James Bruzzese, 23, who studies at the City University of New York's (CUNY) School of Medicine, says that his mom Josephine woke up on March 22 with a fever, body aches, and dry cough. She could not breathe and lost her ability to smell and taste.
"She was so short of breath she couldn't speak," he told the media.
Josephine was taken to NYU Langone Hospital – Brooklyn in Sunset Park where she was diagnosed with pneumonia. But because there were no Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19) tests available at the time, Josephine was sent home as a suspected case of the novel virus.
During her time in self-isolation, Josephine took the antibiotic drug azithromycin as well as the antimalaria drug hydroxychloroquine, neither of which helped her breathe any better.
"We were very worried because she couldn't stand up without almost passing out from shortness of breath," James recalled. "Her respiratory symptoms were very severe."
Remembering a remedy that worked for his 16-year-old sister, who was struck with a mystery ailment back in 2015 that left her unable to walk and that later turned out to be Lyme disease, James decided to try it on his mom – and the results were astounding.
It was actually Dr. Richard Horowitz, a Lyme disease specialist and ally of James who helped treat his sister Julia, who came up with the idea to give Josephine glutathione, which almost immediately gave her back the life she previously had.
"When you get a viral infection with a huge amount of inflammation you don't have enough glutathione to be able to protect your very sensitive lung tissue," Horowitz stated, noting that glutathione works very well in Lyme patients to reduce inflammation.
After giving Josephine her first 2,000-milligram dose of glutathione, Joseph observed that his mother became a whole new person.
"Within an hour my breathing got better," Josephine recalled. "It was amazing. I sat up, I got up. I went and I took a shower," she added, noting that she was even able to make her own bed.
After five days of taking glutathione, Josephine had no relapse back to the pain and suffering she endured while infected with the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19), which left her bound to a wheelchair.
The results were so impressive that James decided to write up his mother's case as part of a study that he and Horowitz co-authored, which also included the case of a man in his 50s from Manhattan who also saw success with glutathione.
The paper, which was published in the journal Respiratory Medicine Case Reports, revealed how an intravenous injection of glutathione in the older patient from the city helped the man begin breathing normally again within just half an hour.
James has not been able to contain himself after seeing the improvements that occurred in his mom from this simple and safe treatment. He has been telling everyone he knows, including on social media, about the benefits of glutathione so that they, too, can take advantage of it if need be.
Dr. Purvi Parikh, an infectious disease, allergy and immunology specialist at NYU Langone Hospital, believes that glutathione may work by calming the immune system's overreaction in response to the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19), a phenomenon known as a "cytokine storm."
"Any insight into this novel illness is helpful ... in looking for potential treatments," she says.
Meanwhile, Horowitz is working on a more extensive clinical trial involving glutathione to better pinpoint how it works.
"It's not something new," he says. "It's not something dangerous. This may provide a very simple therapy, but again we are going to need the studies."
To keep up with the latest news about the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19), be sure to check out Pandemic.news.
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