Local Janesville, Wisconsin woman details her battle with COVID-19 (Another Hydroxychloroquine anecdotal success story)

GazettExtra ^ | 04/26/2020 | By Frank Schultz

[SeekAndFind]

Grace King came home to her parents in Janesville from UW-La Crosse on March 13.

Her spring break had started. It was also the day the first positive test for COVID-19 was recorded in her home county.

The family—Grace, her parents and little brother Owen—had planned a weeklong trip to Hawaii. The public knowledge of the pandemic was scant at that point. Rock County didn’t announce its first COVID-19 case until March 19.

That was the same day Wisconsin announced its first two deaths.

Grace’s mother, Sara, said Hawaii had fewer COVID-19 cases than Wisconsin at that point. She and her husband decided to go.

“Who’s to say? How do you know where you really got it?” Sara said.

They returned March 23, and three days later, Grace was running a fever.

The disease’s incubation period could be as long as 14 days, so it’s possible she brought it home from college.

Rock County statistics show 14 residents had tested positive by March 23, but Grace was not yet one of them.

The 18-year-old had the disease, but she wouldn’t know it for sure until eight days later. No one else in the King family got the disease, at least that they know of. Grace said she knows no one who had it.

“I just kind of felt overall gross,” she recalled.

She went to her doctor March 30. The county had recorded 21 positive tests by then and reported its first COVID-19 death the next day.

The doctor ordered a chest X-ray and an influenza test. The doctor’s office called after test results came back. The told her the X-ray showed “a bit of pneumonia.”

Pneumonia is an infection that clogs the lungs. COVID-19 is one of the many viruses and bacteria that can cause it.

Get the COVID-19 test, she was told.

The test was unpleasant. Once the swab encounters resistance, they push farther, Grace recalled. It made her sneeze, and her nose ran.

“I described it to my parents as a Q-tip lobotomy because that’s how far they put it in your nose,” she said.

She was given antibiotics and started an in-house quarantine in her bedroom.

She used one of the house’s two bathrooms. Everyone else used the other one. Her mother became her nurse, coming to her room wearing a mask.

“As a parent, you still have to be there to help them and give them food,” Sara said.

Sara was the obvious choice, as her husband, Aaron, was the breadwinner.

As the disease progressed, Grace was short of breath and found it difficult to do normal things.

“It got to the point that even walking to the bathroom I got really out of breath,” she said.

The fevers, sometimes over 100 degrees, continued. Dehydration was a concern.

“I was really worried,” Sara said.

Some COVID-19 patients have reported losing their sense of taste or smell. King did not.

“Everything still kept getting worse,” she said.

“So that’s when I went into urgent care and they gave me the second COVID test, and that’s when I went into the hospital,” she said.

That was April 5. The county public health department that day reported a total of 33 positive tests and a second death.

Grace’s first test came back the next day. It was negative. She was told some tests were giving false negatives at the time.

On the third day at Mercyhealth Hospital and Trauma Center, her second test came back positive. The county had reached 37 positive tests by then.

Grace was moved to the COVID-19 area and put in a negative-pressure room, Sara said. And she was put on hydroxychloroquine.

The malaria drug had helped in other cases around the country, but no study had proved its effectiveness. Doctors told Grace they were not sure it would work.

A study released last week found the drug did more harm than good for a group of Veterans Administration patients.

But the five-day, twice-a-day med helped. Grace and her family noticed she perked up when she got the dose and then faded later in the day, perking up again with the second dose.

Grace said nurses had to monitor her because hydroxychloroquine can affect the heart rate, but she felt no ill effects.

“I felt really good once I started taking that,” she said.

Mercyhealth issued a statement confirming the health system uses hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 patients.

“This is a known medication with no major side effect that has been around for years,” spokeswoman Barb Bortner said in an email.

Grace kept in touch with her parents using a video conferencing app. They could not visit her.

Her second night in the hospital, she had trouble breathing. Her temperature shot up to 102.9. She texted her parents a photo showing her with an oxygen tube in her mouth. Her mother got the text the next morning.

“That was really scary to wake up and see that,” Sara said.

But Grace was fine. Two days later, she went home. Sara and the family dog greeted her outside the hospital.

“I wanted to hug her so bad,” Sara said, but that was not yet possible.

The doctor said she should take Tylenol and antibiotics. They advised bringing her back if her fever went over 100 or she had trouble breathing, Sara said.

