The Placebo Effect is Better Than no Effect at All

There have been interesting developments in my treatment of my mysterious new disease.

I passed two PCR tests, so I figured the most likely thing was sinusitus. Nonetheless, I put myself through several days of consecutive ivermectin doses, as recommended by doctors in a country where ivermectin is not a politicized drug. I also got myself some amoxicillin and started using it yesterday, figuring it could not hurt.

Yesterday, I didn’t take ivermectin. PCR tests are not accurate by any reasonable definition of the word, but two passed tests told me the odds against me having coronavirus were high. The recommended ivermectin program I was following said it was time to quit, ivermectin was iffy to begin with, and it seemed pretty unlikely that I had covid, so it seemed like I should stop.

Background: the first time I took ivermectin after returning sick from Turkey, it was around 3 a.m. I had just arrived from the airport. I went to sleep an hour later, and when I got up after 4 more hours, I felt much better. My sore throat was not nearly as bad as it had been, and I had a feeling of wellbeing. The drug had been in my system for about 5 hours.

I wondered whether ivermectin could really have done anything in 5 hours. Maybe I was just getting well on my own. Maybe my body was subduing covid, a bacterium, or a virus.

Yesterday, on my first day off ivermectin, I felt good when I got up. I had taken ivermectin every day for the previous 4 days, and while I was still blowing heinous substances out of my nose, I was doing okay. I felt good until mid-afternoon. Then things got worse. I felt feverish, my throat felt sorer, I was very sleepy, and my congestion seemed more severe.

I didn’t know what to do. Based on the tests, it looked like I didn’t have covid, but what if I did, and what if ivermectin had been reducing my symptoms and keeping my lungs clear?

I decided to take a dose before bed. When I woke up later to blow my nose, the feverish feeling was gone, as was the the difficulty of staying awake. My throat was less sore. Once again, I had recovered substantially, several hours after a dose of ivermectin.

So what’s happening? Why did I get worse when I quit? Did I sabotage my recovery by skipping a day of ivermectin, or did I experience a normal fluctuation in the progress of a common non-coronavirus infection? Why did I get well twice, right after taking ivermectin?

Seems like there are four likely possibilities.

1. I have covid, and ivermectin suppresses the symptoms as long as I take it every day.

2. I have something else, and ivermectin suppresses the symptoms as long as I take it every day.

3. I have covid, ivermectin has no effect on it, and the symptoms fluctuate because that’s what covid does.

4. I have something else, ivermectin has no effect on it, and the symptoms fluctuate because that’s what sinusitis does.

If a “journalist” from Rolling Stone were writing this, he would add another alternative.

5. I am slowly dying from ivermectin poisoning, like all those superstitious, flat-earth, Christian sexual conformists who died in the parking lot of that hospital in Oklahoma while misgendering trans nurses.

Whatever is happening, I am now very hesitant to stop taking ivermectin. What if it’s blocking a coronavirus surge? How would I know?

Alternative 2 is interesting. No one ever discusses ivermectin as a possible remedy for viral infections other than coronavirus, but why can’t it be? There are lots of non-covid coronaviruses out there. Maybe they share vulnerabilities with covid, and maybe viruses that aren’t related are in the same boat.

Again, how would I know?

As for amoxicillin, the Internet reading is depressing. A lot of it says bacterial sinusitis goes away after 10 days with amoxicillin treatment, but without treatment, it takes about a week and a half. It looks like doctors are just like me; they prescribe dubious medications simply because they enjoy feeling like they’re doing something.

I really blaspheme doctors. I know that has to annoy people who see them as gods who are much more powerful than they really are. I’m realistic. To me, medicine is no different from shoe repair. It’s something you should evaluate based on logic. To many other people, doctor worship is a religion. Doctors do lots of great stuff, but they are completely useless for many conditions, and because they’re human, they make mistakes and kill a lot of people who show up with things their art can cure.

Can covid cause sinusitis? Yes. Of course not. Definitely. Commonly. Rarely. Never. As usual, THE SCIENCE has no answers, or, rather, it has too many, and all but one, which THE SCIENCE can’t identify yet, are wrong and, in at least some cases, fabricated.

There is one right answer, and we don’t know what it is. We’re like Bruce Lee, kicking mirrors to find out which opponent is real.

I looked at a bunch of non-fringe sites today. Some said sinusitis almost never manifested with coronavirus. Others said there were a few cases, but they were always fungal and found in people with things like diabetes, which I do not have. Others said it was easy to confuse covid symptoms with sinusitis, and the message was that covid sinusitis was common.

It’s amazing how THE SCIENCE is still unable to answer simple, obvious questions after almost two years of the Kung flu, which is, by the way, a CHINESE VIRUS.

I love saying that on a site that hasn’t been censored yet. Chinese virus. Chinese virus. Hong Kong Flu-ey. Flu gu gai pan. Flu shu pork. There are four lights and two genders. Speaking the truth is so liberating in 2021. I think people who haven’t gone crazy yet should get together in rented halls and take turns standing at podiums, saying true things we’re not allowed to say any more. It would be great.

