Dr. Richard Neel is continuing to treat COVID-19 patients from around the country, who are calling him at the Little Alsace Clinic in Castroville, TX after reading articles about his ideas. The handful of patients is ever-growing as he fields calls from Boston, California as well as our local area. He has now treated 17 COVID patients.
Dr. Neel is truly a pioneer in treating the victims of COVID-19 cases, many of whom are simply told to go home and isolate unless they develop severe symptoms. Neel believes melatonin can help fight the toxins of the COVID-19 so that severe symptoms never develop. He has also seen at least 5 patients with high fever, and deep worsening cough, who made a quick recovery after beginning given high doses of melatonin.
“These patients saw great improvement within 12-24 hours of taking the first dose,” Dr. Neel stated. “Maybe it won’t work for everyone. Maybe it will. But it’s got an excellent safety profile, and based on what I’ve seen, you’ll know very fast if it’s working.”
Out of the 17 patients he’s treated, roughly one-third of the patients had severe symptoms, and many began treatment very early and never developed symptoms. A couple new patients, who just learned about Neel’s treatments, are over the worst of the virus but will take melatonin in hopes of making a faster recovery and preventing other complications that some doctors and scientists are concerned about.
Preventing complications that can be caused after the COVID-19 may be just as important. Neel and scientists like Alexander Schneider have expressed many concerns about COVID patients developing complications like Lung Fibrosis due to the way the virus attacks organs.
“Melatonin really helps preserve organ function,” Dr. Neel stated.
What is Lung Fibrosis? Pulmonary fibrosis is a lung disease that occurs when lung tissue becomes damaged and scarred. This thickened, stiff tissue makes it more difficult for your lungs to work properly. As pulmonary fibrosis worsens, you become progressively more short of breath. Some people become ill very quickly with severe disease. Others have moderate symptoms that worsen more slowly, over months or years.
Thoughts from a Bio Med scientist
Bio Med scientist Alexander Shneider, Ph.D., who has over 25 years experience working with antiviral vaccines, anti-cancer biologicals, and lately with biologicals against diseases of chronic inflammation expanded on that in our interview last week.
“I am greatly concerned that even those people, who recover pretty painlessly from this virus today, may develop post-infection complications such as lung fibrosis later on. I believe we should use melatonin to reduce this risk,” Shneider said.
“As a Ph.D. student I was taught that a virus actively kills our cells during the course of the infection…..But now I know a virus is more like a provoking bully, a bully who continues to provoke cells in our lungs and our respiratory tract to commit suicide……We analyzed the molecular mechanism, how the virus does it, and matched it with scientific databases. Then, came to conclusion that melatonin can block the process that promotes suicide in lung cells,” Shneider said.
While many doctors, researchers, and people from all across the country and across the world have contacted Dr. Neel for advice and to hear about his data.
Recently, a doctor in a small Florida clinic contacted Neel to let him know her two COVID patients also did very well on melatonin.
Another local physician in Medina County, Dr. Ann Black, shared her thoughts on melatonin’s potential.
“It certainly warrants more study,” Dr. Black said. “Melatonin is part of your body’s own defense system. It’s a natural chemical that is already in your body and contributes to your immune system. As we age, the level of melatonin that we have in our bodies diminishes and perhaps that could be a connection as to why the older population has been hit the hardest by this virus.”
“I do believe it needs to be researched more. However in the middle of a pandemic, we don’t always have time for studies. Sometimes we have to use our clinical experience to treat patients, and that’ is where the art of medicine comes in. That’s how science advances, and that’s what Dr. Neel is doing,” stated Dr. Black.
“Melatonin is an over-the-counter drug so physicians can use it as they see appropriate. There have been plenty of times in history when doctors weren’t able to wait on these double blind scientific studies using the scientific process,” Dr. Black stated. “That being said, especially now that the spread of the virus has slowed down, I do believe it needs to be researched more using the scientific process. Melatonin may have a much wider application to other viruses than we ever thought.”
Neel is so well-respected in our community
Dr. Neel is certainly a pioneer in treating COVID-19 patients with melatonin. He has only treated a handful of COVID cases, but the results have been remarkable for those patients. So he too is anxious to see the medical community do more study of melatonin’s ability to treat this horrible virus as well as other infections.
In our local community, Dr. Neel is well known for being an out-of-the box thinker who has helped so many people. One of those people is David Calame, who was suffering from a rare disease for months after seeing multiple doctors.
“Several years ago I broke out with rashes all over my body. I saw several doctors, and they thought I was just recovering from a virus, but it wasn’t, it was Lyme Disease,” Calame said. “I didn’t have the bulls eye rashes that are characteristic of Lyme Disease though. When I mentioned the idea to Dr. Neel, he thought about it for a few minutes and came back in and said it’s very rare in our area, but he went ahead and started me on some heavy duty antibiotics right away.”
“After two months of being sick in bed, I started the antibiotics he prescribed, and I was back up and back at work the next day! He was the third doctor I had seen since I started getting ill,” Calame said.
“He had also ordered a blood test that came back a month later and confirmed that’s what I had,” Calame adds. “He’s a great doctor, he’s direct, he’s compassionate, and he gives you the confidence that he’s going to do the best he can for you–that’s for sure.”
Medina County Health Unit Director Patricia Mechler also has high respect for Dr. Neel and his work.
“Dr. Neel is well-respected in our community, and I have seen his patients taking melatonin do well,” Mechler stated.
Jamie Cook, MPH, works alongside Dr. Neel at Little Alsace Urgent Care Clinic stated, “During COVID, I have watched Dr. Neel research and work with multiple teams of international medical professionals to assist the local community, United States and other countries on a treatment plan to help patients. Daily, he receives emails and calls from former colleagues, classmates, and physicians that are simply familiar with his precious work, all asking for his recommendation and advice on their patients. Our clinic has had 100% recovery on COVID patients at this time. His efforts to stop COVID are truly impacting and his staff is honored to be supporting him.”
You can read more about the science behind this idea in a previous interview here.
Richard Neel
Dr. Neel is now the co-owner of The Little Alsace Urgent Care Clinic in Castroville and Uvalde, TX.
He was recently appointed as the City of Devine Public Health Authority.
Dr. Neel served over 20 years as a Chief Flight Surgeon in the U.S. Air Force before his retirement as a Colonel. He lived in Europe serving in the USAFE (US Air force Europe) for 8 years. For 2 of those 8 years, he served as a personal physician for Ambassadors, General Officers and Senior State Department Personnel.
He was deployed for combat operations in the Middle East and Bosnia. He has over a thousand hours of flying time in jet fighters, bombers and helicopters. He flew more than 25 combat missions during deployments.
His many decorations include an Air Medal for assisting in the helicopter rescue of 32 people from a sinking tanker during a Hurricane that was more than 300 miles off the coast of Ireland. He led emergency response teams for NASA space shuttle emergency landing sites in Spain, Morocco and Gambia.
On September 11, 2001 he led an Air Force Emergency Team at the Pentagon. For many years he served on a team of subject matter expert in chemical and biological warfare for the US Pentagon.
He also holds a Master’s in Public Health from Harvard.