Header Image: COVID 19 and The Elderly

In this article, I assembled all the safe and reasonable advice I’ve heard during this pandemic to reduce the risk of being infected, minimize the severity of the virus impact and protect our elderly population. I entitled this post  “COVID 19 And the Elderly” because the way some elderly people “understand” this epidemic and the way they behave is an issue on its own.

I’m writing this post mostly for the loving children of stubborn elderly parents. 🙂 

Of course, not all parents after 80 are stubborn. You are lucky if your folks listen to you and let you take care of them. You are lucky if they stay home, wash their hands and everything that comes from outside, and thus help you to help them stay away from the coronavirus and keep safe. Then, this article is for them as much as it is for you.

Our beloved stubborn know-it-all parents and grandparents, please listen to your kids for once!

My mother will not read an article such as this one. She is “not afraid” of the coronavirus. Explaining to her and her boyfriend (both are 82 years old) that traveling by long-distance buses from Boston to State College, Pennsylvania via New York City during the summit of the pandemic, sucked up lots of energy from my husband and me. In the end, they canceled the trip, but only because the bus company changed the time for one of their connecting routes and the whole trip would turn into over 20 hours of travel.

I also have a difficult time keeping them out of the stores. I live with my family 10 minutes away from my mom’s place, and it’s not hard for us to do the shopping for them too. It’s much harder to keep them out of the stores…

Does this sound familiar to you? Can you relate? If not, you are lucky!

Then, just send this article over to your parents – they will read, and it might help them to prevent and avoid, or maybe even beat the virus if they catch it despite all the precautions they take.

For those of you, who are in my situation, please continue reading and do your best to convince your parents to cooperate.

Most likely, our parents are so stubborn not because they are selfish, but because they can’t believe that they are in a high-risk group. They used to be strong and independent, they used to take care of us and others, they might still feel pretty young and energetic, even in their 80s… needless to say, if yours are in their 70s or even younger. To them, “elderly” is still the word that applies to older people – not them.

They might feel physically strong and not understand that age and human physiology take the toll even if we don’t feel it in everyday life. No matter how smart and sharp our parents used to be, their speed of cognitive processing slows down and their brains are not as responsive to change as they used to be. Even if they still seem to think clearly and have a great memory compared to other people their age, they still have aged compared to themselves at a younger age.

Hey, kids in our 40s-50s-60s!!!  What can we do to keep our parents safe?

There is no cure for COVID 19, and we all know it.
The best we can do for our parents is to prevent them from being in contact with the virus – do our best to keep them away from the stores and other people. Make sure that while doing so, we don’t catch the virus ourselves and don’t transfer it over to our elderly parents. This means that we need to be very accurate in following all the hygiene procedures and using gloves, masks, and hand sanitizers…

COVID-19 And The Elderly: Walking outside and breathing fresh air is essential for the wellness of the elderly

Help Your Dearest Elderly People to Keep a Healthy Lifestyle.

We should also make sure that our older folks go outside (where it’s allowed) and breathe fresh air while keeping social distancing. Make sure that your parents/ grandparents always carry disposable gloves and/or hand sanitizers with them as well as a small bag for garbage.

I suggest verifying with them that they understand when to use gloves and sanitizer and how to dispose of the gloves. Don’t just assume that they know… They probably do, but still, either let them tell you or you remind them that they should put the gloves on BEFORE and throw them away AFTER, or use sanitizer each time AFTER they touch any surface that could be previously touched by others: a button in an elevator, a door handle, bench they sat on outside, etc.

I personally am upset with the parks being closed, even though I understand why: no thanks to our youngsters who still wanted to party in the parks in large groups!  If your parents are in an area where they are not supposed to go outside, then make sure that they open windows in their house often and the fresh air gets in regularly.

washing-handsOkay, the first two points to pay attention to are clear and simple:

Hygiene
and
Fresh air

Supplement Melatonin.

What else can we do to lessen the risk of getting sick for our older family members?

