Coag-Sense versus CoaguChek xs and labs

[pellicle]

We would expect no less from a miracle drug.

miracles happen

 

[ATHENS1964]

Today LAB 2.61 ROCHE 2.8

 

[ScribeWithALancet]

I would take anything from this group, FLCCC with caution. They promote ivermectin as a miracle drug and do not encourage people to get vaccinated. Virtually every physician that treats Covid patients strongly encourages folks to get vaccinated. For a group of frontline doctors, ostensibly in the trenches fighting Covid, strange that they would not encourage vaccination. Instead go on and on about the wonders of ivermectin, which makes them extreme outliers in the medical community.

"Derived from a compound discovered in a soil microbe in Japan, ivermectin has been called a “miracle drug” and “the penicillin of COVID” by Pierre Kory, a critical care physician in Madison, Wis. Kory is president of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC), "

It has not been shown to be the "penicillin of Covid" nor a "miracle drug"

https://www.scientificamerican.com/...rmectin-for-covid-despite-a-lack-of-evidence/
Many believe that they are doing great harm, by catering to the anti-vaxx crowd and giving people the false hope that they don't need to get vaccinated, as they can just take this "miracle drug" if they get infected.

Chuck,
The death rate in the Norfolk Hampton Roads area was about 10% lower then the rest of the state. While not huge, it was significantly lower. Dr. Paul Marik, the Intensive Care Doctor, who also has a degree in Pharmacy, is a professor of intensive care at Eastern Virginia Medical School and Old Dominion University in that area.

You said "I would take anything from this group, FLCCC with caution. They promote ivermectin as a miracle drug and do not encourage people to get vaccinated."

I take everything from everybody with caution.
My philosophy is "
... consider what drives me, as an operations research engineer. Over my 46 years of research, practice, and medical issues, I found several intellectual approaches that drove my research both into engineering research and into solving my medical issues. These are “How to Read a Book” by Mortimer Adler and “Studying a Study, Testing a Test - Reading Evidence-Based Medical Research” by Richard K Riegelman, MD, MPH, PhD, a John Hopkins Medical Propessor and "Why most published Medical Findings are False1” which could have been titled “How Researcher Bias alters the Researcher’s views of Reality” by Prof Ioannidis, MD, PhD. Both medical research documents apply equally to engineering research! People are people and share human failings in all areas. This is the primary reason why social engineering philosophies such as socialism fail, they assume that humans are perfectable in this life."

I, personally, do not read the FLCCC documents as promoting Ivermectin as a single miracle drug. They promote it as part of a group of Drugs and Supplements and overall treatment. Their document "overview of the MATH+, I-MASK+ and I-RECOVER Protocols" is 55 pages long, hardly a single miracle drug approach. Your mileage in interpreting them may be different then mine.

You mentioned in your note that "It has not been shown to be the "penicillin of Covid" nor a "miracle drug""

Dr. Marik and Dr. Kory said in their article titled
"MATH+ protocol for the treatment of SARS-CoV-2 infection: the scientific rationale"
that
"While there is no single 'Silver Bullet' to cure COVID-19, we believe that the severely disturbed pathological processes leading to respiratory failure in patients with COVID-19 organizing pneumonia will respond to the combination of Methylprednisone, Ascorbic acid, Thiamine, and full anticoagulation with Heparin (MATH+ protocol)"

This is hardly treating Ivermectin as the single "Silver Bullet". Rather, it is one element in many. If you read Dr. Marik's other papers, he tends to treat "incurable" diseases in the Intensive Care unit as things to be treated with a broad array of treatments for the elements of the disease that kill the patient in the hopes that the patient's own immune system will do the remainder of the work. This is not always successful but he does have a high success rate. Thus, he is hardly a case of " catering to the anti-vaxx crowd" but rather of catering to the folks who think medicine and isolation techniques should be given a chance as well.

Dr. Pierre Kory has between 53 and 58 papers on PubMed depending on how you run the search so while he may be a "kook", he is an established medical researcher. Doctors sometimes do exagerate in their descriptions of drugs, however, this is also done by Big Pharma. They claimed a 95% effectiveness for the vaccines. Ask the Israelis how that 95% worked out. I know a couple that caught Covid-19 from a group of double vaccinated people that they had to sign papers with. Happily, they are younger and survived nicely. Should they get vaccinated or should they get fired?

