
Useful hack: drinking tonic water (with quinine) reduced my breathing difficulty - dswilkerson
I used to work with some virus researchers at UCSF, so I saw this pandemic coming early and wrote my friends to warn them on Jan 28.  A few friends of mine and I started to isolate ourselves way before it was required by law where we live, the San Francisco Bay Area.  Despite being very careful, I still seem to have gotten the COVID-19 virus anyway.<p>The night before the shelter-in-place order was to go into effect at midnight, I went to return a library book and fill my gas tank (despite getting an amazing thing: an email from the library asking me not to return my library book on time).  I think I got it from a gas station pump handle.  I used hand sanitizer right after pumping the gas, but I think I missed some of the virus.  When I got home, I felt a tickle in my right lymph node under my right jaw.  The next day the same lymph node was sore to the touch and stayed that way for 2 days and I had a slight sore throat.  The doctor on my phone consult said it did not sound like COVID-19.<p>After that, day before yesterday, I started getting a dry cough and I started having difficulty feeling like I could get a full deep breath, but no fever.  The only other time I have felt like I could not get a full deep breath was when I (likely) had the H1N1 flu years ago.  I did not feel like I was going to not get enough air, but it did not feel very comfortable.<p>Yesterday it was worse.  On the second phone consult with a doctor, said she could not get a test for me because the tests were too scarce.  She said they would not even test a pregnant woman who thought she had it unless she was about to deliver.  I doubted she would prescribe any quinine for me, so I did not even bother to ask.<p>(continued in comments due to length restrictions)
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dswilkerson
(continuation)

I talked a few friends of mine into hunting down some sugar-free tonic water
for me. One of my friends brought me 2 liters, dropping them and running away
when I opened the door :-). I started drinking it, not really thinking it
would help. I drank a liter over a few hours while reading about the world
coming to and end and watching serene videos of the earth from the space
station set to calming music. A few hours later, still noodling around on the
web, I suddenly noticed that my breathing difficulty was almost completely
gone, as well as my desire to cough.

Today it is still better and I am on my second liter of tonic, so drinking
tonic water when you get COVID-19 seems to be a useful hack. I am only one
data point, so we cannot be sure this works. If it works for someone else, we
will have a trick. If it works for lots of people, we will have a well-
established technique :-). NOTE: you can poison yourself with quinine, so do
not drink liter after liter of it:
[https://www.finanzen.ch/nachrichten/aktien/the-quinism-
found...](https://www.finanzen.ch/nachrichten/aktien/the-quinism-foundation-
warns-of-dangers-from-use-of-antimalarial-quinolines-against-
covid-19-1029017948)

~~~
dswilkerson
(continuation)

NOTE: you can poison yourself with quinine, so do not drink liter after liter
of it: [https://www.finanzen.ch/nachrichten/aktien/the-quinism-
found...](https://www.finanzen.ch/nachrichten/aktien/the-quinism-foundation-
warns-of-dangers-from-use-of-antimalarial-quinolines-against-
covid-19-1029017948)

____

Dr. Nevin noted his concern that members of the public may even attempt to
obtain therapeutic quantities of quinine through questionable channels. "Tonic
water, whose bitter taste is produced by the addition of quinine or related
naturally-occurring quinolines, is limited by U.S. Food and Drug
Administration regulations to 83 mg per liter of quinine and related cinchona
alkaloids," said Dr. Nevin. "However, drinking several bottles of tonic water
will result in consuming pharmaceutical quantities, and therefore potentially
harmful, amounts of these drugs", said Dr. Nevin. "Tonic water is a
prescription medication masquerading as a cocktail mixer."

Dr. Nevin emphasized the importance of recognizing and properly reporting
adverse effects from these medications to the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration. "While it may be tempting to attribute anxiety, depression,
paranoia, or other mental health symptoms to the psychological effects of the
COVID-19 pandemic, " said Dr. Nevin, "these symptoms may be an early warning
sign of idiosyncratic neurotoxicity, and must be taken seriously."

Dr. Nevin noted that adverse effects from chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine,
mefloquine, quinine, and even tonic water may be reported to the U.S. Food and
Drug Administration's MedWatch program, at
[https://www.fda.gov/safety/medwatch-fda-safety-
information-a...](https://www.fda.gov/safety/medwatch-fda-safety-information-
and-adverse-event-reporting-program).

____

------
mritun
Hope you feel better, but you definitely don’t have covid19!

A. Covid takes at least a week or two before being symptomatic. 2 hrs is way
too fast.

B. 2L of Tonic water has just 150mg (max) of Quinine. That’s not a therapeutic
dose in any shape or form.

You would need to drink about 5L a day for 7 days for a therapeutic dose -
safe to say that’s not realistic.

Hope you feel better - this is either cold or seasonal allergy / flu.