I’ve seen many theories of how to prevent COVID 19, and how to help fight it, once infected… I’d like to repeat and make it 100% clear: WE DON’T HAVE A CONFIRMED CURE or PREVENTION medicine. But, let’s look at what ideas and suggestions are circulating now and whether they could be harmful or helpful…

The Coronavirus has already proved that the elderly people are at higher risk to have the heavier impact of the disease and even not make it through. But why? Because as we age, our body systems cease to produce enough hormones, healthy proteins and other vital substances as they did at a younger age. One of the hormones, production of which is significantly reduced with age, is melatonin.

In this article, Alexander Shneider, the founder and CEO at CureLab Oncology, and his colleagues from Israel and Russia made an attempt to answer the question: Can melatonin reduce the severity of COVID-19 pandemic?

“Viruses induce an explosion of inflammatory cytokines and reactive oxygen species, and melatonin is the best natural antioxidant that is lost with age.

The programmed cell death coronaviruses cause, which can result in significant lung damage, is also inhibited by melatonin. Coronavirus causes inflammation in the lungs which requires inflammasome activity. Melatonin blocks these inflammasomes. General immunity is impaired by anxiety and sleep deprivation. Melatonin improves sleep habits, reduces anxiety and stimulates immunity. Fibrosis may be the most dangerous complication after COVID-19. Melatonin is known to prevent fibrosis. Mechanical ventilation may be necessary but yet imposes risks due to oxidative stress, which can be reduced by melatonin.

Thus, by using the safe over-the-counter drug melatonin, we may be immediately able to prevent the development of severe disease symptoms in coronavirus patients, reduce the severity of their symptoms, and/or reduce the immuno-pathology of coronavirus infection on patients’ health after the active phase of the infection is over.”

Can melatonin reduce the severity of COVID-19 pandemic? by Alex Shneider, Aleksandr Kudriavtsev, Anna Vakhrusheva, April 9, 2020

The authors of the work suggest a hypothesis, that melatonin might greatly ease the course of the disease during infection and help avoid lung fibrosis in survivors of severe cases of COVID-19. Melatonin is well researched, approved by the FDA as a dietary supplement, and has little to none side-effects.

Whether this hypothesis is correct or incorrect, I don’t see any harm in suggesting my mother take melatonin as a supplement – it may not help, or… may save lives of our elderly people.

Increase the Intake of Vitamins (C & D in particular) and Minerals.

I hope you’ve already realized that the idea of my writing for this post is not to give you advice on how to cure COVID-19. I’m not a doctor, and even doctors don’t have proven advice for you.

In this post, I offer you solutions that are:

  • natural and NOT harmful,
  • Beneficial for overall health,
  • And… are theorized by the specialists as possibly helpful in the prevention or fight of the Coronavirus.

Besides the elderly, the young people whose immune system is weakened by certain medical conditions are also the most vulnerable to the virus.

For those whose immune system is not strong enough, vitamins taken as supplements in higher amounts during this pandemic, could boost the immune system and help fight the virus.

Two vitamins, in particular, I hear a lot about as the most beneficial to prevent or even fight COVID-19 are:

  • Vitamin C
  • Vitamin D
    and also…
  • 10xPure™ Multi-Vitamins

Per Drugs.com, vitamin C is vital for our immune regulations. It is beneficial for elderly people with acute respiratory infections. You can read all the detail on how vitamin C is helpful for our immune and respiratory systems – I won’t re-tell it here. One interesting fact it informs us about is that “…at least two trials are underway specifically investigating the use of vitamin C to treat severe COVID-19, one in New York and one in China.”

I’ve taken a step to research further and found Dr. Richard Cheng, M.D., Ph.D., Shanghai, who tells us about the latest clinical studies in China, where COVID 19 patients were treated with a high dosage of Vitamin C delivered intravenously. Dr. Cheng reports very good results from these studies. He suggests that vitamin C is very safe, and doses up to 1.5 grams of vitamin C per 1 kg of body weight are not harmful: a person who weighs 60 – 80 kg or 133 – 177 lb, could safely take 90 – 120 grams of vitamin C as a daily supplement.

