Fibromyalgia & Long Covid: Two Peas In A Pod

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Hi, welcome. I’m Dr. Rodger Murphree, and I’m the host of Freedom from Fibromyalgia Summit. And I want to welcome Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar. She’s a double board certified physician. She’s board certified in integrative medicine and also in emergency medicine. And she’s the author of a book I highly recommend. Even though Austin Times had this up, Ms. up, the title is so easy. It’s one you should remember, right? But it’s eat, sleep, move and breathe. And it’s a wonderful book. We’ve had conversations about it last year in a podcast I think we were on together. I highly recommend the book, but I’m delighted to have Jennifer here because we’re going to be talking about the connection between fibromyalgia and COVID and long hauler syndrome. So, Jenny, thank you so much for being here. I’m so excited to have this conversation.

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

Hi, Rodger. Thank you so much for having me. Really excited to talk about COVID. It’s it’s on everyone’s mind the last two years, so we have to know more about it and in the long haul and all of it and its connection with fibromyalgia.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

I had an interview with Cort Johnson and he’s the founder of Health Rising dot org. It’s a blog and a website devoted to research on fibromyalgia, Amy Carty syndrome and now long hauler syndrome. And we were talking about this connection we’re starting to see with people who get long hauler and then go on to develop and get maybe get a diagnosis of romantic syndrome or fibromyalgia. And we’re sorry, we see a bleed over of individuals who have very similar symptoms that we would see in fibromyalgia, even though it was initiated by COVID, I assume from the title that you shared with me, what we’re going to talk about, this is something you’re seeing in your practice.

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

Yeah, it absolutely is. And what I’d like to do is start out by talking about like what is long haul?

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Cody’s confusion about that.

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

Yeah, yeah. It’s also known as long haul COVID syndrome. So and then recently, some doctors are calling it post-acute squalor of COVID 19. And really conventional doctors have no idea what to do with long COVID. So these symptoms can be from anything from just fatigue, prolonged fatigue. It could be headaches. It could be just generalized fatigue. It could be sleep difficulties, palpitation of the heart, hair loss. You could have appetite issues, not joint pains, shortness of breath. We actually see that a lot, a lot in certain long haulers and then also just cognitive issues. So like brain fog almost. So when we look at it, you know, I bet you people listening would be like, well, wait, that’s me. And it might be and we see this a lot with the long haul. And really I have seen a lot of long haul that has not they weren’t treated aggressively with COVID. So then they end up in this long COVID symptom syndrome. And also another thing, when we’re talking about long COVID, we should also talk about COVID vaccination syndromes after that. And I’ve also seen some vaccine injury which was similar to long COVID. And when we go in to talk about treatment and its association with fibromyalgia, they’re basically treated the same.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

So, you know what? What I’m seeing in my practice is I’ve had patients that had gone into remission with fibromyalgia. And for those of you, this is your first the first interview you’ve seen, you’re thinking, yeah, remission. But there’s numerous practitioners. Doctor Pfleger would probably agree with me. Fibromyalgia is very much treatable. We have numerous practitioners on here share that message. 

You know, there is definitely hope for fibro, but I’ve had several patients over the last year who I had taken care of years ago, two, three or four years ago, who went into remission with their fibro doing great, got COVID, got over COVID, and then they went into this chronic flare. And those are fibromyalgia. You know what I’m talking about? Some of them it just like you were saying, Jenny, you know, with the brain fog and the fatigue. But others are having problems with afib and some of the things we see with some cardiac conditions. It’s a real mess. I mean, it’s a real mess because there’s a shortage of doctors really understand how to treat long haul syndrome. And these people are just looking for answers and not getting it.

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

Absolutely. I agree with that. And what you said, they’re in remission from their fibromyalgia or whether they’re in remission from their autoimmune disease. And then they see this flare. Yeah. And and what I’ve always said about COVID is it kind of brings out the weaknesses, you know. So if you had something that was kind of stirring and then you get COVID and it messes with your immune system balance, then you’re going to notice it and it’s going to kind of flare up. So that’s I bet you what you’re seeing with your fibromyalgia patients, and they’re probably very frustrated.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Well, and then you mentioned autoimmune. So I have one patient in particular that comes to mind that she had loop, she had fibromyalgia and lupus had both. And she’s been doing great for a number of years. And all the protocols that I got her on years ago and then recently came down with COVID and then long haul COVID and her winter practitioner and he said, Hey, I don’t know how to tell you this, but you’re you’re you’re pain in your flank back here. It’s coming from your kidneys and you’ve got kidney disease. And there was destruction of some of the kidney cells. And he went on to say, look, I think you’re going to there’s really no treatment for you. I think you’re going to have to have dialysis at some point. 

I mean, she’s you know, she’s in her fifties and she’s hearing this, of course, she’s freaking out, gets in touch with me and we, you know, just doing some detective work like we do it in and with functional medicine found out that really it was the COVID that triggered this reaction, this cytokine storm that now was attacking your kidney cells. Got her some protocols that you, you and I both are familiar with and turned around. And she went to our urologist, our nephrologist, I guess, and they said, hey, I don’t know what you’re doing. Everything looks great. Come back and see me in a year. So if you are battling some of these issues, you really want to tune in because we’re going to share some protocols that can help you if you’re battling long hauler. 

One thing that’s really interesting I want to get your input on this is what we see is that so many people don’t even have symptoms. You know, they come down, they come in contact with COVID, they’re having symptoms. And then next thing you know, two or three months later, now they develop symptoms of long hauler. And I think the estimates the last one I read was 30% of the people who come in contact with COVID, who have the infection, go on to develop long hauler syndrome. I mean, that’s shocking. Really.

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

Yeah, I can believe that. And that like you were explaining these patients, they do well with the virus, but it’s not it’s not always the acute phase. It’s the cytokine response. It’s an overzealous immune response to this. And those the spike proteins are just crazy. It’s like nothing that we’ve ever seen before in medicine. Like no one knows what to do with them. So the problem is, is you have these spike proteins that are hanging around and if they’re not taken care of properly, they’re hanging around, they’re causing a ruckus, they’re causing inflammation. You know, when I treat actual COVID patients and even now people are like, I’m not getting sick from COVID. And it’s like you still have to treat it aggressively because it’s not always just the infection, it’s the aftermath. So I use like a hurricane analysis a lot with this. 

You know, the hurricane is bad, right? Hurricanes are bad. But what’s worse, the aftermath. But if it’s a level three hurricane, there’s going to be even more aftermath. So we want to keep it to a tropical storm. That’s what I tell them. I’m like, you know, we’re going to put you on the SLC protocol, which is the frontline critical Care Coalition protocol. And, you know, and these are hundreds of doctors getting together with these proven protocols, but we want to get that viral load down and then help the inflammatory process. You know, it’s kind of like if you’re using a hammer, you know, when all you need is the push of your finger, you know, like using a hammer to ring a doorbell instead of your finger. 

