HOW TO COPE WITH OUR CURRENT DOUBLE WHAMMY OF COVID + FLU

It’s not enough that every single day’s headline has something stressful: ICE shootings; Greenland/Venezuela/Ukraine; Feds withholding aid for food and medicine; but now both COVID and flu are on the rise.

January and February are the big flu months and what’s left of the DOGE decimated CDC is warning that another pandemic of a new virus, unrelated to COVID may be in our futures later in the year.

If you start developing flu or COVID symptoms and they’re worsening (fever, cough, muscle aches), get a combination self-test kit and if “positive” contact your primary care provider for Tamiflu for flu or Paxlovid for COVID. You need to start these ASAP in order for maximum effectiveness. In fact, take the first dose in the drugstore!

I have been getting a LOT OF CALLS from WholeHealth Chicago patients, mainly with flu, so I don’t have to check the CDC data to know the numbers are increasing, but you can take many steps to make sure you don’t become ill.

PREVENTION

Here’s an interesting chart left over from the COVID pandemic in 2020 listing where you’re most likely to get infected with a viral infection. Virtually all my patients are telling me a variant of, “I knew I shouldn’t have gone to that convention, reunion, crowded bar.” If you must go to a crowded place, slip on a mask.

SUPPLEMENTS

No dramatic changes here from my COVID recommendations, but I am astonished that when I measure blood levels of these potent immune boosters during routine exams, how low their levels are. In other words, people are walking about during this flu/COVID Double Whammy vulnerable to infections with a capital “V.”

Order the following from our apothecary and take regularly (although the mushrooms can be discontinued when the flu season is over):

• Pure Encapsulations Vitamin D with K, 1 capsule daily
• Pure Encapsulations Vitamin C, 1,000 mg daily
• NOW Foods Zinc Picolinate, 50 mg daily
• Real Mushrooms Five Defenders, two capsules each morning

IMMUNE BOOST INFUSIONS

Immune Boost IV
If you really want to be armed to the teeth, call and schedule our proprietary Immune Boost infusions, which can be administered in less than the 30 minutes it takes to check your phone messages.

You’ll receive one liter of a balanced electrolyte fluid with a mega-dose of WholeHealth Chicago’s blend of powerful antioxidants and anti-inflammatory vitamins, including vitamin C, zinc, and B vitamins.

It’s well accepted that the strength of your immune system is very much dependent on the state of your nutrition. Both vitamin C and zinc, for example, have direct immune-stimulating and antiviral effects. However, many of us are deficient in one or the other (or both) because we’re either inattentive to what we eat or the supplements we select aren’t being efficiently absorbed by our digestive tracts.

STRESS AND YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM

Back during my residency, I learned of a published study that had answered the question, “In a large office, who actually gets the ‘flu’ during a ‘flu epidemic’? And it mainly landed on those experiencing the most stress in their lives, either at home, at work, or both.

Using the WholeHealth Chicago Search Engine to scout through my 1,600 or so Health Tips, I discovered that back in 2016, ten years ago, I’d written, “Trump, Stress, and Your Body.” Jeez! A decade of this!  

Well, Yoga is always a good idea, or T’ai Chi. Olly Ultra Strength Goodbye Stress Gummies are everywhere these days.

Be well,

David Edelberg, MD