However, the article mentioned above at Drugs.com reports that

“taking more than 2000 mg of vitamin C a day may cause stomach upsets, including abdominal pain, diarrhea or nausea.

Because vitamin C is a water-soluble vitamin, excessive vitamin C is excreted in the urine. Rarely, over-supplementation with vitamin C causes kidney stones.”

Can taking too much vitamin C cause side effects?

Dr. Cheng suggests bringing up the supplemental intake of vitamin C during this pandemic as a preventive measure. However, the high dosage administered via IV is for the treatment of people already infected with the virus and in a severe state.

It’s up to you to decide whether you prefer to keep your own and your elderly parents’ vitamin C supplements under 2 grams per day and be sure that you don’t get side effects mentioned by Drug.com, or… trust Dr. Cheng and maybe double the amounts as a preventive therapy during this pandemic. Perhaps, follow his treatment plan (found on his YouTube channel – see the screenshot below) for mild cases of COVID-19, and requesting IVs if you or (god forbid!) your parents end up in the hospital.

Screenshot from the YouTube channel of Dr. Richard Cheng with his Treatment Plan for mild Covid-19 cases.

Have you noticed how in his treatment plan, Dr. Richard Cheng, mentions vitamin D3 and many other vitamins and minerals?

Here is the letter by Mark M. Alipio supporting the theory that Vitamin D is another major game-player in preventing and treating COVID-19.

Of course, not only vitamins C & D are supporting and regulating our immune. Unfortunately, taking vitamins as dietary supplements is not very effective. Most of what we take gets to our digestive system and straight to the toilet. That’s why Dr. Cheng suggests double and triple the prophylactic dosage of vitamin C (as still, only a small amount will be effective for your body), and treat an actual infection through the IV, which is the most effective method of delivery.

Since we can’t use IV at home for our regular intake of the supplements, I recommend 10xPure™, which is an innovative delivery method patented to CTFO. It provides better bio-availability and potency – thus, more of the content of that bottle gets to the targeted areas of the body.

Listen to what Dr. Sica tells us about CTFO’s 10xPure™ Ultimate Multi-Vitamins in the short video interview below, and check the label of this product below the video.

Will vitamins help to prevent or treat Coronavirus? Doctors give no guarantees. I feel safe to try them on myself and recommend these vitamins to my mother and your dearest parents and grandparents.

Regulate and Balance Immune And Other Body Systems with the Natural Helpers.

Coronavirus showed us that the elderly people and the young people whose immune system is weakened by certain medical conditions are the most vulnerable to the virus. However, they are NOT the only people dying from this virus. Some young, strong and healthy people lose the battle to the COVID 19. Why does that happen?

Unfortunately, a strong immune system does not guarantee that the person is invincible for the Coronavirus. Not only a weak immune system but also the imbalanced immune system worsens the flow of the disease and increases the lethality cases. 

According to Yale Medicine,

“With a COVID-19 infection, the immune system starts responding to the virus as it normally would, but in certain patients, something goes wrong,” says Iwasaki, who is the Waldemar Von Zedtwitz Professor of Immunobiology and professor of molecular, cellular, and developmental biology at Yale, and an investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.  

For these people, rather than simply targeting the virus, the immune system goes into overdrive and creates what is known as a “cytokine storm.”  

“Instead of helping the host cope with the infection, the cytokines can cause damage to the tissue, such as breaking down protective lining of the lung and the blood vessels,” Iwasaki explains.”

Why COVID-19 Makes Some People So Much Sicker Than Others, APRIL 9, 2020

I often hear the comparison line between the COVID-19 progression and auto-immune diseases such as Lupus and the ideas of using similar methods to taming both.

The following two natural remedies are not just boosting your immune system, but rather enhancing, balancing and regulating it on the cellular level.

