Below are the ways we are personally preparing for COVID-19 should it hit our house. Most of these things we either had in our house already or I ordered on Amazon the beginning of March. It took a week or two to get some items. Some of the items listed below may be on back order, or they could have raised the prices substantially so double check before you purchase. I included links to most of the items on Amazon. Even if we don’t get COVID-19 (praying God spares us), below are things that we do for most colds and flus, and just to stay healthy.
You can check sites like www.iherb.com and www.swansonvitamins.com if Amazon is out of stock. Or check Whole Foods or your local health food store. And it should probably go without saying, but we also try to eat healthy (Feingold, gluten and dairy free, and as much organic as possible) and exercise to keep our immune system as healthy as possible.
Disclaimer: I am not a doctor or medical professional. I’m just sharing what we do. Please do your own research and check with your doctor, especially if you or your family gets sick. All of this is new to everyone so things change quickly as they are researching what works and what doesn’t. Obviously this is a nasty virus and people are dying. I’m not saying these things will cure this virus. They may or may not help but many people are being told to just stay home and rest. I think there is enough evidence that some of these things may help some people. Check with your doctor, do your research, pray, and do what you think is best for your family.
We are using Mercola brand because that’s what our local health food store had in stock. Amazon was out of stock completely. Normally we use Nutrigold Vitamin C Gold made from organic berries but it is only 240 mg and I have a couple kids who can’t do a lot of salicylates or oxalates so they couldn’t do high dose of these because of the berries. People with oxalate issues usually can’t do more than 250 mg of vitamin C a day without having issues (read more about oxalates in my blog post here). I usually give my daughter vitamin E (Unique E) instead. Vitamin E is great to take as well.
IV (intravenous) vitamin C in high doses is what you really want if you come down with the virus, but it can be hard to find someone to administer it. I’d check around with your local holistic practitioners. But, if you can’t get IV vitamin C, high dose liposomal C is the next best thing. Liposomal means it will get absorbed into the body better and quicker. The body can only absorb so much vitamin C at once so we spread it out over the day, taking 1,000 mg at a time. Any excess that your body doesn’t use, just gets excreted.
We are taking 1,000 mg a day for prevention. If any of us get sick, we will start taking much higher doses. Some people do every hour up to tolerance. Vitamin C has a laxative effect so if you start to get loose stools, slow it down. Watch the video linked in #2 below to hear more about vitamin C, or read this article.
One study showed that taking 1,000 mg of vitamin C per hour for 6 hours showed an 85% reduction in flu symptoms.
My kids like Emergen-C too which contains about 1,000 mg of vitamin C plus other vitamins and it gets fluids in to them.
2. Belladonna
These are homoepathic little white pellets that dissolve in your mouth. This is for fever. I bought the Belladonna 200 and 30. See this article on the differences between the two. Fevers are good because they help the body fight off bacteria and viruses by raising your body heat. But, if you have a child who gets febrile seizures (seizures due to fever), or you have a very young child, you want to have something on hand. We typically don’t treat fevers under 102 to 103.
Most people have heard by now not to use Ibuprofen (or Advil) with this virus because it seems to worsen symptoms dramatically. They suggest using Tylenol instead. We avoid Tylenol because it depletes glutathione which helps your body get rid of toxins, which your body needs to do when you are sick. However, I’ve heard some people say they’ve used Tylenol because the body aches were just too unbearable. So, we will try Belladonna and other supplements first, and use Tylenol as a last resort if needed. Watch this video where the guy talks about his health taking a nosedive after he took Ibuprofen after being diagnosed with COVID-19.
Some homeopathy practitioners are treating people for free. www.homeopathyhelpnow.com is supposedly treating people for what they can pay, but asking for a $40 donation.
This is a small device you put on your finger and it will tell you your resting heart rate and more importantly the level of oxygen in your blood. Even if you are not short of breath, your lungs could not be taking up enough oxygen. Normally your levels will be around 98 but between 95 and 98 is normal. If it goes below 90, they say you should seek medical attention. If lips turn blue, get to the ER immediately. I paid $34 for ours on Amazon and it came in a week. Small, simple tool you can use to help monitor your oxygen levels. If you have a small child or baby, you may want to order a child sized one. Check out this article for more info on pulse oximeters. Also, make sure you have a working thermometer in the house.
