By Alwayn Leacock, M.D.
(First published on Facebook; Republish with permission)
My experience includes working in our country (St. Vincent and the Grenadines) for over 10 years in every district clinic and hospital, bar none. Persons are ill and at home and say they are too ill to see the doctor. They wait until they “feel better”, by which time they are far worse, before presenting. They resort to home remedies.
With COVID-19, you should adopt a more cautious attitude. Take nothing for granted and assume nothing. Any state of unwellness should be treated as COVID-19 until proven otherwise.
COVID-19 attacks mainly the lungs as the chief organ in the body. The tubes leading to the end of the lungs, which have air sacs like many tiny balloons covered with blood vessels, become plugged with mucous and the sac filled with secretions. COVID-19 causes clotting, so the tiny blood vessels that would carry the blood enriched with oxygen also become clogged with clots. That means your body cannot take in oxygen and even if it did, it cannot carry it around because you have clots in the system.
That becomes like a backlog to your heart that is directly plugged in to your lungs as a reservoir and pump, waiting to push the oxygen to all the other parts of your body. However, because of the impact of COVID-19, the heart cannot pump efficiently and has to work harder to try and keep up with demands from our tissues and organs. The result is that if you are predisposed to a bad heart you develop heart failure and if you already had heart failure, you are worse off. As a result of this, your body becomes hypoxic (experiences a deficiency in the amount of oxygen reaching the tissues). In the midst of plenty oxygen, your body cannot get any.
The air we breathe only has 23% oxygen, anyway. If oxygen cannot get into our blood we become hypoxaemic. That is, a lack of oxygen concentration in the blood. Don’t confuse hypoxia with hypoxaemia. Now, the body also needs to get rid of carbon dioxide and it does this through the lungs. If you can’t get rid of carbon dioxide, it builds up in your blood and your blood becomes acid. When tissues are starved of oxygen, they also produce poisons that can damage the main waste disposal system — your kidneys — and the main manufacturing system — your liver. Some of these poisons cause aches and pain. However, the tissues and organs also build up lactic acid. Yes, the acid that causes pain in your muscles when you over exercise. So, not being able to get rid of acid, more tissue is poisoned and you end up in a bad way. Cell death takes place, tissue death, then organ damage, which becomes irreparable, and then organ death.
Don’t forget that the virus, apart from this assault, is also mashing up your bone marrow, preventing it from producing cells required to safeguard your immunity.
Our bodies are remarkable. Our kidneys have to be 90% damaged to make them unworkable. Our liver has the greatest capacity to regenerate and repair itself. So when we get to this end stage, it is a lot of damage that has taken place.
I am a Caribbean boy. My late mother had her home remedies. I believe in them, they worked for me — or so I thought growing up. I don’t know of any of those home remedies, be it bush, bark, or otherwise, that will make your body take in more oxygen and get rid of carbon dioxide and lactic acid.
The moral of this last paragraph is to seek medical attention early. If you defer to home remedy and present late, what is done is already done. The vaccine is meant to boost our immune system and prepare us to fight off this virus. However, you can see from what I’ve said that if you already have compromise that you are in a dark place already.
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Well said.
I too have faith in home remedies, but just like a bandage doesn’t help much if you cut off your leg, bush remedies don’t help much if you have a virus. Even the vaccine doesn’t help if you are already infected! It’s too late then.
Give yourself a much higher chance of survival. The virus is very unlikely to go away on its own. And it will kill people. Maybe not you, but maybe your parents or your kids. Protect them from you. Get the jab.
THANK YOU, DR, Alwayn Leacock, M.D. for this explanation an medical education as put out in this post. When we take the time to educate others even if it touches and changes the thinking of one life that is saved it is a worthwhile effort that is sincerely appreciate. So cuz, if you don not mind I have shared it on my page for those who are willing to read it.Thanks again.
Congrats Dr Alwyn Leacock. Very informative and educational column. You should write more often.
The best article i have seen on the topic.
Bless you, Dr. Alwyn Leacock for taking the time to so clearly and succinctly communicate why bush, bark and other home remedies are ineffective against COVID. I have been quite concerned for some time by the large number of folks who have said they are trusting their own healthy lifestyle and immune system to protect them and those who are relying on their faith alone to do so. I sincerely hope that your style of communication and the factual information you presented to compassionately may resonate with some and, in fact, save some lives. I can only hope that at least some of those in leadership positions will emulate your approach going forward as it seems more likely to influence hearts and minds in a constructive way rather than encouraging people to get their backs up and dig in their heels as seems to be the response to others’ chosen approaches. Thank you for giving me some hope!
This is great information and I pray that people take notice and seek professional advice before applying homemade remedies.
Thanks Dr. Leacock for this easy-to-understand article.
And please educate us on the adverse effects / complications that the vaccine can cause to our organs. Not anti vaxx, but need more clarity on these vaccines. Is it true some people suffered from blood clots, low platelets, menstrual problems , heart issues and een deaths.?? We should be educated on both the advantages and disadvantages.
Vaccine save lives.