San Angelo ER Docs Talk Ivermectin

The rumor has travelled throughout the world and landed in our backyard, but Tom Green County Local Health Authority Dr. James Vretis is very open claiming that he has no time for gossip.

"I get people asking me about ivermectin fairly often. If you want to go to Tractor Supply and get a tube of ivermectin and take a lick then that's up to you," said Dr. Vretis. "You are in charge of your own body but don't expect me to base my medicine based on what you saw on Facebook or Instagram."

Doctors at Shannon are not the only ones in the Concho Valley who are sometimes asked to prescribe experimental COVID-19 medicines.

"That is really doctor dependent. I personally don't write [prescriptions for] that stuff because I just don't believe it works," said Dr. Walt Carroll, Medical Director for Concho Valley ER. "There are some doctors at various facilities around the region who are still writing ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine and things like that but I don't really see that it works."

According to the NIH, Colchicine is an anti-inflammatory drug that is used to treat a variety of conditions, including gout, recurrent pericarditis, and familial Mediterranean fever. Recently, the drug was shown to potentially reduce the risk of cardiovascular events with patients with coronary artery disease. When colchicine is administered early in the course of COVID-19, these mechanisms may mitigate or prevent inflammation-associated manifestations of the disease. These anti-inflammatory properties (as well as the drug’s limited immunosuppressive potential, widespread availability, and favorable safety profile) have prompted investigation of colchicine for the treatment of COVID-19.

Instead of these doctors caving in to the hearsay, the two are sticking to what is being used on a national scale, namely monoclonal antibodies. At Concho Valley ER, the doctors prefer Regeneron.

"It's the best thing. It's been proven to work through clinical trials as a monoclonal antibody medication," said Dr. Carroll. "It's actually a combination medication two monoclonal antibody medicines in Regeneron. It works pretty well. People tend to get better pretty quick when you give it to them"

Regeneron not only fights the virus but also helps reduce the viral load on patients so that they don't spread the virus as easily.

"We actually give a monoclonal antibody when you come in [having first tested for Covid-19]," said Dr. Vretis. "It's been shown that when you give the monoclonal antibody, Bam Bam is what we call it, people get better." Vretis is using the slang name for a drug called bamlanivimab.

Both doctors finished their interviews by claiming the only way to actually fight COVID-19 is to become vaccinated. They both said that patients with a vaccine who have visited their emergency rooms are usually less sick and recover more quickly.