4. Vitamin D
We take vitamin D3 every day. Vitamin D helps boost the immune system. We also take it along with vitamin k to help with absorption. For my toddler, I use Carlson’s baby drops. I just add a drop or two to his sippy cup. For the adults and older kids, we take Carlson’s Solargems which contain 4,000 IU of D3 and also some omegas/fish oil. Then we take the Carlson d/k drops or Thorne as well so we can get the vitamin k in. We use the 2,000 IU drops. Read here about the importance of vitamin k.
We live in the midwest so we don’t have much sun here right now. If you are able to get out in the sun, do so. You will get some vitamin D that way (if you don’t slather on sunscreen) but I would also supplement as most people are low in vitamin D. You want your levels to be between 50 and 70. I had mine tested once, and I was at 20. Love this article which talks about how years ago they put patients out in the sun and fresh air as part of their treatment and how many of the patients improved. They called it “open air treatment.”
Check out this article entitled, “Irish Studies Find Vitamin D Can Build COVID-19 Resistance.”
5. Zinc
We use zinc picolinate. Thorne or Pure Encapsulation are good brands that we use. The nice thing about zinc is that you don’t need to take as much of it as vitamin C. We typically take 15-20 mg per day but if we got sick, I would increase that. We also take zinc lozenges when sick.
Always take zinc with food or it can cause nausea. Zinc can help increase appetite FYI. Interestingly, some people have said they lost their sense of smell and taste, and their appetite with this virus. In the biomed world, we know that a loss of appetite is commonly a sign of a zinc deficiency. Some kids have an issue with zinc to copper imbalances where they do not need any extra zinc. We have not tested for that but we have always done well on zinc. So, look in to that before supplementing with zinc if you think that might be an issue, or just do the zinc lozenges. Before my kids could swallow pills, we used a liquid zinc called Complete H20. It tastes like water. We’d add about a teaspoon per day to their sippy cups.
Recent corona studies have shown zinc as a great way to help fight COVID-19 as zinc inhibits the replication of viruses (making copies of itself). One study showed good results with the combination of hydroxychloroquine (aka Plaquenil) and zinc. Plaquenil is an anti-malarial drug commonly used to treat Babesia, a co-infection of Lyme. Plaquenil is a zinc ionophore and it’s also an immune modulator. It enhances zinc uptake by helping zinc enter the cells better where it can be most effective against the virus. But, would taking extra zinc be enough? I’m not sure. I’d like to see a study on that.
As an immune modulator, it helps reduce inflammation by toning down your body’s immune response. With this virus, the body produces large amounts of inflammation and the organs can shut down (sepsis) leading to death. Regulating inflammation and the body’s immune response is particularly important for those who have mast cell issues because their immune systems tend to be overactive to begin with. Read this great article about cytokine storms.
Some people are having a hard time getting their doctors to prescribe Plaquenil which is a shame if they know it is helping some people, especially when combined with zinc and an antibiotic. This is a great video though that explains how Plaquenil works with zinc against viruses. Looks promising. In another video I watched, the doctor was suggesting taking 50 to 100 mg of zinc along with Plaquenil.
I’m not personally a big fan of Plaquenil as it has some potential side effects including nausea and some psychiatric side effects but obviously if the alternative is death, I’ll take the chance of side effects. Some have had no side effects though and have said it helped with COVID-19. Those people often took Plaquenil along with azithromycin (z-pak), another common drug (antibiotic) for treating Lyme. While COVID-19 is a virus, the thought is that secondary bacterial infections can develop and for some reason, this combo is working for some people.
Azithromycin has its own potential side effects though, as do all drugs. Azithromycin can cause some heart issues, though it’s not common. Two people in our house took azithro for Lyme for several weeks without any issues. I saw an article where one doctor was giving his elderly patients doxycycline instead of azithro because his patients all had existing heart issues. Doxy is another common antibiotic used for Lyme. Hmm. Strange.
Another interesting fact about zinc is that mercury is known to bind zinc and selenium, “preventing them from doing their jobs and rendering them useless in the body” according to this article. Could this be why those who got the flu shot (which often contains mercury), have a higher chance of having serious complications from COVID-19? Mercury can also be found in the air, and in our water and food supply via pesticides, power plants that burn coal, and fish that we consume as our oceans and lakes are so polluted.
(Thank you to Nina D. for the great info and links to articles on zinc.)
We always take this for flu or cold. It’s important to take it as soon as you feel symptoms coming on. These are little white homeopathic pellets. Yes I know this is not the flu, but with COVID-19 comes many flu-like symptoms like fever, chills, fatigue, body aches, etc. so we will try this. 