But she continued to improve, and she was out of her room by Easter, Sara said. That was 21 days since she started feeling ill, a week after entering the hospital.

Grace’s experience might help the rest of us deal with COVID-19. She said she has been contacted by Promega, a biotech company in Madison, which wants her blood to help develop a test for antibodies for the disease.

Promega confirmed it is working on a test for immune response to COVID-19.

An antibody test is expected to be one of the tools health authorities use to track the virus, knowledge that could keep people—including medical workers—safer.

On Friday, Rock County reported the number of residents testing positive reached 120, boosted in part by an increase in testing. About 40 of those people have been hospitalized.

The number of COVID-19-related deaths held steady at four.

[Mustangman]

It is a huge mistake defending hydroxy chloroquine. For starters, why are you doing it....because Trump touted it? I have a e rule: never are gone over a fact.....just look the fact up. In time perhaps this drug will some efficacy against COVID perhaps it wont. Research will eventually reveal the answer. In the meantime, its best for both believers and non-believers in this drug to remain silent. No one knows.....and to say differently is an exercise to inflated ego, insecurity, and arrogance.

[Mustangman]

It is a huge mistake defending hydroxy chloroquine. For starters, why are you doing it....because Trump touted it? I have a e rule: never are gone over a fact.....just look the fact up. In time perhaps this drug will some efficacy against COVID perhaps it wont. Research will eventually reveal the answer. In the meantime, its best for both believers and non-believers in this drug to remain silent. No one knows.....and to say differently is an exercise to inflated ego, insecurity, and arrogance.

[BB62]

“It is a huge mistake defending hydroxy chloroquine. For starters, why are you doing it....because Trump touted it? I have a e rule: never are gone over a fact.....just look the fact up. In time perhaps this drug will some efficacy against COVID perhaps it wont. Research will eventually reveal the answer. In the meantime, its best for both believers and non-believers in this drug to remain silent. No one knows.....and to say differently is an exercise to inflated ego, insecurity, and arrogance.”

“Defending”? ROFLMAO

Putting forward accurate information is now “defending”.

Ok, got it, troll.

[Thank You Rush]

Mostly incomprehensible...Try proofing and reposting.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: It is a huge mistake defending hydroxy chloroquine. For starters, why are you doing it....because Trump touted it?

Forget Trump. I have one and only one reason -— BECAUSE IT WORKS! Even if Trump was never president, it stands on its own merits.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: because Trump touted it?

And Trump never “touted” it.

He said in effect — TRY IT.

Re-read his transcripts.

[silverleaf]

Thanks for posting this
Patients in this hospital system are quite lucky

[gibsosa]

“an exercise to inflated ego, insecurity, and arrogance.” Kinda like your post.

[Chauncey Gardiner]

If HCQ is so dangerous as to be restricted to hospital use (per the FDA) then which lupus, malaria, rheumatoid arthritis, Sjogren’s syndrome patients, most of which are outpatients, will the FDA advise to stop taking it?

[plushaye]

HCQ/Zpack is the first line of treatment in most countries in the world - Algeria and Costa Rica just added to a long list - and it is working when given early enough in the treatment. The doctors aren’t using HCQ to kill their patients or because POTUS told them it was a good thing to try but to attempt to save their patients’ lives. In many of the countries that are now using HCQ, the death rate is dropping. For example:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/mystery-of-india-s-lower-death-rates-seems-to-defy-coronavirus-trend/ar-BB1383Ys?ocid=spartanntp

qcostarica.com/hydroxychloroquine-the-drug-costa-rica-uses-successfully-to-fight-covid-19/

In much of the world, HCQ/Zpack is commonly available for malaria and very cheap. They don’t have access to the expensive treatments like remdesivir/tocilizumab, which Big Pharma is pushing. They are using what they have, and it’s surprisingly working. They don’t have to keep quiet about it.

[Mustangman]

Dude, the medicine is not approved for covid. Should it be tested for use? Absolutely. But, for anyone to act like they know the answer....either positive or negative...is just plain ego. No one knows....and that’s just the way it is......for now. In a year or two.....we’ll have our answer. Until then.....both sides should stay humble. If you want to take a guess at it....and happen to guess right....go for it.

[Mustangman]

Drs should always be able to prescribe what they want in consultation with the literature and prescribing HCQ on the off chance it will help with covid should be no exception...But that’s always the case with any medicine.

