Apex Wellness Center / Green Lotus Acupuncture Recommendations for Prevention of COVID-19

What You Can Do To Stay Healthy For Yourself, Your Family and Community?

There may be a vaccine within one year or so. Yet in the meantime, we can focus on prevention, regarding lifestyle, nutrition, rest, clean air, and a few good supplements. These will all help to strengthen our immune systems so we have less of a chance of becoming sick.

Prevention – Part I:​ The Basics

  • Social distancing is crucial right now! Keep at least 6 feet away from others. Minimize your time outside of the home and only make essential trips.  Reduce unnecessary trips to the grocery store and try to buy for one to two weeks worth of groceries on each trip
  • Drink a lot of hot liquids. Drink soups, warm water, tea, coffee, etc. Also, take a sip of warm water every 20 minutes, which keeps the mouth moist and helps to wash the virus into the stomach which can neutralize the virus with gastric juices, before it gets into the lungs.
  • Gargle with an antiseptic daily: warm water with vinegar, or salt or lemon in water.
  • Consider using a neti pot or other nasopharyngeal wash.  Used distilled or boiled water only. Instructions here
  • Viruses attach to hair and clothes. Wash clothes, take showers when you come home from the street.
  • Detergent and soap kills viruses. Avoid sitting anywhere before you shower and change. If you cannot wash clothes daily, hang them in the sun which kills the virus.
  • Wash metallic surfaces. Viruses can stay viable for up to 9 days on metal surfaces.
  • Don’t smoke. This is the perfect time to quit.
  • Handwashing for 20 seconds with soap frequently and often. Especially important when you first come into your home from the street or after you sneeze or cough.
  • Elevate your zinc and Vit C levels. Eat a lot of fruits and vegetables. Also see additional supplementation guidelines below.
  • Avoid drinking and eating any cold drinks and eating cold foods like ice cream. This creates phlegm and damp in the body and the reports from China are that this virus works by obstructing respiratory pathways with thick mucus.
  • If you feel like you’re getting a sore throat? Attack the problem with the earlier suggestions of gargling with an antiseptic and by drinking warm liquids. Also, contact us immediately for an herbal consult.
  • When we go out to shop and are around other people, we could then become carriers. So keeping that in mind, will be motivation for hand washing, showering and changing clothes.

Preventative methods are so much easier than dealing with the issues that come with getting sick.

Prevention – ​Part II​:​ ​Regularity

  • Regularity ​supports the body’s cycles, detoxification, and healing every single day, from sunrise to sunset.
  • Get plenty of rest, ​getting to bed by 10pm and try and get at least ​8 hrs​ of sleep (according to the latest studies).
  • Drinking enough water​ 1/2 your weight in oz. daily, between meals.
  • Eating on a regular basis ​making sure to get enough protein and plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables (5-7 cups/day). Skipping meals increases bodily stress and viral activity. Avoid: cold drinks and foods: i.e. ice cream.
  • Reducing Sugar ​Eating refined sugar lowers your immune system function for several hours after ingestion. Sugar steals vitamins your body needs to stay healthy.
  • Exercising​ the lungs in fresh air, helps the immune system keep the lungs healthy and strong. Wear layered clothing when outdoors.
  • Sunshine​ increases your natural Vit D levels, which is HUGE for your Immunity. Even 10 minutes 3-6 x day would be helpful.
  • Connecting ​with friends and family through calls, letters, and facetime.
  • Quiet & Meditation & Journaling​ Staking out a block of time for yourself to stop doing and let go of any worrisome thoughts or anxiety. Having moments throughout your day to close your eyes, taking 3-5 deep, slow deep breaths is a simple, yet powerful way to ground yourself in the moment.
  • Writing down your thoughts in a journal, a letter to a friend (snail mail), writing poems or other creative projects give your mind and body a vacation. Using other parts of your brain can have deeply, positive and healing effects.

Consider using a meditation app. Calm, Headspace and Insight Timer are a few options.

Prevention – ​Part III​:​ Supplementation

There are some very important nutritional supplements which many folks already take on a regular basis. Yet right now, you absolutely do not want to skimp or forget to take these. There is no magic bullet, yet all of these nutrients working together can help support your body’s natural immune response to take care of it’s many jobs of protecting and defending your health from harmful viruses like COVID-19.