7. Antivirals – Olive leaf extract, L-Lysine, Enzyme Defense
All three of these fight viruses. Enzyme Defense was formerly called Virastop. I’ve been alternating taking these right now and will continue if we get sick. Olive leaf extract is known to help kill strep. L-lysine is best known for killing the herpes virus (including canker sores, EBV (Epstein-Barr Virus), warts, and molloscum). Enzyme Defense needs to be taken as soon as you start feeling sick.
Garlic is another powerful antiviral. My daughter loves to eat garlic raw which is the best way to eat it (smash/crush it right before you eat it). It kills viruses and yeast/candida so sometimes it can give me a stomachache but it’s great for you. Or sometimes we make bruschetta using raw garlic.
This is a natural antibiotic and works great. These are tiny gel caps though so pretty easy for most kids to swallow. We take before a meal to avoid burps tasting like pizza. One person diagnosed with COVID-19 said their holistic doctor had them taking two Oil of Oregano’s per day along with two garlic cloves per day to help fight the virus, along with some other things, and she recovered.
I also sometimes put the Oreganol liquid drops on the bottom of my kids’ feet before bed. I use one or two drops on each foot. Their bodies will absorb it.
9. Air Purifier
We have 4 Molekule air purifiers (about $700 each). They now have a mini Molekule that is less expensive ($399) that you can use in a bedroom. They said they are supposed to be having a sale on the mini’s the beginning of April. I’ve always been able to find a $75 off code. The larger ones can be used in larger areas. The Molekule’s do off gas for the first couple of days. I ran ours in our basement for a couple of days first. After that, they were fine. I also place them at least a few feet away from us as they utilize an ionizer which produces a small amount of ozone. I’ve researched this and feel it’s safe. From what I’ve gathered, the ozone only dissipates out a few feet from the unit and is a small amount that dissipates quickly. So don’t stand over the unit while it’s running. The benefit of the ionizing is that it so effectively kills so much harmful stuff in the air. The Molekule has a bluetooth feature, as do many of the air purifiers, but you are able to disable it on the Molekule (or just not enable it).
Air Doctors are also good (about $329. Facebook always has $300 off coupon codes when you order direct). I bought one for my parents. They are a little louder than the Molekule’s, which have a Silent feature. The Air Doctor has an ionize feature that you can turn on or off.
Why an air purifier? High quality air purifiers claim to kill viruses in the air. Of course no one would know if it kills COVID-19 because it’s a brand new virus but I still think everyone should have an air purifier anyway. This virus deals with the lungs so it’s important to have the air you are breathing as clean as possible so there is less work for your lungs to do. These air purifiers help take mold out of the air as well. People living in mold are going to have a much harder time with this virus. Other air purifiers I would recommend researching are Austin Air (probably the cheapest) and IQ Air.
If these air purifiers do kill corona, you are helping to stop the spread to other members of your family. My mom likely got COVID-19 in February after getting off a cruise. My dad never got it. Was it because of the Air Doctor? I don’t know. I told her to take high dose vitamin C. They prescribed her z-pak and prednisone and she recovered after 2-3 weeks without a hospital stay. They diagnosed her with pneumonia, but would not test for corona “because her symptoms didn’t start with a sore throat.”
10. Essential Oils
We use mostly Plant Therapy brand. I have a few blends that we diffuse when sick or when something is going around. We diffuse for 30-60 minutes before bed. They have a blend that is similar to Young Living’s Thieves blend. Tea tree and eucalyptus can help with breathing. Eucalyptus and certain other essential oils shouldn’t be used around babies or young children.
We have a few Kid Safe blends from Plant Therapy that I use for my older kids like Sniffle Stopper, Germ Destroyer, Immune Boom, etc. Peppermint and lavender can help with fever and headaches. Lime oil is supposed to help with fever but I haven’t tried it yet. Certain oils can help clean the air as well, like Germ Destroyer and some citrus blends. Using Essential Oils Safely is a great Facebook group if you want to learn more about how to use oils, or you probably have a friend who sells oils. We also have a hand sanitizer spray from DoTerra called On Guard that I was gifted from Jasmine of Healthy Jasmine, one of the speakers at the 2016 Treating ADHD Naturally Conference. I’m not a fan of regular hand sanitizer normally as it tends to kill the good and bad bacteria on your hands but these days, it’s probably better than using nothing if you can’t wash your hands with soap and water.