That’s like what your immune system does when it sees this COVID and the spike protein. So what we want to do is, is dial it down and let your body know that it doesn’t have to react as much. And when we look at when people are getting very sick, especially with the Delta variant, they weren’t when were they showing up in the hospital? So they weren’t showing up when they had that high viral load. It was after it was that cytokine response. And, you know, working in the hospitals that probably the worst case I’ve ever seen. And this wasn’t COVID, but it was a pregnant influenza patient and she had ARDS and this is acute respiratory distress syndrome. And this is kind of the same picture you would see with COVID when the lungs are just super inflamed. Then they don’t work. 

And it wasn’t the you know, it’s the aftermath that causes that cytokine response and really destroys the tissues and the lungs are very vulnerable to that. So when we would really we’re in the thick of COVID in that delta variant was there. And I would be treating patients, you know, with ivermectin very aggressively to get that viral load down. You know, it’s ivermectin, not FDA approved to treat COVID. But what it does is it helps decrease that viral load and decrease that inflammation. So the thought is, with long COVID, do they still have some viral load and spike protein kind of hanging around? And this is similar to the thought of chronic Epstein-Barr, where these people, these people have chronic, chronic Epstein-Barr kind of viral load just hanging around in the body, can’t clear it because of how their immune system is maybe imbalanced. So with long haul, it’s the ivermectin actually treatment is very helpful. It really decreases inflammation, keeps that viral load down. So that’s one thing that is really helpful in acute COVID and that is going to help prevent the long COVID is the hypothesis. 

And that’s what I’ve seen patients that have been treated aggressively with COVID, you know, with the protocols, and then also put on mitochondrial support after their treatment of COVID to help revamp that mitochondria, they are less likely to to have long COVID. So this is very important, especially early. We’re seeing with COVID so many new cases of fibromyalgia, you know, it could it’s it’s kind of a crossover and I’d like to get right what you think about this because it the long haul with the fatigue and the body joint pain there’s a big crossover with actual diagnosing fibromyalgia, which it’s nice because it’s bringing awareness more to the disease. I have found like now, actual doctors are paying attention more to fibromyalgia.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah, that’s the silver lining, if there is one is now the NIH has given up caught Johnson throughout the number of what it was for long haul hour, which was I don’t know I’m just gonna throw out a number 300 million and they’ve dedicated 7 million to chronic fatigue syndrome or any you know, as you say, there’s a big discrepancy there. But, you know, with long hauler, what I feel like is going to happen. We certainly will get an explosion of people that are going to go on to develop fibromyalgia, but also critics drama and probably syndrome is probably more of a mirror image of long hauler symptoms than even fibro because of the viral connection there. 

And, you know, the thing that I think that is that the thread that kind of runs through these three different diseases is the fact that the body is overreacting, it gets stimulated, it can’t turn off. And we know with fibromyalgia they have an overactive nervous system, are part of their system. The sympathetic nervous system is hyper vigilant. It registers pain in a magnified way and that process doesn’t turn off for them. And there’s a connection with irritable bowel and migraine and interstitial cystitis with central sensitization, central central sensitization, pain syndrome. I have heard that’s a tongue twister, but that syndrome can really generate this low pain threshold or Albania where pain becomes magnified. So there is a thread that weaves through. Now what which way is going to go? Are we going to see more people getting diagnosed or creating syndrome? Are we going to see more people getting diagnosed with fibromyalgia? And does it really matter for us? It probably doesn’t because it’s just a name. That’s all it is, which we don’t treat a disease. We treat the person.

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

Yeah, exactly. And we treat the person the same way we’re looking for root causes, how to modify this, how to decrease their pain, how to improve their quality of life and all of those things. So I can talk about treatment a little bit.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah, I’m going to go into a little bit about protocols, but before you do, I just been, you know, several people this term that I think maybe the lay public don’t understand what it means. Cytokine storm. So people hear that and they know this is something that’s unusual, that’s not been talked about in the media with something new with COVID. But can you talk a little bit about these reactions, this inflammatory side of these inflammatory cytokines, what they are what’s going on?

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

Yes. So when you have an infection or even you have an injury, your body can make inflammatory markers and go, they’re kind of clean, clean things up. So think about when you sprain your ankle, you have inflammatory markers going there. It’s good inflammation. It’s trying to repair what’s going on. The problem is with something like COVID and certain viruses trigger, this influenza in children is historical for cytokine responses. So this is when it’s overzealous. So the body, it doesn’t know when to stop. It’s kind of like a roller coaster or a train, you know, off its track. It’s running amok. 

So it’s overs, zealous immune response and some of the main ones like tumor necrosis factor interleukin six and some of the interleukin six is also elevated in certain rheumatoid rheumatologic conditions also. So when we look at this cytokine storm, this is what I was talking about, like the aftermath. So this is not a good aftermath if it’s overzealous. So this specifically because the spike protein in COVID, SARS-CoV-2, it goes to the lungs, for example. So then the body is going to send in all this cytokines to come in there and try to get rid of this virus because it knows it’s an invader that shouldn’t be there. 

So our body is trying to do the right thing, but it goes too hard. Okay. And actually causes tissue damage with all of these markers. So what happens is there’s too much inflammation. Okay. So the lungs, for example, with COVID, that’s the big problem with why people end up in the hospital because they have hypoxia and they can’t breathe. So then we look at inhaled steroids like budesonide. Or if you’re really in that late phase, COVID, they will do DECA drawn or dexamethasone IV. So those are some treatment protocols. And because you’re calming down that inflammation that’s caused by that overzealous immune response, but we do want some immune response. It’s just when it goes out of control. And the other problem with inflammation is that COVID attacks, the small vessels. So that’s why you’re getting inflammation in the small vessels in your body. And this is where we think that, you know, that’s why you lose your sense of smell and taste. This is why heart problems are you know, people are having more heart problems. Also, because you’re getting that inflammation in the small vessels. And this is where, you know, if you do have COVID, you do want to be on something like aspirin to help send out that blood. And when you look at all the different botanicals used in COVID and long COVID, a lot of them are anti-inflammatory herbs that are going to calm down that inflammation and that response.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

You mentioned that. And I’ve got to how you said it, but the fact that COVID will attack the heart, we get a lot of heart issues. So heart, lungs, kidneys, those are the three, three biggies in the brain. I guess. But then I’ve got a patient right now that is bless her heart, she’s 76 years old, Swedish. You can be that she is having all these heart issues and her is doing great fibers doing great. But she contacted me two weeks ago. She having all these heart issues. And the first thing I asked her was, hey, have you recently had COVID? Yes, I’ve had it twice. So got her to the cardiologist. Got to work up and he’s, you know, call me up and say, Rodger, I think it’s just you know, she said this is all coming from COVID. 

I think she’s going to be fine. What do you recommend? So then we started on, you know, the protocols that you and I both used. But it’s scary. I mean, it’s really this is some scary stuff, you know, that it would attack your heart like that as well. So Ivermectin, a lot of controversy about ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. I mean, there’s, you know, the politicization of these and vaccines, but the truth somewhere in the middle, I mean, somewhere, you know, there’s some truth in there. You don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And personally, I recommend IV ivermectin. I think it’s something that can be very, very helpful. But I know there’s a lot of baggage associated. Can you talk a little bit about what are some of the protocols that you use based on the colleagues that you mentioned earlier?