With that said, HCQ has not been designated a medicine for covid and no one should have the illusion that havingbir prescrived is anything more than a hope and a prayer. Now....in a year or two we may just find out it works on covid for real.....and if it does....great. But, best to be humble. No one knows.

[Hiddigeigei]

Hydrochloroquine Treatment

2005 in vitro study:
Chloroquine is a potent inhibitor of SARS coronavirus infection and spread
Martin J Vincent, et al. Virology Journal 2, Article number: 69 (2005)
https://virologyj.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1743-422X-2-69

French study (24 patients):
Pr Didier Raoult, French professor, world expert in contagious diseases (coronavirus vs chloroquine)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL4mMJiW4RI

Dr. Vladimir Zelenko (699 patients treated with Hydocloroquine, Azithomysin and zinc sulfate)
EXCELLENT NEWS: Hydroxychloroquine Treatment Effective on 699 Patients
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TJdjhd_XG8

Dr. Stephen Smith, Smith Center for Infectious Diseases in New Jersey (“Hydroxychloroquine is a game changer and the beginning of the end coronavirus pandemic,...“We’ve had, I mentioned 20 intubations, most all of them occurred in the first two days (of treatment),” Smith continued. “More importantly, no person who has received five days or more of the hydroxychloroquine-azithromycin combination has been intubated.”)
https://video.foxnews.com/v/6146455701001#sp=show-clips

Another French Study (36 patents, 20 given hydroxychloroquine)
International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents (Mar. 20, 2020) in press (available on line)
“Hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin as a treatment of COVID-19: results of an open-label non-randomized clinical trial by Philippe” by Gautret et al. (20 patients given Hydroxychlororquine (6 azithromycin also), 16 patients not given the medicine.)

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924857920300996




Another old in vitro study
(2004 Rega Institute for Medical Research, University of Leuven (Belgium) Leuven, Belgium):

Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications Volume 323, Issue 1, 8 October 2004, Pages 264-268

In vitro inhibition of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus by chloroquine
Author links open overlay panelElsKeyaertsLeenVijgenPietMaesJohanNeytsMarc VanRanst
Rega Institute for Medical Research, University of Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium
Received 11 August 2004, Available online 28 August 2004.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006291X0401839X

All the above came from early studies. Now there are thousands of "anecdotal examples."

[silverleaf]

“anecdotal reports” are a handful of cases

Thousands of results is the practice of “ evidence based medicine”

Thats why entire nations like India, France, Italy are stocking up for off label use

[elengr]

Hydroxychloroquine requires the presence of zinc to work. Younger people often have much more natural zinc than older people. People with low natural levels of zinc must take large amounts of zinc in conjunction with HCQ for the cocktail to be fully effective against COVID-19.

Any study without zinc is anti-Trump propaganda.

[rolling_stone]

Hydroxychloroquine: The Drug Costa Rica Uses Successfully To Fight Covid-19:

https://qcostarica.com/hydroxychloroquine-the-drug-costa-rica-uses-successfully-to-fight-covid-19/?fbclid=IwAR2oopSaGplBbKh-f4BN5JsET90W0uL5ORmACcnHDaDhjZ5wkeDQElPsfgw

“We decided to ask for help from those who have gone through this. The experts from Shanghai and Wuhan gave us recommendations for patient management. We were told that it is key that a mild or moderate patient does not become severe. They explained that they used hydroxychloroquine for this, but never azithromycin (an antibiotic for respiratory infections) due to the associated cardiac complications,” Ruiz said.

In the group of 88 patients recovered up to Friday, April 17, the use of this drug has allowed covid-19 control tests to be negative, he added.

Marjorie Obando confirmed that up to Thursday, April 16, hydroxychloroquine treatment had been given to 1,361 people, including cases suspected of being infected. Of these, 498 corresponded to confirmed patients.

[kiryandil]

Delete your FR account.

[reardensteel]

We are way beyond anecdotal at this point. Also, this stuff has been used forever in the military with few problems. Why all of a sudden it’s such a big risk when people are actually dying from covid? Because PDJT mentioned it.

[Mustangman]

Dude, what? Do you have any idea how long it takes to truly understand the effect of a treatment on a disease? There is some anecdotal evidence HCQ is an effective treatment for corona virus and some drs will most likely be influenced by that data and offer it as a potential treatment. But, there is no solid data from a proper study that says it is a true treatment. Be humble in your opinion. We will have the proper answer soon enough.