Hydroxycloroquine. Unless you've been living under a rock for the last six months you've undoubtedly heard of the medication. It's been touted as a COVID "wonder drug" by our President and been approached with skepticism by the medical community. Before we get into all that fun, let's chat briefly about the drug's history.
Hydroxycloroquine (HCQ) was first approved for medical use in 1955 in the United States as anti-malaria drug. It can be used for both the prevention and the treatment of malaria, especially when traveling to areas where malaria is common. HCQ is commonly used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and other autoimmune diseases. The drug is generally very well tolerated with mild, if any, side effects they present in nausea, stomach pains, and headache. HCQ is even safe to use while pregnant. People who do use it on a regular basis have to have their eyes checked for a rare eye condition called retinopathy which can lead to blindness. HCQ is only available by prescription.
More recently HCQ has been making headlines for it's potential to treat COVID-19 as it was used to treat SARS patients and had shown success. The President had touted HCQ as a "miracle drug" before any large scale studies had been done, thus it's impossible to say for certain if HCQ is indeed a treatment for COVID-19 or not. Studies take a lot of time, energy, and money to conduct. For a medical study to be credible other specialists and researchers have to be able to replicate it, but because COVID is a brand new virus there hasn't been enough time to study it let alone find a cure for it. We're still learning about this virus so it's too early to say something is or is not a cure without significant medical research.
There are people like me who rely on HCQ to function and live our lives in any sort of normal fashion, but when the President started touting how wonderful HCQ was it became nearly impossible to get the medication I (and many others) need. Doctors started prescribing it to themselves, their family members, and friends so the demand for HCQ SKYROCKETED thus making it incredibly difficult, if not impossible for people who need the medication to get it. The pharmacy I go to started seeing perfectly healthy people coming in with prescriptions for HCQ- these were people who did not need the drug but got a prescription from a family member or friend because the President said it worked. I'm not getting into the political issue of it all, I'm just saying look to qualified professionals in the medical field who have years of experience studying infection diseases and helping patients rather than someone who has never been to medical school.
How does HCQ work? Basically, HCQ helps suppress the body's immune system. The immune system helps fight infections and helps prevent you from getting sick. I have Lupus, an autoimmune disease, so my immune system does not function properly. To better understand how HCQ helps, imagine a normal five-year-old. Now imagine giving that five-year-old Mountain Dew and Pixie Sticks- the kid is going to be bouncing off the walls and there's no attempting to make the child behave with that much sugar in his/her system. The five-year-old on too much sugar is my immune system- it's overactive and it's attacking EVERYTHING (the good cells and the bad cells) which is harming me instead of helping me. HCQ lowers my immune system to try to prevent it from attacking itself- so the HCQ is basically the kid not on that much sugar. HOWEVER, with my immunity lowered I'm more susceptible to infections. Not only am I more susceptible to infections because my immune system is attacking itself, I'm ever more susceptible because HCQ is suppressing my body's ability to fight infection because my body lacks the ability to distinguish between good cells and bad cells, thus I'm an incredibly high risk for contracting and suffering complications from COVID-19. It gets WAY more complicated but I'm trying to keep things relatively simple.
Not being on HCQ is WAY more harmful to me than being on it. I've been on HCQ for the better part of a decade and the one time a rheumatologist tried to get me off the medication I was worse off than being on the medication. Lupus is a complex disease and I'm on several medications to help control it (there's no cure for lupus), but HCQ is the main drug. Without HCQ the joint pain and immflamuation is so crippling I can't get out of bed because my entire body hurts. It's psychically impossible for me to walk- the swelling in my feet gets so bad even setting my feet down on the floor is so painful I scream in agony. My hands blow up like balloons and I can't bend my fingers. The exhaustion becomes so overwhelming simply walking to the bathroom takes all the energy I have. Let me be clear that HCQ does not eliminate all these symptoms, it doesn't and some days even with HCQ I'm still in crippling pain or too exhausted to move. HCQ helps reduce symptoms along with some of the other medications I'm on. Even on HCQ I've ended up in the emergency room for crippling pain and in the hospital for a week with pancreatitis. Lupus is complicated and so is HCQ.
I need HCQ to function on a daily basis. Even missing a single dose of it I notice a huge difference in how I feel and my ability to function. If you don't have an autoimmune disease or malaria or are traveling to place where malaria is common you don't need HCQ.
I totally understand why doctors are trying to use HCQ in the fight against COVID. COVID presents so differently from person to person so maybe it will work for one person and not for another. All I'm asking you is to do your research on where you are getting your information from. Look into a doctors background because it does matter. There's a huge difference in being a family physician and being an infectious disease doctor. Do your research, know where information is coming from, ask questions, and be kind. You have no idea what it's like or how stressful it is to be on HCQ right now and not know if you'll be able to get your medication or not. You have no idea how stressful and scary it is to have an autoimmune disease and be high risk for COVID (I shared a bit about that here).
I'm not going to pretend to know everything because I don't, but I do know HCQ very well after having been on it for so long, reading countless books and studies about it, and having pestered my doctors with thousands of questions.
If you'd like to learn more about HCQ here are some resources:
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