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

Yeah, so the protocols, the Frontline Critical Care Coalition, they have been kind of the forefront of repurposing this orphan drug. Right. So it actually ivermectin is on the World Health Organization of one of a critical med right. Like this is one of the medications that is needed in the world. Okay. So it’s been used. It’s very safe. It’s over-the-counter in other countries because I’ve had patients go and get it elsewhere, too. And really low side effect profile, you know, warfarin or Coumadin is it’s really like the main thing I’m worried about. You know, it’s you can take it while you’re breastfeeding. You can not take it while you’re pregnant, though, because I’ve had a lot of patients come to me, actually, it really makes me mad. I’ve had pregnant patients that were totally abandoned by their OBGYNs and conventional medicine during the pandemic. Pregnant women can actually take hydroxychloroquine while they’re pregnant. It’s absolutely necessary. But when we look at ivermectin because no one can make money off of it, it is a generic drug. So what that means is it can’t be bundled up pretty like these new medications and sold for a high dollar. So it would be a repurposed drug. 

So we’re using it not for its FDA approval, which is for river blindness and parasites. We would be using it for its immune modulator free and anti-inflammatory properties, which, if you would go on PubMed, if you were for fun and you would look up Ivermectin in cancer, ivermectin in different disease states, you would see that it actually is helpful and there are studies on it being used for other things, including viruses. Okay. So where we got caught up in this whole thing that it is a nasty medication, I have no idea. So it’s very helpful. And what we’re using it for, you know, not FDA, it’s not FDA approved. 

But when we talk about using off label medications, off made off label means not that it was FDA approved for off label medications are used all the time by other doctors all the time in conventional medicine. Every time I work a shift in the E.R., every time I have a patient come to me in my office and I see that they’re on some medications and I know that they’re being used off label. So this is nothing new to have drugs to be used off label. So I want people to understand that. So it is dosed by weight. So usually I do the you know, it’s anywhere from point to 2.5 milligrams per kilogram, so it’s weight based dose. And for an acute COVID, it’s five days. So it’s five days, it’s an oral medication. The issue is usually you have to go to a compounding pharmacy to get this because of the stigma.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah, it’s and they.

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

Find it.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

So.

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

Yeah. Yeah. And you can also use it preventatively if you’ve had an exposure you can use it the day of and then 48 hours later. So I’ll have some people that they will use it if they’re traveling, they’ll take it the day of their flight and then they’ll take it 48 hours later. I have some like 90 year old patients that are on it once a week. Well, it was twice a week and they changed it to once a week for chronic exposure. But yeah these like 80 or they’re so sweet and they just, they use it chronically. So they didn’t want to hide in their homes during COVID. So they went on ivermectin preventatively. And there are studies on ivermectin use use long term in nursing homes and in Europe. So when we look at ivermectin and we go back to long haul, so then there is this thing about let’s try it for long haul and patients symptoms have gotten better. 

So if someone comes to me with long haul, few things I’ve noticed with them in my office and Rodger out there, tell me what you’ve noticed. I’ve noticed that they’ve had COVID, but they weren’t treated with ivermectin when they had COVID because like you said, their symptoms weren’t bad or whatever. So then they’re in this kind of long haul state for whatever reason. And then I should also put in there, you know, when I see the vaccine injury, they’re kind of just put in the long haul category, too. So what would I do? You know, I do follow that Frontline Critical Care Coalition. I tweak some things, but the mainstay for long haul ivermectin and low dose naltrexone. And it is amazing how well it helps those out there. 

And low dose naltrexone, what it is now Trek Stone was actually a drug that was synthesized in the 1960s and it is a competitive opioid receptor agonist. So that means you have your opiate receptor and it binds to there and it’s actually approved at higher doses of 50 to 100 milligrams daily for those that have an opiate addiction. So they’re addicted to opiates such as Norco or Vicodin or heroin. Okay. So what happened is people were giving it for at low doses. So we start out at 1.5 milligrams and every two weeks, you increase until you get to four, 4.5 milligrams. And that low dose, it does a lot of cool things. It’s a glial cell modulator. It releases anti-inflammatory chemicals. 

It has also a pain reducing effect, too. And it’s really good with inflammation. And so lots of studies on fibromyalgia and low dose naltrexone now long haul Crohn’s disease. So most is another big one that it is used for because of that glial cell modulation. So those two have been extremely, extremely helpful and not just with the joint pain, the brain fog, you know, kind of more the fibromyalgia symptoms. You know, a lot of people just have fatigue and body aches, but also a lot of times with the Respiratory Syndrome. So I’ve had two patients and they you know, when you have long hauler, you think you still should get worked up medically. You still should get all the medical tests. I send patients for complete heart testing, cardiac testing, complete respiratory testing. But my patients that I’ve treated for respiratory issues, they’re pulmonology just are in shock that they’re doing so well and they’re better. I had a patient that could barely walk up the steps and she’s riding or bicycle 20 to 25 miles at a time now. So when we look at these things that are maybe not mainstream, they really work and they have a lot of they have a lot of studies and research behind it. So what are you seeing in your office, Rodger? I’m curious.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Well, so what you know, what I’m seeing is that patients are desperate to find help, number one. And, you know, a lot of times they don’t even remember that, you know, that there are some other options. So they turn to me to try to figure out what’s going on. But, you know, I think the big challenge is the fact that so many doctors in the conventional world, they don’t really know what to do with them. So for my and when I’m referring them out to get a workup, a lot of times they just kind of fall through the cracks and, you know, that’s that can be really very frustrating. But I’m finding that my patients really do well with inhalation medicine. 

So I’m not you know, you’re probably familiar with that. So I’ve got my patients who either come down with acute COVID or post-COVID problems using inhalation therapy with hydrogen peroxide, just a little bit of food grade hydrogen peroxide. Dr. Thomas Levy, he wrote a book about rapid recovery. It’s free. You look it up, you get online through and in there. He has his protocols in there. But I interviewed him earlier last year and we got in this whole discussion about hydrogen peroxide. And Charles Farr in Oklahoma was the father of oxygen, medicine, ozone. And how Shiprock Saudaveis and I studied with him years ago. But now this therapy is coming back to life again. 

But for me, I found that inhalation therapy, high doses of vitamin C, NASA QUERCETIN probably some things that you and then also ivermectin. I’ve not seen a lot of positive results with LGM, but that’s just me and part of it. I’m kind of jaded to it because for the last 22 years they’ve been saying, hey, fiber man, if you ever imagine me to be on LDN and I’ve just not seen it be that helpful for Fabrice, I’m a little bit jaded to it. I’m becoming much more open minded because the fact that people with long hauler, they need all the help they can get, whatever. If we had a shaman or voodoo doctor that we knew we would get some positive results would reach out to them.

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

Yeah. And I think with end there, there are some good studies. You know, I found some randomized control studies on LDN with fibromyalgia, but I think it goes to the.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Fact several good studies. It’s just, you know, sometimes for whatever reason and maybe it’s just the patients that I tracked that they just don’t they don’t see a lot of difference with it. But if you’re taking it and you’re doing well, stay on it for goodness sake.

