Rheumnow PSA 4 -- COVID Myths Save

Hi, I'm Jack Cush with rheumnow.com. This is our fourth installment of PSAs in the time of COVID. These are patient service advisories dealing with issues that our patients are calling about, things that you're dealing with. This one's dedicated to MISS. Not surprising with the way this pandemic has come upon us, and the current state of affairs where there are a lot of unknowns.

There are a lot of myths that have been circulated that unfortunately are getting almost as much press as the facts. I'd like to dispel a number of these myths so that you can be better prepared as you go forward. Myth number one, don't take nonsteroidals if you have COVID or if you're worried about COVID. Nonsteroidal anti inflammatory drugs, NSAIDs, are exemplified by medicines like ibuprofen or naproxen. And there are prescription versions of that.

Aspirin is another version of a nonsteroidal. Prescription versions would be meloxicam or Celebrex or Lodine. There's a million of them, actually about 18 of them. But they're unified in their ability to be pain relievers and anti inflammatory drugs. They're highly effective, and they cause some GI side effects.

The French ministry came out with a directive when it was dealing with some guidelines for COVID and said, don't take an ibuprofen, take Tylenol instead. And it's not because nonsteroidals have been proven to be ineffective or dangerous in people with COVID, it's because it's just basic good sense. Acetaminophen, Tylenol has much less in the way of side effects. It's much safer, has a better safety profile on anyone with anything wrong with them joint pain, flu, a current infection, a twisted ankle, a headache. Nonsteroidals have more GI side effects, some effects on red blood cells and maybe bleeding potential, effect on the kidney, effect on the liver.

Those are all pretty uncommon, but yet they're often used both over the counter and as prescriptions. Acetaminophen is safer. It's just not an anti inflammatory. It's a pain reliever. So, if you're on those medicines, keep taking them, do not stop them because of what's been in the news, it's wrong.

Myth number two, age. Meaning, if I'm old I'm really at risk or if I'm young I'm at no risk. If I'm old I'm staying indoors and not leaving the house until 2022 sometime, or if I'm young I'm going to Delray Beach and partying with all my friends because I can't get the COVID infection because it's a thing of old people. Both of these are wrong. Turns out that the coronavirus, is sort of an equal opportunity infection.

There are many young people who are infected with this and several have died. In the ICU right now, almost all the hospitals, it's like half the patients are between the ages of 20 and 50. And I think that young people like from 30 is somewhat around a quarter of the patients. So the only difference is that maybe elderly are less resilient if they get the severe form of infection, which is only like one, two, three, four, five percent. So, the idea here is that everybody's at risk.

Everybody has to practice the measures that are being put forward to protect everyone. That social distancing and everything we've talked about in the first three videos. So age is not a bad thing. It's not a good thing. You're just like everybody else.

Myth number three, Geraldo Rivera got on Fox News and said, if you can hold your breath for ten seconds, you do not have COVID infection. Well, that's just plain goofy. And Gerardo Rivera, who never went to medical school and knows nothing about medicine, shouldn't be talking about this. Item number four, the problem's going to be fixed by heat. So when the weather turns hot, infection's gonna go away.

That's President Trump said that. That's not necessarily true. It's 90 degrees here in Dallas today, and we have record setting numbers of people going into the hospital. So heat may lessen the problem, but it is in no way treatment for the problem. So don't be doing hair dryers up your nose or in your mouth or on your body to fix the problem or prevent infection.

That's not gonna work. Don't be using UV light as a way of controlling infection, that doesn't work either. Okay? So, heat is not the solution for this. The solutions will be told to you when you need them, if you need them.

And if you don't have the infection, you're in the prevention mode. Next, item number five, vaccines. I've heard vaccines are a good thing and vaccines are a bad thing. The main vaccine we're talking about right now is influenza. If you haven't already had it, you know, we've gone through most of the seasonal influenza spike, it spiked around late January, and influenza is tailing off.

Although there are still current influenza infections going on. If you haven't been vaccinated, you could get vaccinated, but being vaccinated, one, will not make your COVID any worse. Two, it will not boost your immune system necessarily to fight with COVID because this is a new infection. This is a virus that's mutated and your body's never seen. So, there's no memory, vaccines work on immunologic memory, meaning your body has seen flu before and we boost the immune response so you don't get it again.

Again, a vaccine won't necessarily protect you against COVID infection, but it also is something you probably should have gotten already, both for the seasonal influenza or other vaccines that your doctor deems necessary Prevnar thirteen, Pneumovax, and the Shingrix vaccine. Item number six, maybe I should get a prescription for antibiotics. Antibiotics could help me. Well, antibiotics are for bacterial infections. This is a viral infection with no bacterial component.

So, antibiotics not going to help you. Likewise, garlic is not going to help you. And the only way you're going to prevent an infection from affecting you is washing your hands, social distancing, and then treating your own infection should you get one. There's a run on hydroxychloroquine, a medicine that's been reported in the news to be, a potential treatment for people with the coronavirus infection. It's a potential treatment.

It's not been proven. Right now, there are a lot of patients in The United States who are already on hydroxychloroquine for their lupus or their rheumatoid arthritis. You should stay on it and not stop. But other people should not get this drug with the idea that it might actually help you. That's not going to work here.

So if you're trying to hoard hydroxychloroquine so that you and your family won't get this, that's bad. There are people who have arthritis and those are lifesaving medicines for arthritis, do not inadvertently or wantonly take up all the hydroxychloroquine in the market. There's already a shortage. Second to last, stop your steroids, stop your immunosuppressive. We talked about that in the first PSA.

No, if you're on a medicine, do not stop it. Those medicines are not proven to increase your risk of getting a COVID infection, nor will you do any worse if you're on those drugs. So, do not stop those medicines. If you get a coronavirus infection proven by culture, nasal swab, then yes, you should probably stop your immunosuppressive and call your rheumatologist, the person who prescribed that. No one else should be able to stop that medicine other than the person who prescribed it.

And lastly, should I be wearing masks all the time? The answer is no. The mask you see everyone wearing is really not that good at preventing inhalation of droplets that are airborne because there are gaps on the sides and whatnot. The N, Nancy 95 masks are airtight, better at filtering those out. The people who should be wearing masks are people who are sick right now.

If you have the COVID infection or or if you have some other upper respiratory infection or seasonal flu, yes, you should wear a mask if you're going be around family members or anyone. If you're by yourself at home, you don't need to wear the mask. Okay? So, again, masks are for those who are infected themselves, not for you to protect yourself. Although it can hurt, it's just that there's gonna be a shortage of masks by healthcare workers who need the mask.

So, I would advise you're not, again, hoarding those or taking those up. I'm sure there's more, but if you have questions about something you heard, speak to someone who knows. Talk to your clinic, your doctor, your family doctor, your rheumatologist, your dermatologist, and get solid guidance from them. The worst thing you can do is guess when it comes to managing risk of getting a coronavirus infection. We have one more episode, and we'll next talk about dealing with stress.

Tune in for that.