wilmwolf80 said:
Mormad said:
wilmwolf80 said:
A question I have is if there is any harm that can come from taking the human dosage of ivermectin. I posted my story earlier in the thread about my business partner being prescribed it for a subcutaneous worm condition, but that was a long time ago and I don't remember if he had any side effects from it. I guess the crux of what I'm asking is if there isn't any harm in taking it for covid, even if we can't currently show a therapeutic value to it, what does it hurt? Is it just because we don't want people to incorrectly take the animal version? Otherwise, we've done a lot of things over the course of the pandemic with the justification of "well, it can't hurt" so I am failing to see the hubbub, outside of what seems to be a political slant for some reason.
That's a great question. The simplest answer is that those of us in medicine are not typically ones that prescribe or treat with things that offer no proven therapeutic benefit just because it's potentially benign. There are potential harms with every treatment option, and when weighing the risk benefit ratio of particular options, if there is not a proven therapeutic benefit then the potential harms outweigh the potential benefits. Admittedly, there are some docs willing to write for ivermectin off label, but there's a reason there aren't many. And we typically don't make treatment decisions based on politics. Maybe those who currently believe the benefits of ivermectin outweigh the risks for covid treatment will be seen as brilliant pioneers in the near future. Who knows?
Forgive my ignorance on the matter, but how or why did it start getting used in the first place? Since a prescription is required, I assume that the first usage of it came from a doctor prescribing it, and I can't imagine a doctor just searching through a list of medicines and seeing that one and saying let's try that one. I assume someone saw something that lead them to believe it might be helpful.
Again, I'm not advocating for or against it's use, there just seems to be at least anecdotal evidence, if not yet scientifically confirmed, that there could maybe be some benefit there. So that is the source of my line of questions, if there was anecdotal evidence of a positive outcome and no side effects, I wouldn't see a problem with people saying why not give it a go , particularly if nothing else were working on a particular case. PA has laid out some potential side effects, so that would obviously weigh into it, which is what I was seeking the answer to with my original question.
We just have to be careful, as providers, what we constitute as evidence. You make such insightful points that can be hard to argue but I'll try to offer whatever insight i can. Hope this makes sense. Yes, we often stumble upon therapeutics that seem to offer a positive association for a condition's outcome without there being an intention to treat. But that association may or may not be real. If i gave my wife a throat losange and her back pain seemed to go away, and i did it 10 more times and her pain got better each time, I'd still be wrong to start giving my patients throat losanges for their back pain without it being studied. I'd be a quack. But losanges are so safe... What is the harm?
So yeah, somebody saw what they felt was a good outcome and some have used that anecdotal evidence to manage their patients and because many patients get better, it can potentially be wrongly associated with good outcomes. Which is why it's being studied, rightfully so ... But little actual benefit thus far and so there's little evidence to suggest the anecdotal outcomes are the real benefit of ivermectin despite our desires for an easy, inexpensive, relatively safe oral med to treat covid. Believe me, i WANT it to work. But I'm not gonna hang my hat on it with my license and reputation on the line because somebody somewhere thinks they saw an anecdotal benefit. Like many have argued with hesitation on the vax, i think I'll await better evidence.
It is great you used that argument though. It made me smile. That argument didn't fly well for me here when arguing the benefit of masking. Essentially no risk of physical harm, but millions of little anecdotal interactions between doctor and patient in which the doc didn't get it. Positive association between an extremely benign "therapeutic" and outcome. But is that evidence? So why not give it a go, even if not scientifically confirmed and studies don't really show benefit? Maybe that is a little window into my frustrations arguing the benefits of masking (not mandates) early in the course of this whole thing. Even if a little apples to oranges. (I'll hate myself for even bringing that up I'm sure lol)
Anyway, that's the way i think about it for now
Edited to add: Pierre is Dr ivermectin, and if you read his disclaimers he clearly states his treatment algorithm is not an approved treatment, has not shown benefit in studies, should not be judged as such a treatment, and urges readers to "use common sense and listen to your medical doctor" about covid. And he urges masking.