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

Yeah, my patients tend to do really well on it. I feel like every once in a while I’ll have someone that it did not help them at all. But I also think that there’s no magic pill for everything. I think that when we talk about long haul, not only are we looking at medications, Ivermectin and LDN, we’re also looking at lifestyle. So, you know, are you getting good sleep? How are your stress levels? What are you eating? And then also supplements to support the mitochondria. So and to support detox, like you said and AC, but also the mitochondria you’ll, you know, like carnitine and B vitamins and minerals. So it’s not just like LDN is not going to be a magic pill. Ivermectin is pretty good though. I mean, I will I don’t think I don’t think anyone’s ever like maybe I had one patient that like had a side effect that went away when she stopped taking it. But I feel like, yes, with low dose naltrexone, does it work for absolutely everyone? No. But have I had people where it’s been life changing? Yes. And fibromyalgia patients and long haul patients that it has been life changing. So and it’s something that, you know, maybe and maybe in a couple of years, you go to your conventional doctor and they know what you’re talking about. But right now, I don’t it’s just not it’s not heard of as much so which is unfortunate.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

But, you know, Jenny, I think it’s not even even in the integrative and functional medicine, you know, crowd that we move in. I talked to practitioners all the time, either being on their podcast or summits and you know, I’m talking about long hauler and most of them don’t really know what to do, know they’re they’re still trying to learn their way, I think because of the the specialty that that I have with fibromyalgia, I’ve just have attracted those patients early on. I mean, I had a, you know, worked with them years ago and now they’ve come down with it. So they’re coming back. And obviously you’ve seen a lot of them in the E.R. that then have moved over into your integrative practice. But for most practitioners, they’re just not really what to, you know, sure. What to do with these folks.

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

Yeah, they’re really not. And what they do is they get pushed from one specialist to another to another and no one actually helps them. So some of the things that people could do at home for a long haul, you know, fasting has been showing to be helpful. So doing fasting even with COVID has been helpful. So whether you’re just fasting 12 hours a night, you know, some people eat right up when they go to bed and right when they wake up. So they only have like a six hour fast. So if you would move that to 12 or 14 hours, that’s going to give your gut, which is your immune system. It’s going to give it some recovery time to get better. 

And also, fasting is good for our mitochondria. So you mitochondrial health is so important and it really takes a ding during COVID. And like today, I just had a COVID call and I had to and she’s having this is her second time I’ve seen her for COVID and she’s like, you know, I thought this time I would get through it better. And I’m like, well, I’m like, it’s a red flag to me that, you know, because we know you have T-cell immunity that lasts for decades. You know, maybe your antibodies waned a little bit, your IGG. But, you know, this is a red flag. Is there something else going on? Why is your immune system so imbalanced? Is it emotional trauma? Is it gut health? Are you exposed to mold? You know, mycotoxins. So, you know, this is why it’s good to work with someone that looks at the whole individual and all of the different things. And that’s what’s hard to find sometimes.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah. So we’re going to run out of time and I want to make sure I’m going to I really want to pick your brain and I want to share some real clinical pearls about protocols. So what would you rates? Let’s say you got someone who calls you and they say, Hey, I’ve got COVID. What do I need to do now? Obvi, obviously we’d want to get them before they got COVID. We were, you know, you share in your podcast and your blogs and so of that what are the preventatives? But let’s say someone’s got it. What would you recommend they do right away to help them to lessen the effects of this this virus?

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

So right away, you know, ivermectin and or hydroxychloroquine, depending on what their situation is, I do if they have coughs and symptoms, we do a lot of inhaled budesonide or pulmonary care. I like that. I’ve had really good, good experience with that, with patients. And then you want to make sure they’re on the proper supplement. So, you know, not only just your regular multi-vitamin, but a C, QUERCETIN, zinc, vitamin C, melatonin, you can throw in black seed oil and you can honestly take that if you don’t have access to ivermectin, you could use that instead in higher doses and then turmeric is good also for to help decrease that that interleukin six six response. So, you know, if you have it right, then you definitely want to be hitting things hard with the supplements. You know, Quercetin and zinc are really great and we’ve seen in the studies that that is really helpful. So definitely getting on a good supplement protocol. And then also you want to decrease the viral load in the nose. So whether I use a lot of biocidal nasal spray with my patients, you could make an iodine solution. There’s different things, but you also want to in the nose and the mouth, make sure you’re decreasing that viral load because less viral load is less spike protein.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah. All right. So now we’ve got someone who’s got COVID, let’s say now they call you up there or someone else and they say, hey, I think I’ve got long hauler syndrome. I got long COVID. What do I need to do? So what how would that change your protocols based on that on that patient.

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

So long haul, we do want to based on their symptoms, you know, are they having respiratory symptoms? Are they having heart symptoms? Is it just fatigue? Because some people it’s just food fatigue. So we want to make sure that we do testing to make sure we’re not missing anything major going on. And I’ve had to do that with patients. I’m like, you know, I need you to go see cardiology and pulmonology right now. But we do that. Yeah, we do the ivermectin, we get the viral load down. We I start them with low dose naltrexone because by the time they’re seeing me, they’re miserable, you know, and then I start them on my robust boost, a really good mitochondrial supplement and AC, depending on if they need a little bit more detox support and make sure that they’re getting all the proper nutrients from food. So with long haul, there’s also different things you could do for mast cells. 

And I just wait. I have them follow up in a couple of weeks and I see what’s going on because a lot of the mast cells, stabilizers, since they’re medications, not like quercetin and zinc, we would put them on that also for a long haul. But some of the medical ones in the FCC protocol, I wait to use those and see how they do with the Ivermectin and LDN because I don’t want them having side effects, being drowsy and all of those. So it just depends on where they’re at and what their symptoms are also.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah, yeah. And you know, it’s a shame. Unfortunately, we don’t really have any good antivirals. I mean, we, you know, packs loaded, you know, I’m not sure about that one. Ramus were severe. I don’t know about that one either. But unfortunately, we really just don’t have any good antivirals. I mean, in the necrotic syndrome space, I mean, I’ve used over the years, I’ve recommended Valtrex in the cycle here to mixed results. And I’ve had some patients that’s really turned their property syndrome around and others and done anything with fibro. Normally those antivirals really don’t offer much hope at all in any any change, but they really are kind of useless in with COVID. So hopefully what we you know, with COVID, another silver lining is, is this interest in developing antivirals that can specifically target different viruses like we have with any biotics. So hopefully that’s you know, that’ll be something good coming down the down the road. Tell us a list of this website. People want to learn more about you and your work. Where would they to learn more about you.

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

So you could go to health ology by Doctor Jen? So that is my website. I have protocols on their blogs and I’m most active on Instagram and it’s integrative. Doctor Mom So integrative. And then D.R. Mom and I have a YouTube channel, Integrative Doctor Mom with the same, same handle, so I think is most active on Instagram. I like to hang out there and talk about all the crazy things going on in the world. Right?

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah. Well, Jan, thank you so much. This has been informed and I hope people were taking notes if you did, you know, watch the replay. But you want to get some of those protocols down and be prepared, you know, be proactive, take the steps to be prepared and wish you a lot of luck with a lot of nasty, icky stuff out there. Protect yourself. Thanks so much for being a part of the seminar. I really appreciate your time being on here.