I have some medical conditions which make the vaccine extremely high risk "for me". Yet, in my state I am forbidden by my governor to use HydroxyChlorQuine or Ivermectin, whether as part of a protocol or as separate drugs, unless I am in intensive care, eg at high risk of dying. If you read the research reports in detail as opposed to the abstracts, intense sickness constitutes the condition in which drugs work least well. HCQ in particular works best when you are only mildly sick as its main function is to inhibit viral reproduction in conjunction with zinc.

Henry Ford, in Detroit, the only hospital chain that was successful with HCQ used the drug on the patient the first or second day the patient was in the hospital and did not wait until the patient was so sick as to be in intensive care. Most of the studies that showed HCQ ineffective used it on very sick patients - frequently in intensive care or on a ventilator. However, using it in conjunction with other medicines (pac), vitamins (C&D) and mineral (Zinc) seems to work best not just using it early.

I have had very good success with using Vitamin D and Magnesium for one of my other chronic medical conditions. Vitamin D seems to guide the immune system to regulate elements which are disordered in me. However, the dosage I use is several times the dosage the FDA and CDC says is toxic. My heart surgery was because my health plan changed the interval at which my mitral valve was checked. This was because the CDC said a much longer interval was recommended and my health plan really believes in the CDC. Thus, I am a little suspicious of CDC recommendations.

I am not "anti-VAXX" at least not for you. I believe that each individual should make their own decisions based on their own health conditions and in conjunction with their doctor (assuming their doctor reads a lot, which given their work overload is not always the case). However, they should also read the medical literature (and with the original sources and not just the abstracts and particularly not the popular media's summaries).

NOTE: my, now retired, endocrinologist said the most dangerous publication in the United States is the New England Journal of Medicine because their articles make the front pages of every major newspaper in the US and the Evening News stations and their retractions make none : - (

You said "For a group of frontline doctors, ostensibly in the trenches fighting Covid, strange that they would not encourage vaccination." However, if you read the biographies of the FLCCC doctors, most of them are not "ostensibly in the trenches" but are actual intensive care doctors that teach and research intensive care and not merely ostensibly in the trenches. Dr. Paul Marik has over 200 published, peer reviewed articles in the NIH PubMed electronic library. You can go there and find and verify the current number yourself. He is not "ostensibly" an Intensive Care doctor. He came up with the first real "cure" for Sepsis using off the shelf drugs. Now, very few patients die of Sepsis if their doctors follow Dr. Marik's instructions to use his procedure as soon as the Sepsis is diagnosed.

I found the FLCCC because they happened to cite some of the research studies that I had found on my own on the Internet on HCQ, Ivermectin, C, D, Zinc and Steroids. Covid is a very complicated disease. However, it is not so very much unlike SARS, MERS and the other Coronaviruses so treatments for those diseases are serving as a starting point for research on medicines for COVID. Unlike you, I believe that the FLCCC Intensive Care doctors are working in that direction and not focusing exclusively on one medicine as a silver bullet ( otherwise their protocol document on treating Covid would not be 55 pages long and still growing) .

Speaking of reactions to vaccines, other then the ear on your arm, did you read the Chinese study on the antibodies the human body produces in reaction to Covid ? They studied the 7 main antibodies that they found and 2 of them, they termed pathogenic. That is, they were so effective in stopping the spike on Covid that they created an autoimmune condition in the body that resembled Covid. They subsequently tested these antibodies on mice and found that the mice had similar adverse reactions to the antibodies that people developed. Oops, the Chinese Researchers ended their study with recommending more research - e.g. another research grant - just like American researchers. I apologize that I cannot provide the link, I searched for it and found 601 results for antibodies, Covid and autoimmune. Apparently, this is becoming a very popular research area. : - (

Walk in His Peace, and six feet away,
Scribe With A Lancet

Reference:
1Ioannidis JP. Why most published research findings are false. PLoS Med. 2005 Aug;2(8):e124. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124. Epub 2005 Aug 30. PMID: 16060722; PMCID: PMC1182327.

 

[Critter]

Dude, really?

 

[Chuck C]

Dude, really?

It's like, where do I even begin?

 

[Protimenow]

Congratulations, Scribe.

You've managed to write a post that's even longer than my usual postings.

