Realistically, I doubt it. It’s just an example of off label use of the med, a common practice as I noted upthread. Could a hospital wash its hands of ivermeticin requests? - #13 by Qadgop_the_Mercotan
Not good medicine (in the case of covid, that is), but unlikely to harm when prescribed in standard doses.
Thank you for the informative reply, Mr._the_Mercotan!
Just in case it wasn’t clear, this was not sarcastic in intent.
@RitterSport “This one was performing an experiment on you, outside of any clinical study, without your knowledge.”
I had spent three days reading all of the then available information on ivermectin before I asked my doctor for the prescription. I was experimenting on myself with all the knowledge available to me at the time. I have done a great deal more reading since then.
I have a ‘just in case’ dose should I need it. It is not a veterinary dose. Cripes man, it cost three dollars; I’m willing to risk that. Hundreds of millions of people have taken it; it is a very safe drug.
Some studies showing a benefit have been retracted. The remaining studies seem to fit this pattern.
I would hope that your doctor would know more than whatever random blogs and Youtube videos you uncovered while doing your own research. If I went to my doctor and asked for some bullshit snake oil because Joe Rogan or Alex Jones tells me I should take it, I would want my doctor to review the science and advise against taking that. QtM isn’t even your doctor and was able to lay out the medical information for you for free.
This reads a lot more like “I begged my doctor for the prescription and he finally acquiesced because it’s not gonna kill them” than like “my doctor thought it was a good idea and therefore their recommendation should be weighted as evidence that it is clinically useful”.
Well of course ivermectin will help covid patients who have worms. By the same standard, a band-aid will help covid patients who have papercuts. Neither one is helping with covid, though.
@Turble, the last time you made claims about ivermectin being effective against covid, you liked to a statistically-atrocious meta-meta-study, that mostly looked at metastudies that mostly looked at the same singular fraudulent study. If there are really hundreds of studies supporting ivermectin as being effective against covid, could you link to just the best one, please? Or was what you linked to, in fact, the best you could do? If so, I stand by my absolute statement that there is no evidence whatsoever.
I’m not opposed to gambling, and taking a fairly safe drug that plausibly might help, without actual evidence it will help. I started taking vitamin D for covid prophylaxis on that basis. (My dermatologist wants me to keep taking it for other reasons, but I started because of covid.)
And, I also don’t hold it against doctors who go along with the nutty requests of their patients, so long as those requests are neither dangerous not expensive. The placebo effect is real. Why not take advantage of it.
That being said, I feel like we now have enough evidence to know that ivermectin doesn’t help unless you have worms.
It means that some of the studies may have been showing a real benefit to patients. It’s not like they were diagnosed with the parasites. It’s easy to pooh-pooh a drug that people are demanding based on equivocal studies, particularly when it’s a counterintuitive drug and it’s being requested by people breaking by political persuasion. The article I posted is offering an explanation for why some studies may have shown a benefit. It hasn’t been proven that the patients involved were infected with parasites. But it may explain some of the results and inconsistencies.
There’s other counterintuitive drug connections being investigated, as they should be, if there’s some evidence that they may be of benefit. The science needs to lead, and some of the level of ridicule needs to be dialed back until the science becomes clearer.
There’s evidence that certain antidepressants may reduce death rates for covid patients. If only right-wing covid-deniers were suddenly demanding prozac prescriptions, the jokes would write themselves. But it would not mean that it would necessarily be wrong for a doctor to prescribe it if they determined it was appropriate for a patient, nor should investigations of it be limited or ridiculed, as long as they are science-based.