11. Infrared Sauna
We have a Relax brand portable infrared sauna that I bought at the AutismOne conference a few years ago. I love it. It helps your body detox by making you sweat out toxins but the infrared heat also reaches deep into your skin, muscles, and body to kill bacteria, precancerous cells, and likely viruses too because of the high temperature. I’ve been doing this more often with corona going around. I started out doing it for 4 minutes and then I slowly worked up to about 20 minutes a day, a few times a week. Right now, I’m only doing 5-7 minutes because I’m still nursing and you don’t want to detox too much when you’re nursing. At around 8 minutes, you start to sweat.
My daughter had a sore throat all day a few days ago. She wanted to do the sauna so I let her do 5 minutes, put some oil of oregano on her feet, had her gargle with warm salt water (we use sea salt), gave her Oscillo, and a few sprays of Sovereign Silver colloidal silver. She said her throat felt better the next day. Fingers crossed.
I bought a JOOVV red light therapy lamp for my husband and I for Christmas (OK, mostly for me. :)) It was $700 for the mini. I love it. It only takes about 7 minutes. You can do up to 20 minutes. It provides “natural” light, so basically kind of like the good rays that the sun produces, without the bad UV rays. Some people use it to combat SAD (seasonal affective disorder) or depression. Red light therapy supercharges cells, boosts the immune system, helps with skin conditions (acne, wrinkles, age spots, etc.), reduces inflammation, reduces chronic pain, helps with muscle recovery, increases melatonin production, improves sleep, and more.
I started doing full body red light therapy at a local tanning salon. It’s not the same as tanning though. Planet Fitness now has a full body red light machine called Total Body Enhancement for it’s prime members. I may try it sometime. I don’t know how red light would affect COVID-19 specifically, but it’s just another health tool in our belt that I intend to continue to use. My guess would be that it could help reduce inflammation in the lungs if used on the chest area. Here’s one article on the potential benefits of red light therapy on COVID-19.
NAC is an amino acid that increases glutathione, which the body utilizes to help detox toxins. It also helps with liver detox and supports respiratory health by reducing congestion and inflammation. It also has kidney protective effects and can help with EMF radiation exposure (see #14 below). Since Tylenol reduces glutathione, if we absolutely needed to take Tylenol, I will make sure to take NAC as well.
From Whole Health Chicago’s web site (our Lyme doctor): (click on the link to the left to read the full article)
Specifically, NAC may help to:
- Reduce congestion related to sinusitis, bronchitis, asthma, and other respiratory diseases. Conventional physicians routinely use NAC to dilute thick mucus, making it much easier to cough up or drain from the nasal passages and other congested areas. It’s often used to ease congestion in people with pneumonia and other chronic respiratory diseases.
Lots of great info at that link. We’ve never used NAC before but plan to now. My son does take D-Hist though for allergies and it contains some NAC. It also contains quercetin which is supposed to be helpful with COVID-19 as well.
OK. Here we go. 🙂 Do I think 5G is partially to blame for this pandemic? In a word…yes. Personally, I think the virus is definitely real. I don’t think anyone is denying that. Do I think the virus was a man-made bioweapon? Yes. But I also think that 5G is exacerbating symptoms of the virus, and/or it mimics/causes some of the same symptoms of COVID-19, making for a great and timely cover up of 5G poisoning.
5G initially rolled out in November, 2019 in Wuhan. It also rolled out in Italy, Spain, and in major cities in states in the U.S. including Washington state and New York, and on some cruise ships. 5G is also commonly in airports, hospitals, and is now being installed in schools, and eventually everywhere. Too much to get in to here, but I’ve seen a few good videos that explain the connection in more detail. Dr. Klinghardt whose office is in Washington, talks about this in his video interview about Corona. Or, do a google search for “Harmful effects of 5G.” Here’s a great article entitled, “Can 5G Exposure Alter the Structure and Function of Hemoglobin Causing Coronavirus Patients to Die from Oxygen Deprivation?” The video in it from the NY City ER doctor is a good one.
Anyways, reducing all other EMF radiation exposure is going to be helpful with COVID-19 and for your family’s health in general. I wrote a blog post called “10 Simple Ways to Reduce EMF’s at Home.” Things like turning off your Wifi at night, shutting down all devices at night or at least turning them on airplane mode, and opting out of Smart Meters if you are able to. We turn our Wifi off at night only right now, but if I get COVID-19, the Wifi is going off. If you hear screaming coming from my house, it’s not because I’m dying. It’s because I turned the Wifi off. 🙂 In our new house that we are building, I had ethernet outlets installed in every room so we won’t “need” to use Wifi.