  • Phytocannabinoids – bind directly or indirectly with your endocannabinoid receptors and signal your body to bring your physiological systems into the state of homeostasis.
  • Glutathione is very well researched and you can google it more on your own. The 3 main functions of glutathione are:
    • Powerful antioxidant
    • Rebalances and enhances our Immune System
    • Detoxifies our cells

The product that offers a broad range of phytocannabinoids is full-spectrum CBD oil.

I’m a big fan of the quality of the products offered by CTFO and their innovative thinking. I personally use many of their products and offer you what I know and love the best. I do earn a small commission if you buy using my link, and so can you… However, I recommend their products out of pure love wishing only the best to my readers, and not with a self-serving purpose. I’m explaining my relationship with CTFO in this video on my YouTube channel: CTFO Review 2020

In my honest opinion, the best full-spectrum CBD oil drops currently available on the market is CTFO’s 10xPure™ Gold Super 1000 full-spectrum CBD oil enriched with CBDa.

Please note that there is also a topical 10xPure™ CBDa product for pain relief. I’ll talk more about it later.

In May 2020, CTFO is going to launch 2 more products that work best in pairs (similar to 10xPure™ CBDa couple): one, CelluVie – works from inside out, and the other one, DermaVie – works from outside in.

New CTFO Products: CelluVie and DermaVie

CELLUVie® is CTFO undenatured whey protein isolate that acts as a Glutathione pre-cursor. In light of the current pandemic, CelluVie seems much more important than DermaVie. Therefore, CTFO rushed to make CelluVie available for pre-order since mid-April, 2020.

CTFO CelluVie, a glutathione Precursor.

Depending on when you are reading this,
You can pre-order or order yours here.
CelluVie will be shipped out starting in May 2020.

In this article, I won’t go into detail explaining the product. Instead, I invite you to watch pre-launch webinar if you’d like to learn more about it:

What Should We Do if We Noticed COVID-19 Symptoms or are at a Higher Risk Of Getting Infected?

Let me ask you first…
During the times when people are still getting infected at a high rate and hospitals are overloaded, would you prefer having your old folks in the hospital or at home with you if you noticed the signs of the disease?

Of course, your answer depends on the area you are in, and how bad the situation in the hospitals is… In some places, you won’t be able to get them to a hospital even if you wanted to unless their lives depended on an IV and a ventilator that are not available in a home setting. Don’t be surprised if you won’t even be able to get them tested for Coronavirus…

While the signs of the illness are mild, keeping your parents and grandparents home and taking good care of them in the family might be a safer solution. Do what you know is not harmful and might help to fight the disease. Call the doctors and keep them informed of the progress over the phone or email.

Most of the natural remedies and therapies offered in this article are NOT approved by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or the World Health Organization (WHO).
You can follow their recommendations – though, while there is no COVID-19 vaccine, I haven’t seen many useful solutions coming from these organizations other than increased personal hygiene and the use of the Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), the supply of which is extremely limited. At the time of writing this article, there is no medical help in the US. Unless you or your loved one is dying, coming to the hospitals can be more dangerous than staying home.

Most of the tips in this article are coming from folk wisdom, the safety of which has been proven by centuries of experience by our ancestors. In relation to the Coronavirus, they are based on the modern anecdotal success stories and opinions of individual doctors. These methods cannot be considered a reliable treatment. Decide for yourself whether you want to try them or not.

All the preventive methods we’ve discussed above are still good, and you may want to encourage them all. Here is a list of other actions you can take that won’t worsen the condition and may help greatly and save lives. There is a reasonable foundation for each of the following tips.

  1. If a pain killer is needed, take Tylenol – not Ibuprofen! Per Drugs.com, there is no strong evidence that ibuprofen makes the disease worse, but in my opinion, it’s better to be safe than sorry. There is nothing good in ibuprofen, to begin with.

    I would avoid Tylenol as well just because it’s not a natural solution, but that’s my personal view on pharmaceutical drugs. I totally understand if you don’t mind taking mild drugs.

