Pain Management Specialist in San Diego & La Jolla

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COVID-19   MY PLAN – NOT FOR EVERYONE

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The current coronavirus is SARS-CoV-2.

The influenza from the virus is COVID-19.

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This is not medical advice.

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This plan is not for everyone.

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Consult your doctor for that.

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Surgeon General urges public to stop buying face masks.

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CDC advises wear a mask if you have fever or cough.

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Millions who have no health insurance or who have high deductibles are at highest risk to themselves and all of us. They may work several jobs and be homeless with no ability to wash their hands or buy supplies. We need socialized healthcare that leaves no one out. Their loss could kill you. Help others if you can. Small choices can have a big impact.

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It is said:

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Be humble, for you are made of earth.

Be noble, for you are made of stars.

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I don’t have COVID-19. This is my plan. I have a long list of inflammatory autoimmune medical conditions including lung disease plus creaky debilitating old age. For those above 80 the incidence of death is near 15% vs young with incidence of death 0.2%. If intubated, critically ill mortality was 82%.

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From University of Minnesota recapping JAMA’s study from China of 72,000 cases.

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Report of China WHO Joint Mission February 28 includes mortality rate by comorbidity, i.e. co-existing conditions. Mortality really starts to rise above age 60.

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COVID-19 and Health Care Resource Capability, February 25.

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Since January, I’ve studied and read every case I could find. This is my plan. I am a doctor, sometimes able to diagnose my own condition. I am not officially recommending anything medically to others but they may consider it. Underlying lung disease always grabs me but I prefer quiet peace to recover at home. Or die. I have been deeply blessed with a good life helping others. Pneumonia is the old man’s best friend. It really really is a sweet painless way to go. Death is a decisional process. This body recovers from so many decades and decades of severe flu that hit the lungs hard. I’ve been near coma near death for days on end w flu in past since the big one in 1957. Nothing new here. Do the basics.

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This is not an excuse for suicide – stop those thoughts immediately and get professional help. You will just make it harder for others.

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My affairs are in order. Tax forms finished. Healthcare power of attorney, done. The plan is to do everything to prevent being disabled from illness tho it prolongs this old body.

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Just went thru Christmas season w dry cough – lasting 3 to 4 weeks, lungs literally felt as if caked in cement. Lot of people had exactly same. Reallly wiped out first week, too sick to eat. O2 saturation always remained 97% to 98%. Severe sore throat. No sinus involvement. very strange, widespread in community. Muscles flaring every few days from underlying disease but not clearly from this.

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PLAN

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Most people with the flu do not need hospital care or medical intervention but they are contagious and can infect others even if having no symptoms. That is what makes this flu most dangerous, the risk to others.

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It is recommended to keep a safe distance of at least 6 feet possibly more from infected people. But who are the asymptomatic infectious persons?

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Get 3 months of medication supplies – pay for it if insurance won’t. Save receipt. Get reimbursed later if you can. Shortages of 200 drugs from China may last awhile even if flu lasts only a couple weeks.

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Everyone should have an oximeter to monitor oxygen and pulse – $18 bucks.

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If oxygen is dropping below 96% —- that’s the start of trouble. Likely Pneumonia.

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I plan to wear non latex medical gloves when I’m out, to remind myself not to touch face/eyes. Keep a box in car.

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Seasonal flu is in its second major spike. Get flu vaccine if you have not already. Hospitals are overloaded with it. Don’t count on a bed.

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Coronavirus vaccine will not be available for 18 months and government should offer free to those with limited income.

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Vaccine should be denied it to those who refuse measles vaccines. Measles has a high morbidity and mortality and is the most contagious known virus: if you step into the airspace of someone with measles who passed through 2 hours ago, it is still highly contagious. Not true of anything else. Those people put all of us at extreme risk and should be isolated.

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Isolate yourself if you have the flu.

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COVID-19 Symptoms

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COVID-19 is mainly transmitted from person to person through droplets from coughing or sneezing. Contact with fecal matter from an infected person may also transmit the virus, possibly also contact with urine and tears and contact with surfaces – see disinfection below.

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It’s in the community now. Those with no known exposure including one death so far in Washington of 59 year old man who had other risks. Males seem to get this flu more than females.

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No runny nose, no sinuses involved – at least in most.

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Begins as a dry cough, followed possibly in several days by fever as high as 103.5°F, tight chest, maybe muscle aches or not.  Some said the cough was so severe it caused severe muscle pain just from cough.

