Monica

God damn.

2023 Oct 3: bioRxiv (pre-print, scientific article not yet peer-reviewed): "A Drug-Free Pathogen Capture and Neutralizing Nasal Spray to Prevent Emerging Respiratory Infections" by John Joseph, Helna Mary Baby, et al. Emphasis mine:

Herein, we report a Pathogen Capture and Neutralizing Spray (PCANS) that overcomes the aforementioned limitations of previously developed chemoprophylactic nasal sprays, thereby achieving superior efficacy. [...] To ensure safety during daily or repeated use, PCANS was meticulously designed as a "drug-free" formulation, incorporating biopolymers surfactants, and alcohols that are listed in the inactive ingredient database (IID) or generally recognized as safe (GRAS) list of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and are present as excipients in commercially available nasal/topical formulations. These components and their unique concentrations were identified via a highly iterative approach aimed at maximizing sprayability, mucoadhesiveness, the capture of respiratory droplets, physical barrier property, pathogen neutralization activity, and nasal residence time. In vitro, PCANS demonstrated excellent physical barrier properties against multiple viruses and bacteria, and rapidly neutralized them, resulting in >99.99% reduction in the pathogen load. [...]

Overall, this extensive screening identified pectin [...] as the most effective [agent] for rapid neutralization of IAV [influenza A virus].

[.. ]

Altogether, our data on physical barrier property, spray pattern, mucosal retention, and neutralization indicate gellan, pectin, and BKC as the three critical components to formulate PCANS.

Yall. I can't even.

Pectin. Kills influenza A virus.

Pectin. Which comes from apples.

Discussion

We report a chemoprophylactic nasal spray, PCANS – a radically simple and scalable pre-exposure prophylaxis approach to offer protection against current and emerging respiratory pathogens. [...] PCANS embodies multiple advantages over previously developed chemoprophylactic nasal sprays. [...] Third, the "drug-free" nature of PCANS is favorable for the regulatory process, which could be tedious for chemoprophylactic approaches based on investigational new drugs such as IgM-14(62). Also, since all the components used in PCANS are commercially available off-the-shelf and require simple mixing without chemical modifications, our approach is amenable to scale-up and large-scale manufacturing.

1) Holy shit, they've come up with an antiviral nasal spray that's good for 8 hours, effective against a broad spectrum of viruses, from commercially available products, that you can make in your kitchen.

2) Okay, so, yes, it turns out an apple a day does in fact keep the doctor away. It's just that you have to shove it up your nose.

Previously, I wrote:

the fact is, I myself, if I get Covid – or any other upper respiratory illness – I absolutely will be using some such interventions. [...] I would feel bad if I didn't mention. I think you should have the choice to do so too, which is why I am explaining all this.

. Welp, here we are.

A week ago, I had an appointment at a hospital to get the aforementioned steroid epidural – literally the only time I left my house in the six days previous or two days following, and the only human contact besides my sweetie, who remains asymptomatic. Two days later, the area in the back of my nose around my adenoids started burning fiercely. This is how approximately 95% of my colds start. By the next morning, it was unambiguous that I had an upper respiratory infection coming on.

I'm not sure what it is. I don't think it's bacterial, because my snot ain't green; I don't think it's allergies because nothing I'm allergic to is blooming yet, and also my eyes aren't burning. I'm thinking it's probably viral. I have consistently tested negative for Covid, but false negatives are a thing, especially with the current wave, and also extra specially for what I've been up to treating this thing, whatever it is.

Because, as I mentioned I would, I'm doing something to try and drive down my viral load.

Knowing that I had an appointment coming up at a hospital and that I was going to have to take my mask off at least briefly while I was there, I had bought a bottle of Covixyl.

Covixyl is an OTC nasal spray, which is marketed as a way to prevent infection by airborne viruses. Its active ingredient is ethyl lauroyl arginate HCl, often rendered "ELA" or "ELAH". ELA has two mechanisms of action against infection by airborne viruses. The basis of their advertising is that apparently it provides a protective coating of your nasal mucous membranes, such that viruses can't bind to the cells. ("Covixyl® creates a physical barrier in the nasopharynx which prevents airborne respiratory viruses from attaching to the cell walls".)

But the reason they can sell it to you to spray up your nose is that ELA is already known and acceptable to the FDA. It's considered "GRAS": Generally Recognized As Safe. It's used as a preservative in food. If you're an American, you've probably already eaten a whole big bunch of it across your lifespan. (Dunno about elsewhere.)

And the way it works as a preservative is by just straight up being a viricide and an antibiotic. It's not just a barrier: it kills viruses by just dismantling them on the petri dish.

Now, clearly, it failed to prevent me catching an upper respiratory infection, if indeed that is what I have, because I did indeed squirt it up my nose before going to the hospital.

But, hey (I figured) if it's a GRAS viricide... it should also work to treat an infection, because of the aforementioned dose-response relationship.

So I applied more Covixyl to the inside of my face. In about a minute, possibly less, the burning irritation in the back of my nose was gone. Covixyl itself is a little bit irritating, but I find that passes in just a couple of moments; I figured I was running the risk it might actually make the burning in the back of my nose worse. It was rather striking how it did the opposite.
About six hours later the irritation in the back of my nose returned, so I hit it with Covixyl again, and again the sensation I associate with viral infection was gone in about a minute.

Now, over the first 24 hours from symptom onset, I was still beginning to develop some other cold symptoms: my nose started getting congested, and a smidge more moist, with a little post nasal drip. But I continued using Covixyl around the clock, roughly every 6 hours (including when I woke up to take more ibuprofen), and each time, my symptoms would lessen for about 5 or 6 hours. My overall sickness never progressed past that point of severity. I never really developed a runny nose, I never started sneezing, I never got so congested I couldn't breathe through my nose, my skin never got chapped, I never developed a cough, and I never developed any symptoms outside of my upper respiratory tract. I'm now about four days in, and all I have at this point is a very slightly congested nose; I've only felt like I am on the cusp of getting sick. This is, like, the least sick I've ever been when sick.

I don't know whether I can attribute this to the Covixyl, and even if so whether any beneficial effect is specific to Covixyl. For instance, it may be possible that any benefit I experienced was simply from the lavage of my nasal passages with a fluid. Maybe it would have been just as effective to use salt water. I did in fact buy a salt water rinse product, but it just arrived today and I haven't had a chance to actually use it.

But my impression is it has had much more of a positive effect then I would get with salt water – certainly I've never had such a dramatic effect from using a neti pot, which I've done when I've had colds – so I suspect the effect is due to the active ingredient. I definitely intend on continuing to use it, both as prophylaxis (in addition to an N95 or KN95) and as treatment of any apparently viral URIs I get.

Before using this product, I strongly recommend actually reading the ingredient list and making sure you're not allergic to any of the other things in it. Somebody didn't do that, and then posted very edifying pictures to the relevant Amazon page of what happens when you have a copper allergy and squirt a nasal spray that has a copper solution in it up your nose.

You can't see this for yourself because for some reason you can no longer buy Covixyl from Amazon, and the page is gone. You can still get it directly from the manufacturer or a bunch of other retailers that deliver. I'm guessing the vendor got fed up with Amazon for some reason.

So where I am with this is: reasonably enthusiastic about this product, but reserving my right to abruptly change my mind with further evidence and information.

P.S. I'm walking much better now, thanks to the epidural.