Your writing was incredibly dense - there's a lot of stuff there. There were lots of references to obscure documents. It looked like it would take hours just to read through the stuff you mentioned, in addition to the time it would take to find the stuff you mention.

I tried to slog through it once. But I probably won't do it again.

The old phrase still applies (roughly paraphrased) 'If you dazzle them with facts, baffle them with ********.' It seems to be a common tactic at use these days.

(I'm surprised that this site's filters let that one through)

 

[ScribeWithALancet]

Congratulations, Scribe.

You've managed to write a post that's even longer than my usual postings.

Your writing was incredibly dense - there's a lot of stuff there. There were lots of references to obscure documents. It looked like it would take hours just to read through the stuff you mentioned, in addition to the time it would take to find the stuff you mention.

I tried to slog through it once. But I probably won't do it again.

The old phrase still applies (roughly paraphrased) 'If you dazzle them with facts, baffle them with ********.' It seems to be a common tactic at use these days.

(I'm surprised that this site's filters let that one through)

Protimenow,
Actually, this part of the thread should be moved to the vaccine thread. I apologize to you for the length and getting carried away with the info, However, I was annoyed by the reference to Dr. Paul Marik as "ostensibly in the trenches". I have been reading up on this topic since Jan of 2021 because of my various conditions beyond blood thinning. However, Dr. Marik's research, as published in the Pubmed electronic library, had confirmed my own thoughts and he resides in the same state (Virginia) that I reside in.
Walk in Peace,
Scribe With A Lancet

 

[pellicle]

However, Dr. Marik's research, as published in the Pubmed electronic library, had confirmed my own thoughts and he resides in the same state (Virginia) that I reside in.

this is classic confirmation bias ... proper researching (for a literature review) should ask a non leading question and then you should gather at least 10 articles from journals. I'll quietly assume you did that.

However for balance its not looking good

https://journals.lww.com/em-news/fu..._editor__dr__marik_s_views_should_not.23.aspx
This is especially true for those who are, like I was, not entirely familiar with the author and his reputation as an outspoken skeptic. This article flies in the face of our current mainstream understanding of pathophysiology with respect to acidosis, lactate physiology, and oxygen utilization dynamics, and delivers harsh criticism of sepsis treatment strategies.
...

The currently accepted theories on these topics are not mere exercises in faith or mass superstition the way the article implies. On the contrary, the article contends with well-rooted fundamental concepts in some instances and it tangles with thoroughly investigated principles supported by current evidence in the mainstream literature in others. I applaud the efforts here to think outside the box and share new insights. Anyone with an open mind should be willing to entertain these arguments.
...
The piece is driven by strong opinion, and it is heavily biased. I'm sure my reaction to this comes as no surprise. The author himself acknowledges that he is going against the grain, and I believe his purpose is to antagonize the status quo. In fact, the only reason an article like this would not raise controversy is because it is too far-flung to be taken seriously by anyone that “still believes” in this stuff.

 

[Chuck C]

Hi Scribe,

I appreciate you staying civil on this discussion. You seem like a genuinely nice guy who means well. And I do think that this discussion should have its own thread started if you would like to go back and forth with other posters on whether the FLCCC folks are right about Covid or the 99.9% or so of the medical research field has it right. This is a thread about comparing meters that measure coagulation and I don't think it should get hijacked by those with alternative views on Covid, as a couple others have now. You mentioned a group, FLCCC, which I consider to be spreading some misinformation about Covid treatments, and I think it is important to call out bad science/medicine when it is promoted here on the forum.

So, I'll just address two points that you made, because I think that there is some harm that can be done if others take your post at face value (I know that you certainly do not intend that and that you are sincere in your belief that you have "researched" this topic.)

I, personally, do not read the FLCCC documents as promoting Ivermectin as a single miracle drug.

I do read the site that way and, in fact, the quote about Ivermectin being a "miracle drug" was by Dr. Kory, the president of FLCCC.

Despite claiming that ivermectin was a miracle drug and that you won't get sick if you take it as a prophylactic, Dr. Kory, while taking ivermectin as a prophylactic, got Covid-19:

Speaking of reactions to vaccines, other then the ear on your arm, did you read the Chinese study on the antibodies the human body produces in reaction to Covid ? They studied the 7 main antibodies that they found and 2 of them, they termed pathogenic.

