Some NJ docs prescribing meds that work for COVID-19

In the last several weeks we've had some family and friends that have come down with pretty serious cases of COVID.

It seems if you're not in tremendous respiratory distress some doctors, physician's assistants and nurse practitioners are just advising patients to rest at home and take Tylenol for fever. They would also recommend going to the ER if you start to have real trouble breathing.

Two family members were admitted to the hospital for four or five days and given IV Remdesivir which can only be administered in the hospital.

One close friend languished at home for over two weeks with a bad cough and 11 days of fever.

We asked our listeners is they were having the same experience, and the good news is that some physicians in New Jersey are prescribing therapeutics that work to give relief and shorten the severity of the illness.

News came this week that a leading medical facility in our state released a study on the much-maligned drug hydroxychloroquine that showed promising results. You may recall that when former President Trump mentioned that the drug showed promise the media and many in the medical community were quick to trash the inexpensive, safe and readily available drug as useless in fighting COVID. Now that the bad orange man is gone, I guess it's now safe to have faith in its efficacy.

Another inexpensive, widely used drug called Ivermectin has also shown good results in some patients with COVID. A woman I know of in Ocean County received a prescription for Ivermectin when she tested positive for the virus and started to show symptoms, and within four days was feeling back to normal.

You have to hunt for the stories but they're there. It has to make you wonder why more physicians are not prescribing these readily available, cheap, therapeutic drugs aren't more widely prescribed, while patients wait at home to get worse and then go into the hospital to be treated with an expensive IV medication.

Being in the hospital is never a treat, but during this pandemic, it's especially miserable with no visitors and personnel coming in dressed like you're a radioactive leper. So, if you're unfortunate enough to get the virus, be sure to ask about hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin and get your doctor's opinion.

And if you don't like the answer, I'd get a second opinion and maybe a third.