antiretroviral nucleoside drugs are effective for low-level infections because they accumulate intracellularly, it could explain why some of these nucleoside drugs appear to have benefits for ME/CFS.

Some ME/CFS patients and ME/CFS doctors have found tenofovir can be effective for ME/CFS (Dr Chia says it work for less than 1 in 3 patients, but when it works, the benefits are significant — refs: 1 2). Dr Chia also finds lamivudine can be helpful for ME/CFS.

Now tenofovir and lamivudine are in this class of antiretroviral nucleoside drugs:

Nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs):

• abacavir (Ziagen)
• emtricitabine (Emtriva)
• lamivudine (Epivir)
• stavudine (Zerit, Stavudin)
• tenofovir (Viread)
• zidovudine (AZT)

 

[Art Vandelay]

Are they from India but quarantined in Melbourne?

No, one was from Australia and the other from the US. The problem is that virtually no-one is travelling due to travel restrictions, so very few planes are flying. There are delays in deliveries of all parcels across the entire system due to the lack of flights.

 

[deeterm]

Did anyone try this treatment?