What Is Your Ideal Dose of Nicotine for Long COVID? with Evan H. Hirsch, MD

What Is Your Ideal Dose of Nicotine for Long COVID? with Evan H. Hirsch, MD

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Welcome back to the EnergyMD Podcast where we help you resolve your long COVID and chronic fatigue syndrome naturally so that you can get back to living your best life. So today I'd like to talk about what we're seeing in our program of people who are going through, who have long COVID and we're utilizing nicotine patches. Now,

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At this point, are almost, we're about nine months out from the last video that I did on nicotine. So I have a lot more information to share with you. I also was recently interviewed on the nicotine patch test Facebook group by Troy Roach. And we kind of talked about some of the latest research that they've been doing as well. So really exciting episode. I definitely recommend that you check that one out. So first thing is, you know, this is not medical advice.

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please consult with your provider. do recommend that you work with somebody who has knowledge in long COVID. You know, if you want to get better or if you want to learn anything, you want to work with somebody who has actually done what you want to achieve. you know, if you want to learn piano, you work with a piano player, a piano teacher. If you want to fix your car, you take it to a mechanic, right? And so if you want to resolve your long COVID, you need to work with people who are working with people with long COVID all the time, like we are. So

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Very important. So and this is not medical advice. So let's go ahead and dive in. So a couple of things that I first want to kind of talk about. So what's really interesting in this process that's important to note is that this is not a one size fits all answer. Okay. Everybody is actually going to have potentially a different nicotine dose. And so what I recommend

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Is you kind of, start off at a low dose and you ramp up and you find what I call your Goldilocks dose. This is what I talk about in so many different parts of the program, whether we're getting rid of heavy metals, chemicals, molds, infections, or retraining your nervous system. What I call the toxic five. It needs to be individualized and you need to find the right dose that is going to make you feel better and not worse. Okay. So.

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When you start utilizing the nicotine patch or the nicotine gum, I recommend that you start at a low dose. So typically we're going to start people off at half a patch, you know, like 3.5 milligrams of like a seven milligram patch. But with some people, they need a lower dose. I was just talking to people in my program this week and they couldn't tolerate three and a half milligrams. So they had to that's a half a patch. So they cut it again. So they went to quarters.

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There's some people who needed an eighth of a patch and there are some people who needed to switch to the gum so that they had enough so that they had more control. So whenever you're looking at dosing, you want to look at the amount of milligrams that you're taking and then you want to look at the duration at which you're exposed to it. So for the patch, are you wearing it for 24 hours, 12 hours, one hour?

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And then you want to look at the frequency in which you're taking it. Are you going to wear it every day? Are you going to do every other day? Twice a week, you know, so figuring out what is that dose that is going to make you feel better, but not feel worse. And when you feel worse, it's because it's a little bit too much for the body. So the process of the nicotine and binding to the nicotinic acetylcholine receptors,

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Is that it is, it's doing a couple of things. So in binding to acetylcholine receptors, is improving cognitive function. is stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system, which allows for rest and digest and healing. It also is binding to the ACE2 receptor. And so it's kicking off the spike protein. Now important to remember that when it does that, you want to make sure that you've got

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Fibrinolytic enzymes like natokinase that are present in order to be able to digest and break up the spike protein, okay, but don't just go ahead and start taking natokinase because it may not be appropriate for your situation because natokinase is also a biofilm disruptor and it can break up infections and toxins from their hiding places in the body that need to be that uh

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break them up and then if they get released then you can have a Horkheimer reaction reaction or you can feel worse in going through this process and we want to try to have as much control as we can so that we're addressing just what we're focused on you know when we take people through our process we know what's happening in a particular moment because we're addressing heavy metals in a particular moment and then we're addressing molds and then we're addressing the infections and we know

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which infection we're addressing based on the herbs that we're using in the program. Okay. So the other thing that the nicotine receptor does, we talked about kicking off the spike protein, but some of the latest research indicates that there are venomous compounds that are part of the spike protein. And so when you're kicking that off, you can potentially be getting exposed to that again.

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What's really interesting too, is that when you work backward from your symptoms and you're looking at what, where, you got these symptoms from, when you're looking at how then the, the acetylcholine receptors react with your symptoms or what symptoms come from problems with the acetylcholine receptor or the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor, you notice, um,

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interesting things. You notice symptoms like POTS, dysautonomia, dry eyes, gastroparesis or intestinal issues, whether it's diarrhea or otherwise. Right? Does that ring a bell for anybody? Those are essentially blocked from those receptors that are controlling basically your autonomic nervous system. So if the spike protein is getting lodged in those nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, you can get these symptoms.

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right? So what's great about nicotine also it has a higher affinity for these receptors than spike protein so that's why it's able to kick it off is that it can bind preferentially to these receptors so that the spike protein leaves it displaces it and it makes it available like I said for the body to be able to break it down okay this is not like

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It's not different from the rest of the, the four step process that we take people through in our program where we're removing the toxic five. And in that four step process, we figure out all of the potential causes that they can, not just the causes that show up on imperfect lab tests, right? If you test for molds and you don't have molds, guess what? You're never going to treat it. And consequently, you may not get better. And what we're finding with people with long COVID

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is that they have heavy metals, chemicals, molds, and infections on our website under our research tab. If you go to energymdmethod.com slash research, you'll be able to see all the research on how heavy metals, chemicals, molds, infections, and nervous system dysfunction affect long COVID. So I've been putting that together and really happy to share that with you. So first step is to make sure you're addressing all of the potential causes.

