Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/07/31/the-most-comprehensive-and-acc.html
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Instead, it hijacks the genetic makeup in these AC2 receptors, and weaponizes your immune system against you.
I wonder how that unique characteristic may affect the approach of vaccinations? Are we more or less likely to have a single effective vaccine, or are we in for a moving target like the flu?
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Instead, it hijacks the genetic makeup in these AC2 receptors, and weaponizes your immune system against you.
Could this be treated the same way auto-immune deceases are (steroids, etc)? Or is this different?
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There was a uk study that some steroid reduced time/severity. I will look up link. I may have also been on boingboing.
Ok I was slightly wrong. The steroid reduced death rates (I guess that could be considered severity). It also had more impact the more severe the patient response to Covid.
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Dunno. But I commented weeks ago about a tentative UK finding that patients on anti-TNF biological treatments (e.g. Adalumimab) for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) (and it is also used for other auto-immune disorders) had counter-intuitive results…
This is an immuno-suppressing drug. But those with on it with RA and who had Covid enough to be hospitalised had less bad outcomes than those with RA who were not on it and also hospitalised.
The hypothesis is that the immunosuppressant/anti-inflammatory effect meant the immune system was less likely to have the cytokine storm effect, by dint of actually being suppressed.
So perhaps more at risk of getting it but less likely to have bad outcome when you do?
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The NHS now recommends that anyone taking low doses of prednisolone (a steroid) should increase their dosage to 20mg/day, split into two 10mg doses, if they show symptoms of COVID-19. This is to make up for adrenal insufficiency caused by long-term use of the drug.
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I don’t want to get flagged for offering unqualified medical advice but anyone taking prednisolone (prednisone in the US?) long term is hopefully only doing it in the absence of any viable or better alternative.
I took prednisolone for years. Very (very!) low dose in the later years, until eventually I was moved over to immunosuppressants after much urging from my doctor, over a long period of time. He kept saying they didn’t really know all the long term effects, even at doses as low as a human body might produce naturally.
I wish I’d resisted less and switched earlier. I am now convinced that the long term use was a major contributor to several other physical issues (cataracts, joint problems) which I might have expected to have eventually anyway, but which turned up much earlier than I might have expected.
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