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Chest pain and shortness of breath may occur with COVID-19 pneumonia. Those symptoms warrant concern about heart attack. 

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If severe, call 911 and advise you have the flu so they can safely bring you in.

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If someone drives you to ER, telephone from parking lot so they can isolate you. You have contaminated the driver too.

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Don’t contaminate your healthcare personnel! Think about the lives of others.

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STOCK UP

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Stock up on chicken soup. I have chicken broth and a drawer full of various noodles including ramen. You need the salt when dehydrated, not just water. Everyone already has the usual dry beans and canned or frozen veggies, don’t they?

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Some people have 2 years of supplies. Really? That’s sick.

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Gatorade – my niece preferred DripDrop electrolyte powder for her athlete sons. Invented by MD on a relief mission treating life-threatening dehydration. Same sodium, potassium, dextrose, it also includes fructose, vitamin C, magnesium, zinc.

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https://dripdrop.com/collections/dehydration-relief

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Ready a thermometer.

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ALWAYS have supply of  Mucinex every 12 hr. Begin early. Don’t wait, continue well after, especially if dry cough. Avoid antihistamines that dry secretions. You need the opposite.

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Drink plenty of liquids to keep kidneys flushed and loosen lungs.

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Use a humidifier.

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.Sleep apnea machines can be used as a humidifier.

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When lungs are severe, boil 2” water in a large pot w eucalyptus leaves or oregano, towel over the head/pot to capture steam, breathe thru nose or mouth..

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Some like Vick’s plasters on chest but…..

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If urine is dark, drink a lot more fluid. A lot. Keep drinking especially during fever.

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A long hot bath with epsom salts is great for muscle aches and misery.

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Some people may be contagious without ever any symptoms and spread the virus to many others.

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In one study, coronavirus struck 14% of victims again 2 weeks later after recovery and after testing negative they tested positive again. Isolate for at least 14 days, possibly 28 days after your symptoms. They have not given recommendations on this. We simply do not have enough data.

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Do not trust negative tests, nothing is 100%.

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England has tested 10,000. We have tested 420. Faulty tests. CDC guidelines had been far too strict, limiting testing in keeping with lack of supplies. The White House had 700 vacancies at CDC by the first spring after inauguration, cut CDC budget, and gutted the entire pandemic response team in 2018 including the position of Rear Adm. Timothy Ziemer who abruptly departed from his post leading the global health security team on the National Security Council in May 2018. Money ran out on epidemic prevention activities in 39 out of 49 countries – that’s where these diseases can come from.

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Expect at times Fake News from the White House and their favorite media on radio, TV. Many people in power do not believe in science and are very adept at using mind control, flooding the media until millions believe false..

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KIDS

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It may be very mild in kids – isolate them though they feel well. It may be so mild in people, kids especially, they don’t even feel they have it.

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Schools right now, yes absolutely right now, should consider shutting down til end of flu season – talk to your schools early, before this rips through communities like wildfire. Kids are great vectors and some are at risk too.

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It may take forever, but some officials will figure out how to test us at home without exposing offices and medical personnel. Health officials will need to notify others.

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CT scan is unique and definitive.

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CT signs persist after symptoms resolve and should show shrinking lesions. If not, COVID-19 is flaring again or possibly a different pneumonia, e.g. bacterial, is going on.

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Someone pointed out a package dated years ago says coronavirus. There are other coronaviruses, SARS, MERS. This one is SARS-CoV-2. It appeared in humans late 2019.

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DISINFECTION

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It is not yet clear how this coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, behaves. Other human coronaviruses can be inactivated using common disinfectants and may dissipate at higher temperatures.

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Human coronaviruses can remain infectious on surfaces for up to nine days at room temperature. On copper and steel, about two hours.

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The CDC says it may be possible for a person to become infected by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose or eyes.

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The CDC said there is likely a very low risk of virus spread from products or packaging that are shipped over a period of days or weeks at ambient temperatures.

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Anyone have more to add? Have I said this before, this plan is not for everyone. I have some ability to diagnose as it evolves. Many will die, just as they do every year but we are responsible for the health of others especially the poor, those without medical insurance.

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Why panic? It’s only the body. You’ve had the flu before.

Not much you need to do that you haven’t already done so many times in past.

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Be at peace. Go take a walk and shake the tension off.

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Breathe deeply and do a relaxation exercise.

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Be kind to yourself and others. Love yourself. Deepen your spiritual life. Find joy. Just be.

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