I went to the hospital in distress on Feb 14, 2024, about five weeks after my primary infection. I said I was having neurological issues, difficulty thinking, confusion. They did a CT and sent me home. Three days later I went into full psychosis, and wandered the streets for hours. When I eventually ended up back at the hospital later that night, I had a resting HR of 134 and my brain was totally mush - difficulty speaking, paranoia etc. In all their wisdom they decided to lock me in the psych ward (no history of mental illness at all) without a neurological consult. I had no phone so it took days for people to find me. No MRI, no neurology consult, just pumped full of anti-psychotics for days while friends and family tried to figure out where I was. Despite six hospital visits in six weeks showing low blood sodium, difficulty breathing, cognitive dysfunction, positive covid test six weeks earlier, not once did anyone consider anything other than depression. My official report said "psychosis due to depression" even though it later said "we could find no reason for the depression". So yah, sorry, I don't trust the medical system anymore. Took me a year to basically refute that diagnosis thanks to a neuro-immunologist and neurologists who actually dug a little deeper.

I extracted some more PBMCs today for downstream RNA sequencing using Plasmidsaurus. In case anyone is interested in what's involved, I decided to write it up. I've got quite a functional little lab area going now where I plan in the future to also do RNA isolation and RT-qPCR using my new setup. duanestorey.com/posts/extrac…

Spinning PBMCs

One of the things you see all the time in long covid is how patients go to the doctors, the doctors order CBC, CRP, etc, and say there is nothing wrong with the patient. Patient complains but is mostly dismissed because the labs don't show anything. Despite going into psychosis six weeks after my infection, most doctors didn't think there was anything wrong with me. When I came out of the hospital, I had incredible brain fog, almost like I was drunk. It was so bad I sold my car as I couldn't imagine driving it again. Walking seemed weird to me, hand eye coordination was shot, and I felt like I was eating food like a kid, like it was hard to keep my fork straight. Most of the day I had almost some vertigo/disassociation going on with my brain, and even using Excel was hard for me during that period. I would tell doctors all of that, and they would just tell me it was a result of the psychosis, even though I felt absolutely horrific. My lab results at the time looked like this, mostly normal. Cholesterol was a bit high, but other than that, no real red flags. As such, it must be in my head, or so I was told. dropbox.com/scl/fi/tqfi38qxn…

New 4” touch lcd for the main display.

A bunch of RNA collection tubes, various DNA/RNA samples tubes, research peptides, etc. this might be fun to explain to customs when I land. But I want to collect data over the next six weeks even when I’m not at home so this is it.

My plan for the antivirals was to hit about 80-90 days and then wind down, which I’m starting to approach. In truth, the jury is still out on whether it worked or not. My labs show something has happened involving IgM and IgG but I’m still not confident with how to interpret it all yet. One of the issues is my RNA seq data is lagged by six weeks. So I haven’t even seen day 42 yet. But that should hopefully come soon. That said, I felt like it would be remiss not to try one anti viral I have avoided over a year - Molnupiravir. Molnupiravir has a bit of a rocky history. It works in a completely different way than most antivirals. GS441524 targets RdRp which makes it so it can’t copy itself. Paxlovid targets Mpro, which means it can’t sub-assemble its sgRNA proteins. The problem with each is that Covid has a proofreading mechanism, nsp14, one that can correct mistakes that are introduced by antivirals. So it’s possible it’s actively working to fix the issue with RdRp and Mpro. Molnupiravir works by lethal mutagenesis. It literally froms a bastardized versions of A and U bases which can then get erroneously incorporated into the virus’ RNA during a copy. These look like regular bases from the nsp14 perspective so it’s unlikely to be able to fix them. After one copy you might get five errors introduced. Now maybe it’s partially disabled or less fit. Next copy five more errors are introduced, and now it’s starting to produce little Seth Brundle mutants that can’t fold proteins or make nsps etc. the errors are random and likely fatal after a few generations. The virus basically dies by error catastrophe. Sounds great, but there are several problems. The first is by definition you are making covid19 clones, and you don’t know if they’ll be defective ones or super ones. In general random errors produce less fit copies, but it’s not impossible the errors can accumulate in a beneficial way. Unlikely though I think. In terms of someone like myself though I’ve been wondering if this might be a good thing. My body has been fighting something for 28 months it can’t seem to get rid. I have no signs of any serious auto immune issues, but what I have is antibody, cytokine, and lymphocyte data that continues to show an active viral antivirus campaign against Covid itself. So the question becomes, how can I break this 28 month stalemate? One way I can imagine if I take one super evolved covid19 clone that’s inside me, likely due to 28 months of specific Duane like immune pressure, and bust it up. So instead of one super clone, maybe I now get 10-20 partially genetically degraded versions instead. Will my immune system have a new shot at them? Let’s see. The other problem is there a non zero chance this can happen with regular cells too. Which is why the medication typically is only taken five days. But in theory if Molnupiravir incorporates into human RNA it’ll eventually break down naturally as long as the DNA hasn’t been changed. Regardless, having seen lots of people who tried it for acute infections with seemingly no ill effects I figured it would be the last antiviral in my test before I start de- stacking meds and give my body a chance to clear itself out from all these meds, which I’m spending about $50-$60 on per day. The fact I haven’t seen clearance yet might not be unexpected In that Madrid study that tested multiple antivirals in immune compromised people, the antiviral courses were ten days but many didn’t officially clear the virus (test negative) for several weeks later all the way out to 100 days before going negative. So it’s possible to stop replication and then spend weeks or months clearing up all the covid viral debris, many of which are still immunogenic. On Monday and Tuesday I’ll do a massive cytokine test, lymphocytes, antibodies, RNA seq #5, and some of the other tests I did at the beginning to bookend some of the results. After that I’ll probably pop the clutch and see what happens.

Watching Braveheart while working on the PCB for the thermocycler. Still a work in progress. Trying to make it work with USB-C PD 100-140W.

64 Days, Still IgM positive for nucleocapsid. But trending down, if that means anything.

Started working on the enclosure and prototyping where the PCB and fan etc will all fit.

I mean this is great, but after 140 years they couldn't wait a few more days to take that crane down first before they did this?