Anyone using Nicotine patches for Long Covid?

Posted by tgroff @tgroff, Apr 19, 2023

There is lots of discussion on Facebook Long Covid forums about nicotine patches helping with long covid symptoms after a few days of adjustment to the patches. Any thoughts on this?

Interested in more discussions like this? Go to the Post-COVID Recovery & COVID-19 Support Group.

I just started with a 7mg patch and I’m already feeling better. 3 days in and I feel my energy and focus returning.

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Late to the party but happy to be here, finally. Almost 2 long years for me (although it seems a lifetime) of smelling and tasting? the scent of a very dead body. I lost well over 40 pounds and dry heaved a lot. Boring carbs my only acceptable food.

This started in January of 2023 and started slowly. By mid summer of 2023, I was ready to not exist. In November 2023, I read about the Nicotine patches and tried it with an entire box of the 7 mg. After a couple of weeks, I noticed about a 40% improvement in some things, but none in the worst (coffee, onions, Maillard reactions).

JUST recently 8/2024, I injured my shoulder and was given 12 days of 10 mg prednisone. After about 4 days, I started seeing some serious improvement in the parosmia as well as the shoulder! So today was the last day of Prednisone and I am probably 99.8% recovered at this time. Onions are tad off, but okay. Same for coffee and peanut butter and those were my main triggers post Nicotine patches.

If you have a doctor willing to let you try that therapy, I highly recommend. Wish I’d asked for it much, much sooner.

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@masnaricaebv

Hi, I'm new to this group and wanted to ask you how you're feeling now. I see you posted in December so it's been nine months. Praying you continued to improve. I'm nervous about starting on the patches. Doing my research first.

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Don’t be. I was too. There was zero chance of nicotine addiction with a mere 7 mg patch. It’s worth it to at least try!

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@ccran

Don’t be. I was too. There was zero chance of nicotine addiction with a mere 7 mg patch. It’s worth it to at least try!

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I’m wondering if you lost your taste/smell from Covid and the Nicotine Patch is supposedly something to help regain them? I’ve been reading about it and am curious what dose you used and for how many days? Thanks in advance. I lost my taste and smell in December of 2022 and have had 5 Stellate Ganglion Block injections that didn’t help much at all, just gave me a more salty, sweet or bitter taste in my mouth.

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@juliepeck723

I just started with a 7mg patch and I’m already feeling better. 3 days in and I feel my energy and focus returning.

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Glad to hear the NP is working. I’m starting next week. I’ve been doing more research and watching Dr Leitzke on YouTube

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I was loving the patch and the last two boxes I have had a big reaction to, swelling and itching on site that does not go away for two week. Maybe its a new formulation but I have to stop trying the patch and move onto other products bc the nicotine itself really does help me with energy and focus. At night it can cause vivid dreams, I actually like this as I have always had them but they had stopped but I know some do not.. So for me it helps with fog and energy (really notice when I go off of them how much it helped me). I know other sources are food and horsetail tea which I will also add in.

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@cropdoc

A friend told me about a nicotine Long Covid trial last year in October. I looked up the research (search: 2013 Long Covid Covid 19 nicotine treatment impact Sars CoV 2) and found multiple papers. One publication was in January or February and had the mode of action (at least two) of nicotine on Sars CoV-2 virus and how the nicotine modulated cytokinin and blocked the ACE receptors. The other papers provided additional information and one was a study (August publication as I recall) in which 100% of patients with Long Covid recovered to symptom free in 7 days.

These were all refereed journal publications.

I started taking nicotine immediately. I found that the patch (7 mg) had no impact. With medications I have found that most are metabolism-weight dose reponses. So, I used two patches an additional 7 days (7 mg each). The adhesive bothered my skin, but I began to see a response. I augmented gum (4 mg, no sugar) one piece then two pieces, mid afternoon. I began to see very significant responses. Positive. After 28 days I had "found my dose-response" and began to see Long Covid symptoms dissappear including brain fog, attention issues, analysis and deep thinking issues, major short term memory, nerve jerks, nerve shooting pains, sweating, and control after one day of my Covid Viral Reactive Arthritis, etc...

Astounding. I am not nor have I ever been a smoker. Nicotine is bad..... this is all we have heard from medicine all our lives. No, smoking is bad. Nicotine comes from plants in the Solanaceae family. This family includes tomato, potato, pepper, egg plant. Two other plant species not in this family produce nicotine, cellery and cauliflower.
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199308053290619
No, you do not have an addiction to tomatoz potato, pepper, eggplant, cellery, or cauliflower. It is not the nicotine which is additive. My family and I have all been using nicotine since October as needed. I have been diagnosed with Long Covid over five times, never recovering from it before I was reinfected by Sars CoV-2 again.

This is a game changer. My daughtef had Covid in January. After one gum treatment, her head woozy from the 4 mg dose, in 8 hours she had her smell returned and by the next morning her taste returned.

The issues: stigma, lack of knowlegde of medical professionals and researchers of truth, nicotine is a plant phytochem which protects the plant, fruit, and seed from pathogens and insects. I have a Ph.D. in Plant Pathology and Microbiology.

A green tomato, at maximim (50 mg nicotine reported), has more than 35 times more nicotine than a cigarette. The nicotine drops in ripe vegetables to lower quantities. Seed desimination by animals, birds, or insects would be eliminated if the nicotine remained high.

Returning to "the bad", the side effects are mostly minimal to none. Nausea seems to be the worst side effect for some, or the light headed effect.

I have no issues. I had Covid, Flu A, and bronchitis in December - January. I began treatment again after the Flu was over. It took about 14 days to see major improvement on my dose-response. I continued to take nicotine another three weeks and continued to see positive impact. I have not had covid again and the Long Covid was mostly gone in 28 days.

Justin

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Thank you, Justin, for your detailed expert commentary! I’ll share it with a couple who have a vegetable garden, like to cook, and have some mild LC symptoms.

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@cantek

Challenging in what way?

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Hi,
Yes, some times it makes me nauseous -even to vomiting. So I have started
taking a small amount every two hours or so. Adds up to 2-4 mgs.
I have taken a break. And found a news article from a research
group about an inhaler (or simple nasal drip) called Pcans which
has been found to cure colds, flu and even covid ( in mice.) It is not
billed as such and has already passed through FDA.
We have ordered it to see about it. Apparently it doesn't include
new drugs.
Cheers, Eliza

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@wilsonanderson

I am following the protocol of Italian researchers to, I hope, help restore my sense of smell lost with LC over 4 years ago. The product used is a very finely ground PeaLut called Glialia, which is a powder you keep under your tongue for 10 mins. designed to dissolve and pass the barrier between the body/blood stream and the brain. Since I’m so long without smell I spent the first month taking 2 sachets per day along with 1 alpha lipoic acid 600 mg pill, and smell training. I used to consider myself lucky if I had one smell a day, at the weekend I was conscious of say 4…so bit better. Food not smelling yet though! Not 100% sure if Epitech the manufacturers are selling in USA but I do know I GB company was selling to US. Try looking things up thru Uk charity Abscent ( though changed their name this year you’ll find a link)

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For your sence of loss of taste n smell start taking zinc tablets

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You should be taking 7mg a day on the 24hr patches

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