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

Thank you, Rodger.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

I welcome. I’m Dr. Rodger Murphree, and I’m the host of Freedom from Fibromyalgia Summit. And I want to welcome Dr. Jennifer Pfleger here. She’s a double board certified physician. She’s board certified in integrative medicine and also in emergency medicine. And she’s the author of a book I highly recommend. Even though Austin Times had this up, Ms. up, the title is so easy. It’s one you should remember, right? But it’s eat, sleep, move and breathe. And it’s a wonderful book. We’ve had conversations about it last year in a podcast I think we were on together. I highly recommend the book, but I’m delighted to have Jennifer here because we’re going to be talking about the connection between fibromyalgia and COVID and long hauler syndrome. So, Jenny, thank you so much for being here. I’m so excited to have this conversation.

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

Hi, Rodger. Thank you so much for having me. Really excited to talk about COVID. It’s it’s on everyone’s mind the last two years, so we have to know more about it and in the long haul and all of it and its connection with fibromyalgia.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

I had an interview with Cort Johnson and he’s the founder of Health Rising dot org. It’s a blog and a website devoted to research on fibromyalgia, Amy Carty syndrome and now long hauler syndrome. And we were talking about this connection we’re starting to see with people who get long hauler and then go on to develop and get maybe get a diagnosis of romantic syndrome or fibromyalgia. And we’re sorry, we see a bleed over of individuals who have very similar symptoms that we would see in fibromyalgia, even though it was initiated by COVID, I assume from the title that you shared with me, what we’re going to talk about, this is something you’re seeing in your practice.

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

Yeah, it absolutely is. And what I’d like to do is start out by talking about like what is long haul?

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Cody’s confusion about that.

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

Yeah, yeah. It’s also known as long haul COVID syndrome. So and then recently, some doctors are calling it post-acute squalor of COVID 19. And really conventional doctors have no idea what to do with long COVID. So these symptoms can be from anything from just fatigue, prolonged fatigue. It could be headaches. It could be just generalized fatigue. It could be sleep difficulties, palpitation of the heart, hair loss. You could have appetite issues, not joint pains, shortness of breath. We actually see that a lot, a lot in certain long haulers and then also just cognitive issues. So like brain fog almost. So when we look at it, you know, I bet you people listening would be like, well, wait, that’s me. And it might be and we see this a lot with the long haul. And really I have seen a lot of long haul that has not they weren’t treated aggressively with COVID. So then they end up in this long COVID symptom syndrome. And also another thing, when we’re talking about long COVID, we should also talk about COVID vaccination syndromes after that. And I’ve also seen some vaccine injury which was similar to long COVID. And when we go in to talk about treatment and its association with fibromyalgia, they’re basically treated the same.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

So, you know what? What I’m seeing in my practice is I’ve had patients that had gone into remission with fibromyalgia. And for those of you, this is your first the first interview you’ve seen, you’re thinking, yeah, remission. But there’s numerous practitioners. Doctor Pfleger would probably agree with me. Fibromyalgia is very much treatable. We have numerous practitioners on here share that message. You know, there is definitely hope for fibro, but I’ve had several patients over the last year who I had taken care of years ago, two, three or four years ago, who went into remission with their fibro doing great, got COVID, got over COVID, and then they went into this chronic flare. And those are fibromyalgia. You know what I’m talking about? Some of them it just like you were saying, Jenny, you know, with the brain fog and the fatigue. But others are having problems with afib and some of the things we see with some cardiac conditions. It’s a real mess. I mean, it’s a real mess because there’s a shortage of doctors really understand how to treat long haul syndrome. And these people are just looking for answers and not getting it.

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

Absolutely. I agree with that. And what you said, they’re in remission from their fibromyalgia or whether they’re in remission from their autoimmune disease. And then they see this flare. Yeah. And and what I’ve always said about COVID is it kind of brings out the weaknesses, you know. So if you had something that was kind of stirring and then you get COVID and it messes with your immune system balance, then you’re going to notice it and it’s going to kind of flare up. So that’s I bet you what you’re seeing with your fibromyalgia patients, and they’re probably very frustrated.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Well, and then you mentioned autoimmune. So I have one patient in particular that comes to mind that she had loop, she had fibromyalgia and lupus had both. And she’s been doing great for a number of years. And all the protocols that I got her on years ago and then recently came down with COVID and then long haul COVID and her winter practitioner and he said, Hey, I don’t know how to tell you this, but you’re you’re you’re pain in your flank back here. It’s coming from your kidneys and you’ve got kidney disease. And there was destruction of some of the kidney cells. And he went on to say, look, I think you’re going to there’s really no treatment for you. I think you’re going to have to have dialysis at some point. I mean, she’s you know, she’s in her fifties and she’s hearing this, of course, she’s freaking out, gets in touch with me and we, you know, just doing some detective work like we do it in and with functional medicine found out that really it was the COVID that triggered this reaction, this cytokine storm that now was attacking your kidney cells. Got her some protocols that you, you and I both are familiar with and turned around. And she went to our urologist, our nephrologist, I guess, and they said, hey, I don’t know what you’re doing. Everything looks great. Come back and see me in a year. So if you are battling some of these issues, you really want to tune in because we’re going to share some protocols that can help you if you’re battling long hauler. One thing that’s really interesting I want to get your input on this is what we see is that so many people don’t even have symptoms. You know, they come down, they come in contact with COVID, they’re having symptoms. And then next thing you know, two or three months later, now they develop symptoms of long hauler. And I think the estimates the last one I read was 30% of the people who come in contact with COVID, who have the infection, go on to develop long hauler syndrome. I mean, that’s shocking. Really.

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

Yeah, I can believe that. And that like you were explaining these patients, they do well with the virus, but it’s not it’s not always the acute phase. It’s the cytokine response. It’s an overzealous immune response to this. And those the spike proteins are just crazy. It’s like nothing that we’ve ever seen before in medicine. Like no one knows what to do with them. So the problem is, if you have these spike proteins that are hanging around and if they’re not taken care of properly, they’re hanging around, they’re causing a ruckus, they’re causing inflammation. You know, when I when I treat actual COVID patients and even now people are like, I’m not getting sick from COVID. And it’s like you still have to treat it aggressively because it’s not always just the infection, it’s the aftermath. So I use like a hurricane analysis a lot with this. 

You know, the hurricane is bad, right? Hurricanes are bad. But what’s worse, the aftermath. But if it’s a level three hurricane, there’s going to be even more aftermath. So we want to keep it to a tropical storm. That’s what I tell them. I’m like, you know, we’re going to put you on the SLC protocol, which is the frontline critical Care Coalition protocol. And, you know, and these are hundreds of doctors getting together with these proven protocols, but we want to get that viral load down and then help the inflammatory process. You know, it’s kind of like if you’re using a hammer, you know, when all you need is the push of your finger, you know, like using a hammer to ring a doorbell instead of your finger. 