    However, if you are like me and also prefer natural solutions, then for pain, I’d recommend CTFO’s 10xPure™ CBDa pair: 10xPure Gold Super 1000 full-spectrum CBD oil and the topical 10xPure™ CBDa product that I’ve mentioned above is 10xPURE™ Gold Roll-On enriched with CBDa; Muscle & Joint Relief.

  2. Increase 2-3 times the intake of vitamin C and vitamin D, or take CTFO 10xPure™ Ultimate Multi-Vitamins.

    Or follow the chart proposed by Dr. Richard Cheng – see the image above in the “Increase the Intake of Vitamins (C & D in particular) and Minerals.” chapter.

  3. Increase the daily amount of Melatonin supplement.

  4. Drink hot water every 20 minutes.
    It is believed that the heat kills COVID-19.
  1. Hot Steam Inhalations: breath over the steam coming out from a pot with boiled water.
    The following exercise helps to treat many types of cough (a cold or flu including), and as we already know, COVID-19 does not like the heat and can be destroyed by it. This exercise may help only in the early stages while the virus is not in the lungs yet.

    Take the pot with the boiled water off the heat first, let sit just a little bit before bending over the pot and breathing the steam. Be careful about the temperature – it must be very hot, but not burning. Try breathing through your mouth first. As soon as the heat can be easily tolerated for breathing through your mouth, start breathing with your nose and take turns in breathing through your nose and through your mouth.

    A retired medical doctor, a former professor, treated his own symptoms of Coronavirus with this therapy and recommended this method to his students, now doctors working with COVID-19 patients, as daily exercise. He also suggested adding baking soda into the water.

  2. Another exercise to achieve a similar heat effect on the lungs is the old and proven method created by the professor Abram Zalmanov for treating pneumonia.

    This video is in Russian, but it demonstrates how this could be performed in the home setting. The water temperature is 60°C or 140°F; keep wet wrap for 20-30 minutes then stay in bed for 40 minutes. Do this no more than twice per day.

  3. Stretch, move, breathe deeply even through the pain.

Conclusion.

During the times when Coronavirus pandemic is a worldwide tragedy and concern, the times that the world could be but wasn’t prepared better, the times when all medical workers became true heroes and yet there is not enough of them as well as there is not enough room in the hospitals for all infected and not enough equipment, it is really up to us, children and grandchildren, to take good care of our elderly family members.

Let’s make a list of all the possibly helpful procedures and supplements that we discussed in this article:

  1. Keep social distancing.
  2. Conduct proper hygiene.
  3. Get a lot of fresh air.
  4. Walk and stretch.
  5. Increase the daily dosage of melatonin.
  6. Increase vitamins and minerals intake.
  7. Balance and regulate the immune system with the full-spectrum CBD oil and glutathione
  8. Don’t use Ibuprofen!
  9. Drink hot water, make hot steam inhalations and wet hot wraps.
  10. If infected and in pain – move, stretch and breathe deeply even through the pain.

Please let me know in the Comments below how you and your family are coping up during the quarantine. How the elderly people in your family take this new reality. Do they cooperate, or like my mother, require more of your energy and attention and thus make you worry even more?

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13 Responses

  1. OMG Julia – I am in exactly the same position where my mother is concerned. She absolutely won’t listen to anyone and doubts so much information distributed by the mainstream media. There is so much amazing research you have done and summarized here that so many people could really use to help protect and manage the situation with their parents, again only if they would be open-minded enough to listen. That is the challenge for all of us with elderly, stubborn parents – but at least your readers have a great resource here to help guide us during this worrying time. Thanks so much.

    • Hi Nicole,

      There is more in common between you and me than love to travel! 🙂 Though I’m sorry that your mother won’t listen either, and you have to deal with the same problem.
      Even if we can’t keep our mothers at home, we might be able to help them enhance their immune. I guess we could use some tricks to convince our parents to take some of the natural remedies that I mentioned in the article (melatonin, vitamins, CBD, and CelluVie) without making a connection to COVID-19. Then, they might be not as resistant to take our advice as they are now…

      I wish you and your Mom to be well and safe.