~~~
dswilkerson
The symptoms that people typically notice and report for COVID-19, dry cough
and shortness of breath, did not start until about 3 days later, and, further,
I am not sure that the gas pump was how I got it, so your conclusion that I do
not have COVID-19 is not a sound argument.

If you have the symptoms, you have evidence of the virus. The sore throat may
be a red-herring, but I never get symptoms like this from normal flu or a
cold, except the H1N1 flu years ago, so that is definitely not it. I am very
familiar with how my body get sick.

Again, as I pointed out, the notion of a "therapeutic dose" is not discrete:
it is not the case that a small amount does absolutely nothing and then
suddenly when you get to the "therapeutic dose" suddenly it does something.
Drugs and the body generally do not work like that. If your body is hurting
for a molecule and you give it the amount biomedical researchers have
concluded will have an effect, it will likely have an effect, but if you give
it a bit less, it still might help. Think of any time you have needed
anything: even getting one thing was a lot more than getting zero. If you
listen to how doctors talk, they say such things all the time: they basically
guess how much to give you and then they move the amount up and down by
factors of like 2 depending on the results they get.

------
lgats

       When I got home, I felt a tickle in my right lymph node under my right jaw
    

You are saying you went from first contact with the virus to infected within a
few hours?

~~~
dswilkerson
The feeling in my lymph node could simply be something else, so that could be
a red-herring. However I am familiar with how a cold and flu feel to me, and
the only other time I have had shortness of breath was during the H1N1 flu
season. It is a very unusual symptom for me.

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rs23296008n1
This seems good to know... right up until some people do the usual silliness
and overdose themselves out of their meat suit. Especially those taking meds
they don't fully understand.

Should be an interesting year ahead of us.

~~~
dswilkerson
Well I made sure to post the warning of the fact that you can overdose even on
tonic water just to make sure people keep that in mind. I find it interesting
that there is no such warning on the bottle. It must just be an historic
artifact that quinine water is for sale in a grocery store at all. Would it
really be approved for sale today, especially without a warning?

~~~
rs23296008n1
A lot of things for sale can kill you. People need to take responsibility for
decisions rather than live in a bubble of ignorance.

Simply drinking too much water can kill you. From drowning if I recall. The
real issue is common sense is now uncommon.

As a doctor friend said to me years ago, everything can kill you given the
wrong dose. Tonic water could have a warning if thats a real concern but
honestly if you're drinking huge bottles of it you're likely trying to qualify
for a Darwin award after some point. I've heard anecdotes of people drinking
_litres_ of the stuff. Multiple bottles.

Be aware that a lot of the coronavirus tests are questionable anyway due to
them being faulty or worse don't work. Yet another vector for uncertainty.

Good luck with your journey.

------
phendrenad2
Keep us up to date, would be interesting to hear if you eventually get tested
if this was indeed covid.

~~~
dswilkerson
The tests seem to be very scarce right now, but in the future I will
definitely want to know if I _did_ have COVID-19. So hopefully antibody tests
will become available so at least people who become immune will at least know
that.

------
netman21
I got back from a big conference in SF on March 28. Came down with a sore
throat on the 30th. A huge percentage of the people I know who attended the
conference plus two of my three kids in SF all came down with the same thing
at the same time. In other words there is a _much_ more virulent epidemic
going on in SF. R0 is probably something like 10.