Yes, it’s a Chinese virus. No, you should not hit Chinese people on the subway. Especially if they’re from Taiwan or they were born in the US, or they’re actually Japanese. You shouldn’t beat the Korean deli owner who came into your poor neighborhood and became successful while you didn’t, even though you’re a natural-born US citizen who has been dutifully collecting welfare and waiting for serious wealth redistribution for 60 years. Simple?

We should be able to live by these guidelines. It’s not that hard to acknowledge the origin of the virus and the culpability of the CCP while refraining from racist violence. It’s very important to admit, publicly, that the virus is Chinese, because the CCP needs to be held accountable every single day.

Imagine what headlines about the CCP would look like if the communists were capitalists. “FORCED ABORTIONS CONTINUE.” “CCP REFUSES TO END THE HORROR OF ORGAN HARVESTING.” “THE TRUTH ABOUT YOUR SLAVE-MADE PHONE.” It would be wonderful.

I have been going over the symptoms of covid and ordinary sinusitis, and it appears that diarrhea and nausea–my first symptoms–do not occur in sinusitis. Sinus infections also cause headaches and face pain. I have had no face pain, and while I did have a headache, it was so mild there was no point in taking anything for it, although I did, because I was feeling snowflaky.

If it’s true sinusitis never causes gastrointestinal problems, then I must have coronavirus, right?

My insistence that negative PCR’s don’t mean a lot is not fringe stuff or Q Anon drivel. Read and find out for yourself. Even moon-barking, vaccination-Nazi Huffpo published an article by a sick person who got 5 consecutive negatives. People don’t all shed the same numbers of viruses, and virus-shedding varies in different parts of the body and at different times during infections.

I’m going to keep taking ivermectin, because once, I got worse when I stopped taking it, and twice, I got better right after taking it. Maybe it’s chance, but maybe it’s not. I’ll keep taking amoxicillin because there is a miniscule possibility it will cure me of bacterial sinusitis, which I may have, in a shorter time than would be accomplished by doing nothing. I will keep taking guaifenesin every day in order to continue expelling quarts of mucus from my head with minimal difficulty. I will also drink water and take potassium citrate to prevent guaifenesin from giving me kidney stones, because it can do that.

Finally, I plan to get out of the house and walk. I have been huddling indoors because it’s hot, not because I feel bad, which I don’t. Turkey ran around 78 degrees while we were there, so now I’m phobic about going outdoors in steamy Florida. I think inactivity makes respiratory bugs worse.

I’m going to order even more ivermectin, while vendors are willing to sell it. Two months from now, we may start seeing stories in which people like Fauci admit they were wrong about ivermectin. Maybe it will turn out to be very useful for certain people. I want to be ready if that happens, and I don’t mind spending a low three-figure sum in preparation. If it turns out to be useless, I can give it away to horse people.

I would like to have maybe a dozen tubes for myself, and just as many for Rhodah. That ought to get us through a number of bouts, assuming the drug does anything. It could keep us alive until THE SCIENCE finally comes up with something that actually works.

I don’t plan to go to a doctor unless I feel bad. I have been to doctors for stuff like this, and they’re always disappointing. Your average doctor is not House, M.D., and he doesn’t have a team of tormented Ivy League overachievers staying up all night using imaginary Star-Trek-grade equipment to find out what’s wrong with you. Most doctors compare limited, familiar lists of symptoms, just as I have, make educated guesses, and prescribe common drugs every layman knows about. Where I live, I’ll get a guy named Pradeep who had to take the US licensing tests three times before he was allowed to practice. He’s not going to pull a miracle cure out of the air. If there are doctors like that, they’re in New York and Boston.

I’m not kidding about the doctors here. American doctors shun rural communities, and our government gives foreign doctors special incentives to work in them. Look it up and feel bad about doubting me.

The harsh reality is that doctors are a lot like the police. When someone steals your TV and tools, the cops come over and write things down, and then they go back to the police station, file what they wrote, and forget all about you. If the criminal is still standing in your yard when they show up, they will probably do something, but other than that, no, you are never going to see your stuff again. They will not try to dig up “leads.” They will not slip twenties to informants. The only way you will get anything back is if someone does the cops’ work for them and basically drags them to wherever it’s located.

These things aren’t just true of relatively minor crimes. Even the families of murder victims can expect to do a lot of their own legwork, if they expect to get any results.

Doctors don’t sit up nights trying to figure out what’s wrong with you. They assume you have whatever common illness comes closest to explaining your symptoms, and they prescribe exactly what other doctors prescribe. If there is anything remotely unusual about your symptoms, expect them to be just as clueless and ineffective as you are. You’re going to need a specialist, and they screw up a lot, too. Medical history is full of stories of frustrated patients who ended up doing their own research and diagnosing themselves.

I started taking ivermectin as a lark. I never expected to be afraid to stop taking it. Coronavirus is an endless stream of surprises, and sadly, many of the people who get surprised the most are doctors the rest of us depend on.