I apologize that I cannot provide the link, I searched for it and found 601 results for antibodies, Covid and autoimmune.

This was the main thing that I wanted to address, as I think that this is misinformation, without any supporting documentation.

There is a lot of misinformation being spread about the vaccines and specifically about what you are advancing- that the antibodies created by the vaccine are pathogenic.

There were a lot of waves made by a Canadian immunologist named Byram Bridle, when he falsely made these claims and his interview went viral among the crowd inclined to gravitate towards such claims.

His claims are unsupported and have been widely debunked.

https://www.reuters.com/article/fac...rom-covid-19-vaccines-are-toxic-idUSL2N2NX1J6
https://byrambridle.com/
There are a number of people in my circle, some family, that believe that they have done a lot of "research" about Covid and the vaccine. What happens is that they search on the internet and find these outlier physicians and immunologists, which probably represent about .01% of the experts in the field and then say: "Yes, I knew it, even this published expert says what I always knew to be true about these dangerous vaccines." They then forward the interview or article to others who forward it and the next thing you know you have a viral video which makes people who watched it and who read some articles by these outliers feel like they are now experts on the subject, who have "researched" it. In truth, as Pellicle notes, all they have done is participated in a well-known phenomenon known as Confirmation Bias.

Anyway, I felt it important to counter what I perceive as some misinformation that you put out there and did not support. I think that you’re a good guy who perhaps has been influenced by some inaccuracies, which are being spread in large volume around the world regarding Covid, treatments and the vaccine. Maybe the 99.9% of the experts in the field have it all wrong. Maybe the published studies are all fraudulent and the .01% of the outlier "experts" are on to something. I have not seen any evidence of this.

I will say this. It appears that you followed established medical science in getting your valve replaced when it needed replacement. There are a handful of pseudo medicine practitioners who claim that modern medicine is all wrong about valve disease and all you really need to do is take this herb or that vitamin to reverse valvular calcification. I am certainly glad that you apparently followed modern medicine with respect to treating your valve disease and not these alternative folks.


Rather than to continue to take this thread off topic, my suggestion would be to start a new thread on the "Off Topic" section of the forum about the FLCCC doctors, alternative Covid treatments and the vaccine. I am certain that you will find plenty of members who are happy to discuss these topics with you.

 

[user 15848]

Also, i know several people that are anti Vax, NOW, i told them this: I have 2 sisters and they are doctors, have 10 first cousins also doctors, and the 12 of them TOOK the vaccine, so to those people i know i said "If you know more than 12 people that spent 8 years studying medical science" -- open your own clinic !!

 

[pellicle]

...so to those people i know i said "If you know more than 12 people that spent 8 years studying medical science" -- open your own clinic !!

some of them do

 

[Protimenow]

Returning to the original subject -- I recently bought another Coag-Sense meter - really inexpensive, and tested it against my newer model, the PT2. Both results were almost identical--2.0 on each, and 4/10 of a second difference. (Actually, they may have been the same - the PT1 rounds up - it said 24 seconds, the PT2 was a bit more exact, with 23.6 seconds).

My XS gave me a higher result - 2.4. I didn't test the inexpensive one that I bought on eBay for $30, but in earlier tests, the results were about the same.

As noted on this site many times before, the higher the INR goes, the larger the difference from lab values, and from the Coag-Sense.

A month or two ago, I was convinced that the XS was closest to the labs. My last blood draw, the Coag-Sense was.

I'm STILL not sure which one to trust, but as long as the Coag-Sense is telling me that my INR is 2.5 or higher (and the XS may show as much as 4.0 with the same blood sample), I'll be satisfied. Even if it IS 4.0, I'm not worried about the slightly higher than optimum INR.

I'm inclined to trust both meters - and put more faith in the lab. (In the past, the lab value was often the average of the two meters).

 

[pellicle]

Dude, really?

"research"

 

[Critter]

View attachment 888254
"research"

I would laugh if that wasn’t so close to the truth. With Dr. Google.

 

[pellicle]

I would laugh if that wasn’t so close to the truth. With Dr. Google.

one of the points I like in that cartoon is that she's not turning around ... but keeps on walking

 

[Chuck C]

one of the points I like in that cartoon is that she's not turning around ... but keeps on walking

It is as if she is non-verbally communicating: "Again? Dude Really?"