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Second step is to start replacing deficiencies in vitamins and minerals, hormones, mitochondrial function, lifestyle habits, mindset. Third step is to open up the exit pathways. These are the detox pathways that have to get the toxins and infections out. You got to get them out through the liver, the kidney, the lymph, which is the garbage system of the body, the neuro lymph, which is in the brain, the gallbladder and the intestines, right? All those pathways have to be open.

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So that when you go into step four and you start removing the heavy metals, the chemicals, the molds, all the different infections, including the spike protein and COVID and retraining the nervous system that they have a place to go that they can get out of the body. So that's the four step process that we take people through.

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Okay, so let's come back to your ideal dose. So a couple things to consider. So there is some research to suggest that the COMT gene may affect how you metabolize acetylcholine and nicotine. So sometimes if somebody's having a hard time with nicotine, you may need to support the COMT with something like lithium orotate. This is very different than lithium carbonate, which is like the lithium that people take.

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in large doses that are prescriptions that are for bipolar disorder. Lithium aurotate is a supplement and you're going to be taking somewhere along the lines of, you know, one to 10 milligrams depending on who you are and what's recommended for you. But this is if you have challenges tolerating the nicotine and you have a COMT, either homozygous or heterozygous SNP, which is considered a single nucleotide polymorphism.

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Or basically, uh, issue with the gene and how it's being expressed. Okay. So that's one way where it needs to be individualized. The other thing is that the more toxins and infections you have in the body, oftentimes that will affect, um, receptor availability or your ability to kick off the spike protein or get, you know, you do have to recruit the immune system in part of this in order to be able to help you to take care of getting the spike protein out of the body.

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And there is some research to suggest that mycotoxins and mold spores can negatively affect these receptors. Heavy metals can interfere with detox pathways. There's certain infections that have been shown to be reactivated like FC bar virus or HHV6 that add to the inflammatory load. um So you may need different dosing approaches. And then in terms of the symptoms and the symptom severity that you have,

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Sometimes more mild symptoms can respond better to something like seven milligrams, but really severe symptoms, know, pots and cognitive dysfunction may require a bit more. Maybe it's 14 milligrams. So you have to look at your specific symptom picture. So you want to start low, you know, three and a half milligrams is kind of what Troy and his group are doing at the nicotine patch test Facebook group, uh which I agree with.

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I think that that's great. know, oftentimes I'll start people off with seven milligrams and then cut it depending on what they need. If they know that they're, have a total body burden that's a bit excessive, or if they are more sensitive, then we'll start them off with a half a patch just off from the gate, from the get-go. And then I'm working up to seven milligrams for a round of 14 days, which was in the initial research, but it sounds like the subsequent research.

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What they're doing is more along the lines of seven to 10 days and then taking a break. So I'll do 14 days. I'll have people take a break and see how they feel. If they noticed an improvement through that process of getting up to the seven milligrams, um, and then they stop the patch and after a couple of days to a week, then they, those symptoms come back. Then it's time to kind of go back on it.

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There is also what they're doing in that Facebook group is that they're having people stay on it. I'll generally stay on it long-term if it's helping with your symptoms. Um, I will do the same, but I do like coming off of it to give the receptors a break every, you know, two to four weeks, depending on your particular situation. Uh, we do have some people in the program who can't tolerate it. mean, nicotine is stimulating, but they can't tolerate it.

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after a certain time. So they find that their sleep is worse when they take it past 6 p.m. Let's say. So very important to tailor this to you and to look at those different components about how many milligrams, how long are you wearing it for, what's your exposure, and then what the frequency is. You and you don't have to take it every single day for, you know, for 24 hours for 14 days in order to have

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an effective dose for you. So what do you do if you have tried this approach and you haven't gotten better? Typically what that means is that you have a total body burden of the toxic five that isn't going to be remedied just by taking the nicotine. So the nicotine is really great for mobilizing the spike protein, kicking it off of the receptor site, helping it to kind of get out of the body.

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It has these additional benefits of helping with energy, helping with cognitive function, just by acting on the acetylcholine receptor, but it's not going to remove heavy metals, chemicals and molds and other infections that are in the body that have accumulated over the course of your life that sets you up for long COVID. Right? So there are a percentage of people who can just do the nicotine and they can get better or get significantly better or maybe a little bit better. It just really depends.

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On your total body burden of how much of this other stuff do you have? Right? So if you're not getting better with just doing the nicotine, I would definitely recommend going through a process like ours of addressing all of the causes that you have, leaving no stone unturned so that you can get to the finish line so that you can get your life back. Right. So that you can stop thinking about your health so much. Right. How much is this occupying your time?

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Right? So that's, that's our mission is to help a million people resolve their long COVID and chronic fatigue syndrome naturally so that they can get back to living their best life. Right? Cause I know what that was like when I had my chronic fatigue syndrome, it was the couch for me and I couldn't play with my daughter. I couldn't help out with any of the chores around the house. I, my business was suffering. It was, it was not good. Please give it a like subscribe.

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Share it with somebody you love. And if you have any comments, I'd love to hear how you what your experience has been like utilizing nicotine patch. If you have some questions, drop them in the comments below a little bit behind and getting back to comments. But I absolutely will address every comment that has a question. All right. Hope this was helpful for you. ah I will see you in the next episode. Be well. So if you have chronic fatigue, whether it's from long COVID or chronic fatigue syndrome,

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go ahead and click the link below to watch my latest master class where I go deep into our four step process that has helped thousands of others resolve their symptoms naturally. After you watch that video, if you're interested in seeing if we're a good fit to work together, you can then get on a free call with me. All right, thanks so much. I'll see you over there.