Stayin’ Alive In a Global Pandemic Michael Hirt, MD 04-18-2020

‘Stayin’ Alive

In a Global Pandemic

Michael Hirt, MD   04-18-2020

Covid-19 has taken its rightful place as a supervirus on the timeline of dreaded human plagues.  This virulent corona virus reminds us of our frailties and vulnerabilities.  It is by understanding our weaknesses that we can understand how to strengthen the body’s defenses to successfully fight this virus…and the next one.

I know, because I do this everyday in the practice of medicine, to personally stay safe and free of the contagion that surrounds all of us, especially during Cold and Flu season.

In my 25 years of practice, I have successfully helped my patients through many similar pandemics: including SARS, H1N1, Swine Flu, Zika, and Bird Flu.

My core strategy relies on optimizing the 5 S’s: Sanitization, Supplements, Sugar, Sleep, and Stress.

Sanitization

Like other corona viruses, Covid-19 is spread mostly by touching your contaminated hands to your face or your food.  Unless, someone directly sneezes on you or coughs directly into your open mouth, it is unlikely to catch Covid-19 via aerosol droplets.  This means that you are unlikely to become infected just from walking around others who have the virus in a mall, airport, shopping center, store, or medical office/facility.

When someone with Covid-19 coughs or sneezes (and does not catch the infected spray by covering their face), those viral-laden droplets find their way to surfaces that we all touch, like door handles, faucets, shopping carts, communal pens, gas pumps, etc.  These surfaces can harbor the virus for at least one week.  You then touch a contaminated surface and then bring the viruses directly to your nose, eyes, mouth or food.  Now you have directly exposed the virus to the surface on which it needs to thrive: moist human mucosal tissue.

Studies show that the average person touches their face 1200 times daily.  Over the years, I have trained myself to NEVER touch my face (or allow others to do so) unless I have just thoroughly cleaned my hands.  No matter how bad the itch or irritation, I just will not do it.  I will also not touch my food without having similarly cleaned my hands no matter how hungry I am.

Here are some facts you need to know about what it means to clean your hands.  Soap does not kill bugs.  Hot water from a faucet does not kill bugs.  Alcohol and peroxide will kill bugs after SIX hours of contact.  It takes 8 minutes of exposure to boiling water to kill bugs.  

When you are washing your hands or using hand sanitizer, you are cleaning your hands by removing the surface layer of grime that contains the bugs and disrupting the thin membrane that coats and protects the bugs.  It takes at least 20 to 30 seconds of scrubbing, twisting, and rubbing to clean your hands.  Long nails can never be cleaned adequately and jewelry requires special attention because it is nearly impossible to clean while wearing it.

Take the time, spend the effort or you are just kidding yourself that your hands are free of contagion.  Once your hands are clean, the next thing you touch needs to be equally clean or you have just recontaminated yourself and need to start over.  This habit takes practice and patience.  Trust me, I’ve been doing it for decades.

Supplements

While Big Pharma struggles to find partially effective chemical treatments with lots of side effects for Covid-19, Mother Nature has already provided us with an abundance of highly effective antimicrobial herbs that have virtually no side effects.  My patients, my family, and myself have successfully used these products to stay safe and well through many seasons of colds, flues, and pandemics.

What follows is a list of the most potent and reliable supplements to keep well or to fight your way out of a bad infection.

BioZone: an ozonated flaxseed oil product in a convenient softgel.  Ozone is a naturally occurring gas that our immune system makes every second of every day to kill microbes that are trying to attack us.  But since you cannot ‘swallow’ a gas, BioZone traps ozone within the structural bonds of the flaxseed oil, safely releasing its power once it is inside your body.  There is not a virus, bacteria or other bug on the planet that will not be killed upon contact with ozone.  I am always within arms reach of BioZone on a daily basis and when I travel, ready to use it should any infection find its way through my first lines of defense.  For active support, take 1 cap 2 -3 times daily on an empty stomach and separately from all other supplements.  For aggressive support when symptoms start or direct exposure occurs, take 2 caps 3 times daily.