      ~ Julia

  2. My parents are in their 70s and really need to read this. The part about melatonin is so interesting. In addition to the benefits you listed, it also helps with sleep. I know that watching the news alone is stressful and that my sleep patterns have been disrupted. After reading this, I’m going to start adding melatonin and more vitamins to my daily regimen.

    • Hello Tracy,

      Thank you for reading and commenting.

      Melatonin is a sleep hormone in the first place. I do mention Melatonin’s main role in this post with the links to more information on its commonly known function. Most people know that melatonin helps with sleep, but they treat it as a sleeping pill, which is not. It’s our natural hormone. Only if one is not producing enough of their own melatonin for some reason, will the supplement work. Otherwise, it’s possible to hurt your natural production of melatonin, make you dependent on the supplement forever, and yet not improve the initial sleep problem (because the original reason was not underproduction of melatonin). Having said all of the above, it’s pretty safe to assume that people after 70 (even after 50!) don’t produce enough melatonin. That’s why melatonin is good for most of us who start having sleep problems with the age.

      And… if it saves us and our parents from Coronovirus – that would be in addition to its other benefits and absolutely awesome!

      I’m not sure how old you are. Therefore, be careful with adding melatonin to your own supplements. If you do, start with the small amounts.

      All the best,

      ~ Julia

  3. Great advice. I can’t stress the importance of fresh air enough to the people that I’ve been talking to – our elderly neighbours, family members, etc. There are so many great health benefits associated with getting outside as well as with sunshine. It’s an important piece of the puzzle.

    • Hi Britt,

      Definitely! Unfortunately, many people are scared to go outside due to misunderstanding of self-isolation. There are many places in nature where it’s not difficult to avoid close contact with other people and keep that 6 feet distance. That’s why I addressed this post to us, the mature children of elderly parents – maybe we could help our folks to be outside and stay safe.

      Thank you for your comment.

      ~ Julia

  4. My mother who is in her 80s was extremely nervous when this whole pandemic struck. She was very concerned about herself. She barely goes anywhere at this point in her life other than her backyard so I stressed to just keep doing the same thing she’s been doing. We bring her food and leave it for her regularly but do not make contact. Make sure to keep eating properly and wash your hands liberally and often. I live in NY which has been a hot spot and we are just starting to see cases level off a bit but the numbers are staggering.

    • Hi Scott,

      That’s good that your mother takes this pandemic seriously and understands its danger. You’re a wonderful son taking such good care of your Mom! Wishing her and you to stay safe and be well.

      ~ Julia

  5. I have a special place in my heart for the elderly. I only had one grandfather and he has passed on now but I could just imagine if he was still alive and we had to deal with this. Thanks for all the tips and suggestions.

    • I too have a special place in my heart for the elderly. My mother belongs to this category now… Thank you for your comment. Be well.

      ~ Julia

  6. I am in the same situation with my grandmother, who‘s 87 and strangely unconcerned about this situation. We‘ve been trying to explain it to her and purchased some Vitamin C and D, which can help as you mentioned. Beyond that, she has to decide for herself how much risk she wants to take.
    Thanks for the detailed and helpful explanations.

  7. I love it when older people say “I’ve lived through the depression, several wars, 9/11, beat cancer etc. etc. this doesn’t scare me!” As a nurse, I’ve heard it all. I think my mother is behaving and staying in as she is a hypochondriac, so this doesn’t apply to her!

  8. Aging is one of the most difficult things there is. Because nobody wants to admit they aren’t as independent as they once were. It’s also hard for adult children too, because we all want what is best for our parents and to take care of them. It’s such a difficult balance between wanting to take care of our parents and treating them like kids too. It’s not a fun spot to be in for either the parent or the adult children.

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