This April 14th, Dr. Richard Neel is now treating over 7 confirmed COVID patients with melatonin, and they are all doing well. Three of those patients had severe symptoms before beginning treatment, and started recovering very quickly with melatonin and vitamin c treatment.
The first patient is roughly 2 weeks into the illness. The second patient is nearing that mark as well, and both are doing extremely well.
“The first two patients I began treating with Melatonin and Vitamin C basically have no more symptoms at this point,” Dr. Neel stated. “I did do an antibody test on both patients this past Sunday which showed they still had IGM (showing they are still in the acute phase of the illness), however they are not experiencing anymore symptoms.”
“The third patient who began treatment last Thursday, April 9th, has no more fever or body aches, and only a slight cough left,” Dr. Neel said.
“There are so many people out there on ventilators, who are very sick or dying, and it is not going to hurt anyone to add melatonin to whatever their current treatment is,” Dr. Neel said. “I think this could help a lot of people a lot faster, and it has a great safety profile. Melatonin is sublingual so it will dissolve on the tongue, and that is another great thing about it.”
“It is impossible to tell if any of the more seriously ill patients I treated would have progressed to needing a ventilator, but that is why more study with seriously ill patients is needed now,” Dr. Neel said. “Most COVID patients are going to recover without needing a ventilator, but lot of them are going to have a really rough course of illness with high fever, body aches, etc….It is hard to predict currently which of those people with the rough course of the illness will progress to needing a ventilator or will die except for the factors of age and certain co-morbidities. The melatonin will lessen the severity of the illness and I strongly believe will prevent the progression to needing a ventilator or dying.”
The other four patients Neel has treated didn’t have any severe symptoms but had direct exposure to COVID and tested positive for it themselves.
“These four patients began treatment very early because they knew they had exposure to COVID and tested positive even before showing symptoms. They have begun treatment and continue to be asymptomatic,” Dr. Neel said.
An overview of the 3 patients who recovered from high fevers and severe cough:
Patient 1- “I started the patient, who is in his 40s, on melatonin on Wednesday, April 1 and he was much better within 24 hours,” Dr. Neel stated. “Before beginning treatment, this patient in his late 40’s had several days of really high fever that wouldn’t break with Tylenol, a dry non-productive cough, worsening shortness of breath, and loss of taste and smell. His symptoms started on a Sunday, and he talked to me on Wednesday afternoon. He began treatment that night, taking a high dose of melatonin around 8 pm, and he was fever-free when he woke up the next morning,” Neel said. “Then he began taking a high dose of Vitamin C as well as continuing melatonin divided in 4 daily doses and continued improving, getting his sense of smell and taste back, and his cough got better and better on the 3rd and 4th day.” The patient continues not to have any more significant symptoms as of the writing of this article April 14th.
Patient #2- “This patient, also in her 40s, had called me the same day that symptoms began. She had 101.7 fever, body aches, cough increasing, said it really hit her hard. She took melatonin at 6:30, 8:30, and 10:30 pm and was fever free by the morning, and other symptoms continued improving to the point that she was almost totally well by the 3rd day, however treatments have to continue throughout the course of the virus.” The patient continues not to have any more significant symptoms as of the writing of this article April 14th.
Patient #3- The third patient, in his mid-40s, also had a high fever , body aches, fatigue, and severe increasing cough for a couple days before beginning treatment, and he was doing much better the day after beginning treatment of melatonin and vitamin C. He is on day 8 or 9 of the illness, and he is also doing well, having only a slight cough left at this point.
4 patients began treatment early
The other four patients treated by Dr. Neel were positive for COVID, but asymptomatic and continue to be asymptomatic after beginning treatment.
“We started treating these patients before symptoms began, so we won’t know if we’ve prevented symptoms in these four patients or if they were part of the group of COVID patients who are simply asymptomatic,” Dr. Neel said.
Dr. Richard Neel served on the team of chemical and biological weapons experts for the Pentagon from 1998-2003 and holds a Master’s Degree in Public Health from Harvard. He is now a co-owner of The Little Alsace Urgent Care Clinic in Castroville and Uvalde, TX.
More researchers support idea of melatonin being a treatment for COVID-19
For many weeks, we have been reporting on a local Medina County Doctor Richard Neel’s idea that melatonin has great potential to treat COVID-19. Since then, others in the medical community have shown support for this idea.
One of those supporting the idea is Russell Reiter, PhD (Professor of Cell Biology at UT Health Center in San Antonio). Reiter’s thoughts were included in an online article last Wednesday.
Reiter is one of the world’s leading melatonin researchers and he is also the editor and chief of the Journal of Pineal Research and on the editorial board of 7 other journals.
Last Wednesday, April 8th, he stated, “I understand Dr. Neel has treated patients successfully with melatonin. This is certainly newsworthy. Likewise, his rationale for the use of melatonin as a potential treatment for COVID-19 is important. A published report supports his rationale, COVID-19: Melatonin as a potential adjuvant treatment”, stated Professor Russel J. Reiter, Ph.D in an interview. “Dr. Neel’s rationale for the use of melatonin as a potential treatment for COVID-19 is justified on the basis of the actions of this molecule”, said Reiter who was a part of this report that was published in February-March 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, co authored in conjunction with several medical professionals in China .
The following information is about two more researchers who also support this idea in their research paper titled, “Potential utility of melatonin in deadly infectious diseases related to the overreaction of innate immune response and destructive inflammation: focus on COVID-19.”
The authors, Assistant Professor at UT Health Center in San Antonio Dunxian Tan, and a German Professor Ruegiger Hardeland, suggest that “The underlining mechanisms for the high mortality commonly involves free radical attack and destructive inflammation in numerous tissues and organs.”
For example, the targeted tissue for COVID-19 is the lung, they explain in the research paper.
“Massive inflammatory reaction is caused by the exaggerated innate immune response of the host against the pathogens. This hyperactive innate immune response is associated with the release of a large quantity of cytokines referred as a “cytokine storm”…..This becomes a vicious cycle; if this vicious cycle is not interrupted.”
It goes on to assert that “All of the authors mentioned above believe that melatonin is a molecule which has the capacity to break this vicious cycle. Melatonin is a powerful free radical scavenger to reduce the tissue oxidative damage and it is also an effective anti-inflammatory agent to depress the “cytokine storm”. As a result, melatonin may increase the tolerance of the host to the pathogens and save precious time for the patients to develop an adaptive immune-response and finally recover from the pathogens’ attack. In addition, melatonin also promotes the adaptive immune response by increasing T lymphocyte proliferation and B cells to generate specific antibodies. Melatonin has a huge safety margin and is readily available.”
Citations:
Zhang, Rui & Wang, Xuebin & Ni, Leng & Di, Xiao & Ma, Baitao & Niu, Shuai & Liu, Changwei & Reiter, Russel. (2020). COVID-19: Melatonin as a potential adjuvant treatment. Life Sciences. 117583. 10.1016/j.lfs.2020.117583.
Tan, D.X. and Hardeland, R. 2020. Potential utility of melatonin in deadly infectious diseases related to the overreaction of innate immune response and destructive inflammation: focus on COVID-19. Melatonin Research. 3, 1 (Mar. 2020), 120-143. DOI:https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.32794/mr11250052.
By Kayleen Holder
Editor