Misery Magic: a curated blend of herbs that have been used by healers for millennia to boost the immune system and kill bad microbes.  I use this on a daily basis (10 a day myself) to keep me well.  For active support, take 3-5 caplets once or twice daily.  For aggressive support when symptoms start or direct exposure occurs, take 3-5 caplets four times daily.

ACS200: a colloidal silver product.  Silver has been used as a natural antiseptic for centuries because it kills most viruses, bacteria and fungi.  There are many colloidal silver products on the market, but most are not well made and therefore not effective.  Some are so poorly made that they are outright dangerous to use.  I use ACS200 on a regular basis to boost my immune system and help reduce the load of bad bugs that tend to accumulate in our systems.  ACS200 comes in both an oral spray and nasal spray.  For the oral spray, take 8-12 sprays into the mouth, hold in your mouth at least 5 minutes before swallowing.  The longer you can hold it in your mouth before swallowing, the better.  Sometimes I will hold a dose ACS200 in my mouth for an hour while flying or driving.  The longer the better.  The ACS200 nasal spray can be used in two ways.  You can take two to three sprays in each nostril 2 to 4 times daily.  It can also be used by spraying it in your mouth using the ‘Monroe technique.  You can watch online videos to demonstrate this ingenious technique.  The nasal spray produces a very mist fine that is better inhaled into the lungs than an oral version of the same spray.  When using ACS200 Nasal Spray via the Monroe oral inhalation technique, use two to three actuations of ACS200 Nasal per deep oral inhalation.  Repeat this cycle for four breaths at one time.  Then repeat three to five times daily.

Oil of Oregano: this powerful herb kills most viral and bacterial pathogens as well as yeast, fungi and many parasites.  My favorite way to take this is to put 3 to 4 drops on my tongue.  Over the next 10 seconds, a wave of intense, spicy heat will move to the back of your throat and flash kill every bad bug in its path.  Then I will drink some water to carry this blessed oil into the rest of my system.  For active support, use 3 to 4 drop twice daily.  For aggressive support when symptoms start, use 3 to 4 drops every one to 3 hours as needed.

ImmunoStat:  a clinically tested extract with lots of research support for boosting the immune system.  A strong, healthy immune system is one of your most important defenses against any infection.  My patients who are frequent travelers, teachers, and office workers have successfully relied on the protection of ImmunoStat for many years.  For active support, take 2 caps twice daily, preferably on an empty stomach.

Zinconium: a powerful formula of vitamins and minerals for immune support.  Zinc is one of the most important minerals for the immune system because zinc is the ‘molecular bullet’ that the immune system fires at infections like viruses and bacteria.  Like any other army, if your immune system runs out of bullets, it is effectively disabled.  Just a bunch of soldiers standing around with hollow metal tubes.  Hardly a threat nor a suitable protection force.

When fighting off a virus as powerful as Covid-19, you do not want your immune system to run out of zinc ‘bullets.’  Zinconium contains highly effective doses of zinc plus other supportive vitamins and minerals that are each required for a healthy immune response.

For active support, take two caps of Zinconium daily, preferably with food.  For active support, take two caps of Zinconium twice daily.  For aggressive support when symptoms start, use two caps four times daily.

Cistus incanus:  also known as ‘rock rose’, is an herbal remedy that has been studied in past corona virus pandemics including SARS.  Research studies show that cistus can block the attachment of viruses to the cells that line our respiratory system, from your lips to your lungs.  If a virus cannot get inside of a cell, then the virus can not replicate, thereby stopping an infection before it ever starts.  For active support, use Cistus incanus tincture 2 droppersfull twice daily.  For aggressive support when symptoms start or direct exposure occurs, use 2-3 droppersfull every 3-4 hours.

Propolis: another one of the many gifts from bees, propolis can be a fantastic addition to your Covid protection strategy.  Clinical researchers have shown that propolis, like cistus, can block viruses from attaching to the tissues of our respiratory system.  Propolis also boosts the immune system by helping the body to make more protective antibodies, and has been studied in corona viral infections.  For active support, use Brazilian propolis two (2) droppersfull twice daily.  For aggressive support when symptoms start, use Brazilian propolis two (2) to three (3) droppersfull every four (4) hours.