That’s like what your immune system does when it sees this COVID and the spike protein. So what we want to do is, is dial it down and let your body know that it doesn’t have to react as much. And when we look at when people are getting very sick, especially with the Delta variant, they weren’t when they were showing up in the hospital? So they weren’t showing up when they had that high viral load. It was after it was that cytokine response. And, you know, working in the hospitals that probably the worst case I’ve ever seen. And this wasn’t COVID, but it was a pregnant influenza patient and she had ARDS and this is acute respiratory distress syndrome. And this is kind of the same picture you would see with COVID when the lungs are just super inflamed. Then they don’t work. And it wasn’t the you know, it’s the aftermath that causes that cytokine response and really destroys the tissues and the lungs are very vulnerable to that. So when we would really we’re in the thick of COVID in that delta variant was there. And I would be treating patients, you know, with ivermectin very aggressively to get that viral load down. You know, it’s ivermectin, not FDA approved to treat COVID. But what it does is it helps decrease that viral load and decrease that inflammation. 

So the thought is, with long COVID, do they still have some viral load and spike protein kind of hanging around? And this is similar to the thought of chronic Epstein-Barr, where these people, these people have chronic, chronic Epstein-Barr kind of viral load just hanging around in the body, can’t clear it because of how their immune system is maybe imbalanced. So with long haul, it’s the ivermectin actually treatment is very helpful. It really decreases inflammation, keeps that viral load down. So that’s one thing that is really helpful in acute COVID and that is going to help prevent the long COVID is the hypothesis. 

And that’s what I’ve seen patients that have been treated aggressively with COVID, you know, with the protocols, and then also put on mitochondrial support after their treatment of COVID to help revamp that mitochondria, they are less likely to to have long COVID. So this is very important, especially early. We’re seeing with COVID so many new cases of fibromyalgia, you know, it could it’s it’s kind of a crossover and I’d like to get right what you think about this because it the long haul with the fatigue and the body joint pain there’s a big crossover with actual diagnosing fibromyalgia, which it’s nice because it’s bringing awareness more to the disease. I have found like now, actual doctors are paying attention more to fibromyalgia.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah, that’s the silver lining, if there is one is now the NIH has given up caught Johnson throughout the number of what it was for long haul hour, which was I don’t know I’m just gonna throw out a number 300 million and they’ve dedicated 7 million to chronic fatigue syndrome or any you know, as you say, there’s a big discrepancy there. But, you know, with long hauler, what I feel like is going to happen. We certainly will get an explosion of people that are going to go on to develop fibromyalgia, but also critics drama and probably syndrome is probably more of a mirror image of long hauler symptoms than even fibro because of the viral connection there. And, you know, the thing that I think that is that the thread that kind of runs through these three different diseases is the fact that the body is overreacting, it gets stimulated, it can’t turn off. And we know with fibromyalgia they have an overreactive nervous system, are part of their system. The sympathetic nervous system is hyper vigilant. It registers pain in a magnified way and that process doesn’t turn off for them. And there’s a connection with irritable bowel and migraine and interstitial cystitis with central sensitization, central central sensitization, pain syndrome. I have heard that’s a tongue twister, but that syndrome can really generate this low pain threshold or Albania where pain becomes magnified. So there is a thread that weaves through. Now which way is going to go? Are we going to see more people getting diagnosed or creating syndrome? Are we going to see more people getting diagnosed with fibromyalgia? And does it really matter for us? It probably doesn’t because it’s just a name. That’s all it is, which we don’t treat a disease. We treat the person.

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

Yeah, exactly. And we treat the person the same way we’re looking for root causes, how to modify this, how to decrease their pain, how to improve their quality of life and all of those things. So I can talk about treatment a little bit.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah, I’m going to go into a little bit about protocols, but before you do, I just been, you know, several people this term that I think maybe the lay public don’t understand what it means. Cytokine storm. So people hear that and they know this is something that’s unusual, that’s not been talked about in the media with something new with COVID. But can you talk a little bit about these reactions, this inflammatory side of these inflammatory cytokines, what they are what’s going on?

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

Yes. So when you have an infection or even you have an injury, your body can make inflammatory markers and go, they’re kind of clean, clean things up. So think about when you sprain your ankle, you have inflammatory markers going there. It’s good inflammation. It’s trying to repair what’s going on. The problem is with something like COVID and certain viruses trigger, this influenza in children is historical for cytokine responses. So this is when it’s overzealous. So the body, it doesn’t know when to stop. It’s kind of like a roller coaster or a train, you know, off its track. It’s running amok. So it’s overs, zealous immune response and some of the main ones like tumor necrosis factor interleukin six and some of the interleukin six is also it’s elevated in certain rheumatoid rheumatologic conditions also. So when we look at this cytokine storm, this is what I was talking about, like the aftermath. So this is not a good aftermath if it’s overzealous. So this specifically because the spike protein in COVID, SARS-CoV-2, it goes to the lungs, for example. So then the body is going to send in all this cytokines to come in there and try to get rid of this virus because it knows it’s an invader that shouldn’t be there. So our body is trying to do the right thing, but it goes too hard. Okay. And actually causes tissue damage with all of these markers. So what happens is there’s too much inflammation. Okay. So the lungs, for example, with COVID, that’s the big problem with why people end up in the hospital because they have hypoxia and they can’t breathe. So then we look at inhaled steroids like budesonide. Or if you’re really in that late phase, COVID, they will do DECA drawn or dexamethasone IV. So those are some treatment protocols. And because you’re calming down that inflammation that’s caused by that overzealous immune response, but we do want some immune response. It’s just when it goes out of control. And the other problem with inflammation is that COVID attacks, the small vessels. So that’s why you’re getting inflammation in the small vessels in your body. 

And this is where we think that, you know, that’s why you lose your sense of smell and taste. This is why heart problems are you know, people are having more heart problems. Also, because you’re getting that inflammation in the small vessels. And this is where, you know, if you do have COVID, you do want to be on something like aspirin to help send out that blood. And when you look at all the different botanicals used in COVID and long COVID, a lot of them are anti-inflammatory herbs that are going to calm down that inflammation and that response.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

You mentioned that. And I’ve got to how you said it, but the fact that COVID will attack the heart, we get a lot of heart issues. So heart, lungs, kidneys, those are the three, three biggies in the brain. I guess. But then I’ve got a patient right now that is bless her heart, she’s 76 years old, Swedish. You can be that she is having all these heart issues and her is doing great fibers doing great. But she contacted me two weeks ago. She having all these heart issues. And the first thing I asked her was, hey, have you recently had COVID? Yes, I’ve had it twice. So I got her to the cardiologist. Got to work up and he’s, you know, call me up and say, Rodger, I think it’s just you know, she said this is all coming from COVID. I think she’s going to be fine. 

What do you recommend? So then we started on, you know, the protocols that you and I both used. But it’s scary. I mean, it’s really this is some scary stuff, you know, that it would attack your heart like that as well. So Ivermectin, a lot of controversy about ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine. I mean, there’s, you know, the politicization of these and vaccines, but the truth somewhere in the middle, I mean, somewhere, you know, there’s some truth in there. You don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. And personally, I recommend IV ivermectin. I think it’s something that can be very, very helpful. But I know there’s a lot of baggage associated. Can you talk a little bit about what are some of the protocols that you use based on the colleagues that you mentioned earlier?