Taking a​ ​Multivitamin​, over the RDA (which is low) would be the absolute minimum for support and better than nothing at all. ​BUT ​we would advise you to step that up and start taking more of some of those items. Every item below that is in ​bold,​ we recommend additional supplementation.

Always take your vitamins with food.

Dosing:​ Follow the directions on the bottle unless otherwise prescribed by your practitioner. We have included a recommendation for a higher amount of Vitamin C, determined by your body’s needs. ​Extra support supplements in BOLD type.

Vitamin A​ – in the form of ​Beta Carotene ​(Converts to Vit A as needed)

Vitamin B – Complex / Daily

Vitamin C ​- Start w/ 500mg/day, increase daily by 500mg. If loose stool- go down by 500mg. Ideally, you want to work your way up to 2000-3000mg per/day.

Vitamin D3 with K2 ​- Start with 5,000IU per day for two weeks, then drop to 2000IU – 4000IU per day. If feeling ill, you can increase the dose to between 5,000-10,1000IU/day. Most people are low in D, which is very important for immunity. We do recommend testing to ensure appropriate supplementation levels.

Vitamin E – Mixed tocopherols (4) and tocotrienols (4). 400-600 mg total/day.

Iron – Menstruating female 18 mg/day. Men: none. Food-Beans, Nuts, Seeds, Fish & Meats

Magnesium – Forms (citrate, chelate, malate, glycinate) 130mg capsule -250mg/day in divided doses. This will help to relax you and your muscles. Take 1 serving at night before bed, between 8-9pm.

Selenium​ – 200mg/day

Zinc​ – 15-30mg/day (higher level especially for meatless diets)

Fresh garlic – crush with a garlic press and let sit for 5-10 minutes to activate the most allicin before use in cooking or direct consumption. Garlic is a great antiviral.

Probiotics – you can get from fermented foods, such as sauerkraut, beet kvass, kimchee, miso, and tempeh or can choose to take a high quality supplement.

Here is a link​ to the scientific research based website, PUBMED, and the specific page which describes the research findings of the importance of basic nutrients needed to provide a well functioning immune system.

Herbs: ​There are a wide variety of herbs which have been used for thousands of years, nature’s original pharmacy, to prevent and treat disease. And, there are many antiviral herbs which pack a powerful punch. For the most part, as practitioners, we will generally prescribe herbs for specific uses per patient as needed. Herbs can be taken on an empty stomach.

Yet for now, there are a few herbs you can take for preventative measures.

Elderberry​ (​syrup or tincture​) is an antiviral you can take daily. Follow the directions on the bottle. You can also add to warm water and drink as tea.

Lomatium Root ​(​tincture​) -anti-viral, you can use as a ​throat spray ​several times per day.

Medicinal Mushrooms​ have also been used for millennia and research continues to uncover their immune promoting and regulating, killer cell activating, and balancing activities. You can find them as ​throat sprays, capsules and tinctures.

Traditional Chinese herbs​ – see below. However as a basic prevention herbal formula look for Yu Ping Feng San or Jade Windscreen.  Stop taking this if you start to feel unwell.

You may access our ​online pharmacy here​ and have everything shipped directly to you. We have set up a protocol titled “Green Lotus Immune Support” and have selected the brands we would recommend, however feel free to peruse the entire pharmacy.

Need More Support?

Green Lotus Acupuncture is ​working to set up a telehealth option and it should be available soon. We will be available for customized herbal consultations, acupressure sessions for stress and anxiety, immune boosting, pain complaints, as well as dietary recommendations and more.

Traditional Chinese medicine has been used for thousands of years and has seen many epidemics come and go. With COVID 19, all of the patients in China were treated with both Traditional Chinese medicine as well as Western medicine. We are seeing much lower death rates in China than Italy and one can posit that Traditional Chinese medicine has had an impact. There are many antiviral herbs in Traditional Chinese medicine and Chinese herbs are already one of the top lines of defense for other viral infections like the common cold or flu.

We would recommend Chinese herbs for prevention as well as for the first sign of any cold or flu like symptoms and lastly for recovery if you do become more seriously ill.

Using Your Insurance Plan

It is also looking like many insurance providers are making temporary changes to their health plans and allowing us to bill for telehealth services and therefore it would just be the cost of the copay for many of you.

We will update you as soon as we have the telehealth service up and running.

Stay safe, stay healthy, enjoy your families and be kind to one another!

The Apex Wellness Center Team