Probiotics: these healthy bacteria are very important for a strong immune system.  More than 60% of our immune system lines our intestinal tract.  An unhealthy gut can translate into an unhealthy immune system.  And one of the most important components for a healthy gut are the trillions of good bacteria that help to nourish our intestines and boost our immune systems.  I take probiotic supplements at least twice daily.  Some of my favorites are Friendlies (one sachet daily), Supercillus ( one capsule daily), Sacchomyces (2 caps, once or twice daily), and PayDirt (1-2 caps, twice daily).  

For additional suggestions for immune-boosting, disease-fighting remedies, please ask us for our recommendations.

Sugar

Nothing weakens the immune system faster than sugar.  Sugar is a human poison, and our collective health has never recovered from its cultivation and distribution beginning in the 1500s.  I bet you cannot name another substance that has been clinically linked to so many health problems including obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer, poor oral health, mood disorders, and infections.  And sugar does all of this while providing zero nutritional benefits.  The average American will eat their full body weight in sugar, approximately 150 pounds, each year.

Clinical research shows that even modest sugar consumption starts to suppress the immune system in a matter of minutes and these deleterious effects can last for hours.

If you want to get well, stay well and always be well, then you have to treat sugar as you would tobacco, gasoline fumes, and lead.  I understand this is not a popular position, but truth is sometimes bitter and hard to swallow.  It would be great for you to join me and cut out your sugar intake, but know that any reduction in your intake of sodas, sweet teas, coffee, cookies, cakes, candies, pancakes and pastries will enhance your survival of Covid-19 and the other nasty bugs of this Cold and Flu season.

Sleep

We are supposed to spend one-third of our day in bed.  Instead, Americans treat sleep as if it were a luxury, but it is really a restorative necessity.  Cheat your hours of sleep and you are really cheating your good health.  Clinical research continues to demonstrate that you must get good sleep every night and that you really cannot ‘catch up’ on sleep when it is more convenient for your busy schedule.  The latest studies show that women need 7.6hrs of sleep nightly while men need 7.8hrs.  You should also be going to sleep and waking up on different days so that you can benefit from the natural secretion of melatonin.  Turns out melatonin doesn’t just make you drowsy; it has a host of important health benefits including reducing your risk of dementia, heart disease, strokes, high blood pressure, macular degeneration, and arthritis.  It is also such a powerful immune booster that melatonin keeps cancer cells from growing all through the night.  

When you are tired and run down from a lack of sleep, your weakened immune system makes you extra vulnerable to infections.  So, please think twice about staying up past your bedtime to binge watch your favorite shows, play video games, or even to finish a good book.  There is a time for everything, and sleep deserves to be your top priority after the sun goes down.

Stress

So, it turns out that there is one particular poison worse than sugar, and that is stress.  If sugar can ruin your immune system in minutes, stress can do it in seconds.  If you want to dramatically increase your risk of getting and succumbing to any illness (from cancer to Covid-19), then let your bad mood and attitude rip.  Scream, cry, fret or be down, dreary, fearful and watch your good health immediately begin to disintegrate.  The Afghan philosopher, Shah, famously said that he was always more worried about what came out of a man’s mouth than what went in.  The secretion of toxic hormones and accelerating cellular dysfunction that occur during stress are so horribly bad for us, that no antidote has ever been found to counter the physiological effects of stress.  

The next time something or someone is pushing one of your buttons, catch yourself as soon as you become aware of it, and ask yourself (as I do), is this person or event worth my good health?  Do I care enough to trash my health and become sickened for days (or worse)?  How important is my health compared to being right or getting what I want?  Like anyone else, I do not always choose wisely, but I’m committed to improving my average.

One of my patients helpfully reminds me of the two principles that guide his life: ‘make nothing more important than a calm inner state of being’ and ‘keep your mood up’.  And that is better advice than anything I could ever share with you.

The plague that is Covid-19 provides us with valuable lessons and opportunities to improve our health habits.  Follow my advice, and I promise, you will be around for the next one!

Be Well,

Michael Hirt, MD