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

Yeah, so the protocols, the Frontline Critical Care Coalition, they have been kind of the forefront of repurposing this orphan drug. Right. So it actually ivermectin is on the World Health Organization of one of a critical med right. Like this is one of the medications that is needed in the world. Okay. So it’s been used. It’s very safe. It’s over-the-counter in other countries because I’ve had patients go and get it elsewhere, too. And really low side effect profile, you know, warfarin or Coumadin is it’s really like the main thing I’m worried about. You know, it’s you can take it while you’re breastfeeding. You can not take it while you’re pregnant, though, because I’ve had a lot of patients come to me, actually, it really makes me mad. I’ve had pregnant patients that were totally abandoned by their OBGYNs and conventional medicine during the pandemic. 

Pregnant women can actually take hydroxychloroquine while they’re pregnant. It’s absolutely necessary. But when we look at ivermectin because no one can make money off of it, it is a generic drug. So what that means is it can’t be bundled up pretty like these new medications and sold for a high dollar. So it would be a repurposed drug. So we’re using it not for its FDA approval, which is for river blindness and parasites. We would be using it for its immune modulator free and anti-inflammatory properties, which, if you would go on PubMed, if you were for fun and you would look up Ivermectin in cancer, ivermectin in different disease states, you would see that it actually is helpful and there are studies on it being used for other things, including viruses. Okay. So where we got caught up in this whole thing that it is a nasty medication, I have no idea. So it’s very helpful. 

And what we’re using it for, you know, not FDA, it’s not FDA approved. But when we talk about using off label medications, off made off label means not that it was FDA approved for off label medications are used all the time by other doctors all the time in conventional medicine. Every time I work a shift in the E.R., every time I have a patient come to me in my office and I see that they’re on some medications and I know that they’re being used off label. So this is nothing new to have drugs to be used off label. So I want people to understand that. So it is dosed by weight. So usually I do the you know, it’s anywhere from point to 2.5 milligrams per kilogram, so it’s weight based dose. And for an acute COVID, it’s five days. So it’s five days, it’s an oral medication. The issue is usually you have to go to a compounding pharmacy to get this because of the stigma.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah, it’s and they.

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

Find it.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

So.

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

Yeah. Yeah. And you can also use it preventatively if you’ve had an exposure you can use it the day of and then 48 hours later. So I’ll have some people that they will use it if they’re traveling, they’ll take it the day of their flight and then they’ll take it 48 hours later. I have some like 90 year old patients that are on it once a week. Well, it was twice a week and they changed it to once a week for chronic exposure. But yeah these like 80 or they’re so sweet and they just, they use it chronically. So they didn’t want to hide in their homes during COVID. So they went on ivermectin preventatively. And there are studies on ivermectin use use long term in nursing homes and in Europe. So when we look at ivermectin and we go back to long haul, so then there is this thing about let’s try it for long haul and patients symptoms have gotten better. 

So if someone comes to me with long haul, few things I’ve noticed with them in my office and Rodger out there, tell me what you’ve noticed. I’ve noticed that they’ve had COVID, but they weren’t treated with ivermectin when they had COVID because like you said, their symptoms weren’t bad or whatever. So then they’re in this kind of long haul state for whatever reason. And then I should also put in there, you know, when I see the vaccine injury, they’re kind of just put in the long haul category, too. So what would I do? You know, I do follow that Frontline Critical Care Coalition. I tweak some things, but the mainstay for long haul ivermectin and low dose naltrexone. And it is amazing how well it helps those out there. 

And low dose naltrexone, what it is now Trek Stone was actually a drug that was synthesized in the 1960s and it is a competitive opioid receptor agonist. So that means you have your opiate receptor and it binds to there and it’s actually approved at higher doses of 50 to 100 milligrams daily for those that have an opiate addiction. So they’re addicted to opiates such as Norco or Vicodin or heroin. Okay. So what happened is people were giving it for at low doses. So we start out at 1.5 milligrams and every two weeks, you increase until you get to four, 4.5 milligrams. And that low dose, it does a lot of cool things. It’s a glial cell modulator. It releases anti-inflammatory chemicals. It has also a pain reducing effect, too. And it’s really good with inflammation. And so lots of studies on fibromyalgia and low dose naltrexone now long haul Crohn’s disease. So most is another big one that it is used for because of that glial cell modulation. So those two have been extremely, extremely helpful and not just with the joint pain, the brain fog, you know, kind of more the fibromyalgia symptoms. You know, a lot of people just have fatigue and body aches, but also a lot of times with the Respiratory Syndrome. So I’ve had two patients and they you know, when you have long hauler, you think you still should get worked up medically. You still should get all the medical tests. I send patients for complete heart testing, cardiac testing, complete respiratory testing. But my patients that I’ve treated for respiratory issues, they’re pulmonology just are in shock that they’re doing so well and they’re better. I had a patient that could barely walk up the steps and she’s riding or bicycle 20 to 25 miles at a time now. So when we look at these things that are maybe not mainstream, they really work and they have a lot of they have a lot of studies and research behind it. So what are you seeing in your office, Rodger? I’m curious.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Well, so what you know, what I’m seeing is that patients are desperate to find help, number one. And, you know, a lot of times they don’t even remember that, you know, that there are some other options. So they turn to me to try to figure out what’s going on. But, you know, I think the big challenge is the fact that so many doctors in the conventional world, they don’t really know what to do with them. So for my and when I’m referring them out to get a workup, a lot of times they just kind of fall through the cracks and, you know, that’s that can be really very frustrating. But I’m finding that my patients really do well with inhalation medicine. 

So I’m not you know, you’re probably familiar with that. So I’ve got my patients who either come down with acute COVID or post-COVID problems using inhalation therapy with hydrogen peroxide, just a little bit of food grade hydrogen peroxide. Dr. Thomas Levy, he wrote a book about rapid recovery. It’s free. You look it up, you get online through and in there. He has his protocols in there. But I interviewed him earlier last year and we got in this whole discussion about hydrogen peroxide. And Charles Farr in Oklahoma was the father of oxygen, medicine, ozone. And how Shiprock Saudaveis and I studied with him years ago. 

But now this therapy is coming back to life again. But for me, I found that inhalation therapy, high doses of vitamin C, NASA QUERCETIN probably some things that you and then also ivermectin. I’ve not seen a lot of positive results with LGM, but that’s just me and part of it. I’m kind of jaded to it because for the last 22 years they’ve been saying, hey, fiber man, if you ever imagine me to be on LDN and I’ve just not seen it be that helpful for Fabrice, I’m a little bit jaded to it. I’m becoming much more open minded because the fact that people with long hauler, they need all the help they can get, whatever. If we had a shaman or voodoo doctor that we knew we would get some positive results would reach out to them.

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

Yeah. And I think with end there, there are some good studies. You know, I found some randomized control studies on LDN with fibromyalgia, but I think it goes to the.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Fact several good studies. It’s just, you know, sometimes for whatever reason and maybe it’s just the patients that I tracked that they just don’t they don’t see a lot of difference with it. But if you’re taking it and you’re doing well, stay on it for goodness sake.