Also, get outside as much as you can and “earth,” preferably barefoot, in the grass or at the beach. The earth has healing energy which can help combat the harmful EMF radiation we are being exposed to every day.
15. Astragalus and other Buhner herbs
If you have Lyme, you may be familiar with Dr. Buhner. He came up with a list of herbs that he suggests for COVID-19. One of those is astragalus, to help boost the immune system. We have this already, which is good because it seems to be out of stock everywhere. It’s great to take every day during tick season (which is now) as it may help prevent Lyme if you get bit by a tick infected with Lyme. (Read more about Lyme in my blog post called “15 Things Every Mom Should Know About Lyme.”
Other herbs that we’re already familiar with include Japanese Knotweed, Chinese Skullcap, licorice, and several others. Some people are making a tea out of specific herbs. I’d only use Buhner herbs if you are already familiar with how to use them properly. But if you want to read more about it, join a Lyme Facebook group that follows Buhner protocols, read his books, or check out Buhner’s web site.
Tumeric is another herb that we use to reduce inflammation so we will take it for a headache or body pain. It decreases the production of cytokines as well. It says not to take if pregnant or nursing, as is common for a lot of herbs, so I can’t do this one right now because I’m still nursing.
Green tea is an antiviral and supposed to be effective in reducing the production of cytokines according to this article. We use a Green Rooibos organic tea. Other teas made specifically for congestion/coughs may also be helpful. We will also remember to stay hydrated with other liquids as well. I have some bottles of electrolyte water from Whole Foods. Coconut water is also good for electrolytes. They make some flavored ones. If you feel like you absolutely need Gatorade, they make some organic ones now. We do Dragonfruit flavor Vitamin Water sometimes (not the Zero). If we have a sore throat, we gargle with warm salt water (sea salt) as it helps kill bacteria and viruses in the throat which is usually where this virus starts out before moving to the lungs.
This same article also talks about cytokine storms and what things are good for reducing the cytokine storm, and what things are bad. It’s the cytokine storm that is supposed to be causing the severe cases of COVID-19 which can result in fatalities. According to this article, it says to avoid chocolate (boo!), honey, colloidal silver, and elderberry. Bummer. Those are some of the things we commonly use when sick but this says it can elicit a severe cytokine storm reaction with COVID-19. The jury’s out on this. I’ve seen some doctors say colloidal silver and elderberry are OK to use with corona, and some say not to use them with corona. So, since there’s some debate, we just plan to avoid them if we get COVID-19. I see no problem taking them before getting sick though to help keep the immune system strong and as a prevention.
Other thoughts:
Nebulizers – In early March and in the video listed in #2 above, some people were saying to get a nebulizer and people were nebulizing ascorbic acid (vitamin C), colloidal silver, essential oils, etc. Now some people, including hospital staff, are saying not to use a nebulizer because it spreads the virus. Some people have said that if you live alone, it’s probably fine to use. Most places online though require a doctor’s authorization to order one. I’ve never used a nebulizer and we don’t have one so we don’t plan to use one though it sounds like they are probably helpful. So, do your own research and decide what’s best for your family.
Melatonin – Some studies suggested that the elderly were getting more sick because as you age, you naturally produce less melatonin. Kids and babies tend to naturally have higher levels of melatonin, thus why the younger population was not getting sick as much. Being on electronics at night lowers melatonin levels. Some people use blue blocker type glasses or shields over their screens/devices at night to help with this. I have not looked in to this much yet but I have a friend who has her whole family taking melatonin supplements per the advice of her holistic doctor.
So, these are the main things we are doing in our house. This is not all inclusive, and I know there is much more info out there. More and more every day in fact. Check with your doctor, but with some of these vitamins, like C, D, and zinc particularly, you want to start taking these before you get sick, not just after you get sick. It can take your body a few weeks to build up vitamin stores.
If you or your family have come down with COVID-19, please share in the comments what helped and what didn’t help you.
Blessings! Be well.
Written by Sheri Fortes - Visit Website
Author of "All Natural Mom's Guide to the Feingold Diet"
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The Treating ADHD Naturally Conference is coming back to Chicago May 23, 2018! More details coming soon at www.mothersdetermined.com.