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

Yeah, my patients tend to do really well on it. I feel like every once in a while I’ll have someone that it did not help them at all. But I also think that there’s no magic pill for everything. I think that when we talk about long haul, not only are we looking at medications, Ivermectin and LDN, we’re also looking at lifestyle. So, you know, are you getting good sleep? How are your stress levels? What are you eating? And then also supplements to support the mitochondria. So and to support detox, like you said and AC, but also the mitochondria you’ll, you know, like carnitine and B vitamins and minerals. So I it’s not just like LDN is not going to be a magic pill. Ivermectin is pretty good though. I mean, I will I don’t think I don’t think anyone’s ever like maybe I had one patient that like had a side effect that went away when she stopped taking it. But I feel like, yes, with low dose naltrexone, does it work for absolutely everyone? No. But have I had people where it’s been life changing? Yes. And and fibromyalgia patients and long haul patients that it has been life changing. So and it’s something that, you know, maybe and maybe in a couple of years, you go to your conventional doctor and they know what you’re talking about. But right now, I don’t it’s just not it’s not heard of as much so which is unfortunate.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

But, you know, Jenny, I think it’s not even even in the integrative and functional medicine, you know, crowd that we move in. I talked to practitioners all the time, either being on their podcast or summits and you know, I’m talking about long hauler and most of them don’t really know what to do, know they’re they’re still trying to learn their way, I think because of the the specialty that that I have with fibromyalgia, I’ve just have attracted those patients early on. I mean, I had a, you know, worked with them years ago and now they’ve come down with it. So they’re coming back. And obviously you’ve seen a lot of them in the E.R. that then have moved over into your integrative practice. But for most practitioners, they’re just not really what to, you know, sure. What to do with these folks.

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

Yeah, they’re really not. And what they do is they get pushed from one specialist to another to another and no one actually helps them. So some of the things that people could do at home for a long haul, you know, fasting has been showing to be helpful. So doing fasting even with COVID has been helpful. So whether you’re just fasting 12 hours a night, you know, some people eat right up when they go to bed and right when they wake up. So they only have like a six hour fast. So if you would move that to 12 or 14 hours, that’s going to give your gut, which is your immune system. It’s going to give it some recovery time to get better. 

And also, fasting is good for our mitochondria. So you mitochondrial health is so important and it really takes a ding during COVID. And like today, I just had a COVID call and I had to and she’s having this is her second time I’ve seen her for COVID and she’s like, you know, I thought this time I would get through it better. And I’m like, well, I’m like, it’s a red flag to me that, you know, because we know you have T-cell immunity that lasts for decades. You know, maybe your antibodies waned a little bit, your IGG. But, you know, this is a red flag. Is there something else going on? Why is your immune system so imbalanced? Is it emotional trauma? Is it gut health? Are you exposed to mold? You know, mycotoxins. So, you know, this is why it’s good to work with someone that looks at the whole individual and all of the different things. And that’s what’s hard to find sometimes.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah. So we’re going to run out of time and I want to make sure I’m going to I really want to pick your brain and I want to share some real clinical pearls about protocols. So what would you rates? Let’s say you got someone who calls you and they say, Hey, I’ve got COVID. What do I need to do now? Obviously we’d want to get them before they got COVID. We were, you know, you share in your podcast and your blogs and so of that what are the preventatives? But let’s say someone’s got it. What would you recommend they do right away to help them to lessen the effects of this virus?

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

So right away, you know, ivermectin and or hydroxychloroquine, depending on what their situation is, I do if they have coughs and symptoms, we do a lot of inhaled budesonide or pulmonary care. I like that. I’ve had really good, good experience with that, with patients. And then you want to make sure they’re on the proper supplement. So, you know, not only just your regular multi-vitamin, but a C, QUERCETIN, zinc, vitamin C, melatonin, you can throw in black seed oil and you can honestly take that if you don’t have access to ivermectin, you could use that instead in higher doses and then turmeric is good also for to help decrease that that interleukin six six response. So, you know, if you have it right, then you definitely want to be hitting things hard with the supplements. You know, Quercetin and zinc are really great and we’ve seen in the studies that that is really helpful. So definitely getting on a good supplement protocol. And then also you want to decrease the viral load in the nose. So whether I use a lot of biocidal nasal spray with my patients, you could make an iodine solution. There’s different things, but you also want to in the nose and the mouth, make sure you’re decreasing that viral load because less viral load is less spike protein.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah. All right. So now we’ve got someone who’s got COVID, let’s say now they call you up there or someone else and they say, hey, I think I’ve got long hauler syndrome. I got long COVID. What do I need to do? So what how would that change your protocols based on that on that patient.

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

So long haul, we do want to based on their symptoms, you know, are they having respiratory symptoms? Are they having heart symptoms? Is it just fatigue? Because some people it’s just food fatigue. So we want to make sure that we do testing to make sure we’re not missing anything major going on. And I’ve had to do that with patients. I’m like, you know, I need you to go see cardiology and pulmonology right now. But we do that. Yeah, we do the ivermectin, we get the viral load down. We I start them with low dose naltrexone because by the time they’re seeing me, they’re miserable, you know, and then I start them on my robust boost, a really good mitochondrial supplement and AC, depending on if they need a little bit more detox support and make sure that they’re getting all the proper nutrients from food. 

So with long haul, there’s also different things you could do for mast cells. And I just wait. I have them follow up in a couple of weeks and I see what’s going on because a lot of the mast cells, stabilizers, since they’re medications, not like quercetin and zinc, we would put them on that also for a long haul. But some of the medical ones in the FCC protocol, I wait to use those and see how they do with the Ivermectin and LDN because I don’t want them having side effects, being drowsy and all of those. So it just depends on where they’re at and what their symptoms are also.

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah, yeah. And you know, it’s a shame. Unfortunately, we don’t really have any good antivirals. I mean, we, you know, packs loaded, you know, I’m not sure about that one. Ramus were severe. I don’t know about that one either. But unfortunately, we really just don’t have any good antivirals. I mean, in the necrotic syndrome space, I mean, I’ve used over the years, I’ve recommended Valtrex in the cycle here to mixed results. And I’ve had some patients that’s really turned their property syndrome around and others and done anything with fibro. Normally those antivirals really don’t offer much hope at all in any change, but they really are kind of useless with COVID. So hopefully what we you know, with COVID, another silver lining is, is this interest in developing antivirals that can specifically target different viruses like we have with any biotics. So hopefully that’s you know, that’ll be something good coming down the road. Tell us a list of this website. People want to learn more about you and your work. Where would they to learn more about you.

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

So you could go to health ology by Dr. Jen? So that is my website. I have protocols on their blogs and I’m most active on Instagram and it’s integrative. Doctor Mom So integrative. And then D.R. Mom and I have a YouTube channel, Integrative Doctor Mom with the same, same handle, so I think is most active on Instagram. I like to hang out there and talk about all the crazy things going on in the world. Right?

Rodger Murphree, DC, CNS

Yeah. Well, Jen, thank you so much. This has been informed and I hope people were taking notes if you did, you know, watch the replay. But you want to get some of those protocols down and be prepared, you know, be proactive, take the steps to be prepared and wish you a lot of luck with a lot of nasty, icky stuff out there. Protect yourself. Thanks so much for being a part of the seminar. I really appreciate your time being on here.

Dr. Jenny Pfleghaar

Thank you, Rodger.