Tilorone: a broad spectrum antiviral from Ukraine/Russia, never approved in the West
I decided to use myself as a guinea pig and to see what this drug does to my lingering symptoms.
Summary
At low doses (1 a week, 125g)
My PVCs and heart discomfort have gone down but are still here. As of Feb. 21, I only have a few symptoms left:
- Irregular heartbeat, usually with heart area discomfort.
- Weird reactions (e.g. unpleasant new side effects) to drugs and supplements.
- My tinnitus has evolved from pre-vaccination levels.
At high doses (start with 2, then 1 every other day for 2 weeks)
I had an unpleasant few weeks. I was tired, slept a lot, and got less done. During those weeks, I experienced symptoms that I never had before such as internal buzzing.
Afterwards, I only had mild benefits. My tinnitus went down a level. My PVCs eventually returned.
Overall, high doses don’t work for me.
You’re on your own
This drug is not used or approved in the Western world, so I doubt that you will be able to find a medical professional familiar with this drug.
What is tilorone and how it might be used
Tilorone has antiviral effects through 2 possible mechanisms:
- Induces the generation of Type I interferons.
- Inhibition of translation of virus-specific proteins in infected cells, thus inhibiting the reproduction of viruses.
If an unhealthy microbiome is the root cause of symptoms, then tilorone may affect the disease by causing permanent changes to the microbiome. Its antiviral effects should disrupt the fitness of some viruses in the body.
Dosing (high)
Day 1 - 2 X 125mg
Day 3 - 125mg
I stopped because I was sleeping a lot during the day and wanted to go to an upcoming CPSO protest without being tired.
For the second round:
Day 1 - 2 X 125mg
Day 3 - 125mg
Day 5 - 125mg
Day 7 - 125mg
Day 9 - 125mg
Day 11 - 125mg
Day 13 - 125mg
Day 15 - 125mg
Day 17 - 125mg
I have continually taken 4mg ivermectin a day (I don’t want Long COVID) and roughly 1 teaspoon of black seed oil every day.
Symptoms
While taking tilorone, I experienced new symptoms (or old symptoms that came back):
- Sleeping during the day; I’ve had daytime naps before when my vaccine injury was worse
- Insomnia (had trouble falling asleep); I’ve had insomnia before
- Dreams that last a long time
- A weird internal buzzing sensation. It’s not like sitting in a massage chair where you feel vibrations.
- Weird pain in R hand
- My left testicle got dry and scaly. I had this problem with my right testicle when I was trying statins.
- A few involuntary jerks when falling asleep or dozing off. These were much worse when my vaccine injury was bad.
- Morning wood
- Not sure if I had mood disturbances
- Pins and needles when circulation in my arm/shoulder is cut off
Benefits:
My tinnitus got down to its lowest levels ever. Unfortunately, this symptom never bothered me much so it didn’t really improve my life.
My heart started beating better and I got far fewer episodes of irregular heartbeats (maybe <= 20%). The benefits did not outweigh the downsides.
Long-lasting changes 2 weeks after tilorone
Tinnitus is a level lower than pre-tilorone, and is higher than when I was taking tilorone.
Irregular heartbeat seems to be lower than pre-tilorone.
Very mild internal buzzing. It doesn’t bother me and didn’t happen on most days.
We will see if the benefits stick.
“Safety”
This drug is sold over-the-counter. So it’s supposed to be pretty safe. However, nothing is really all that safe in the vax injured. I got weird side effects from this drug and the sleep issues were unpleasant.
My wiki has a translation of the safety information that comes with the drug. See the tilorone page.
How to get this drug
You can buy it online from Russia or Ukraine.
While there is a war in Ukraine, air mail is currently working. You can buy it from https://pharmasstore.com/ or similar websites. You will pay roughly double the retail price. If you know somebody in Ukraine (e.g. chronic illness patient), they can buy it with their credit card (at retail price) and have it drop-shipped to you.
This thread in a ME/CFS forum has information on Russian pharmacies.
Anecdotes from Russian-speaking ME/CFS patients
Source A
I looked at chat history for it and many have tried it, some doctors prescribe it for me/cfs I think someone cured mild me/cfs with it + other antiviral combination, but seems mostly if it gives improvements, then it’s relatively mild.
Source B
Cagocel, neovir, tilorone ( known as amiksin in Russia ) - they all are interferon inducers. and although they are not bad drugs , they do not work against cfs in monotherapy and do not give a lasting remission, at least as far as viral patients concerned. I say this from my own experience and I know from the experience of others. I also believe that interferon inducers can only be used by those who do not have a too weakened body for stimulation. And it’ s a question about effect and safety of taking inducers having autoantibodies to interferons. And the second question is about taking induceinducers while having any autoimmune disorder or even only autoreactvity ( autoantibodies without other indicators or diagnosis of autoimmune decease) .
Anyway those people who do not have low levels of interferon do not need these drugs, and those who have low levels may need first to take drugs to replace interferon (interferon alfa and / or gamma, but also not if you have ifn antibodies , at least not for a long time, otherwise autoantibodies will most likely only grow ), and not immediately use their inducers
From Russian modulators I would recommend to try only Tilorone (it really works for many people)
But it’s generally for short courses. Specially when acute infections/crash
Also when it’s a acute infection I use my personal love - interferon alpha in oral form/capsules. Bc it doesn’t not have a big systemic side effects, as other forms of interferons (but of corse it’s still interferon so better be careful and don’t use too much). But I believe it’s hard to buy bc asks cool temperature
Conclusion??
I started mostly recovered and seem to have improved my baseline a bit. Hopefully the improvements stick.
Taking tilorone was unpleasant for a few weeks.
I really do not know if this is an experimental drug that’s worth trying for pain, tinnitus, or irregular heartbeat. Maybe. Maybe not.
Update (10/16/2022)
The improvements did not stick. Irregular heartbeat came back. Tinnitus was probably knocked down a notch but I still had it.
However, taking 1 tilorone pill (125mg) a week seems to work better. It balances between doing something against tinnitus without having side effects be a problem.
See the Long Haul Wiki page on tilorone for links to scientific papers. The drug is effective against some bacteria and animal models of multiple sclerosis.
A follow-up. I lost my progress on the irregular heartbeat front. I started doing other things, and now my tinnitus is at an all-time low. My irregular heartbeat has gone away for the past 3 days… let’s see if that sticks.
Did 18 days without tilorone. (Still taking ivermectin and black seed oil, which I was doing every day anyways.) My irregular heartbeat came back. However… it was a little different. Sometimes it would be irregular without my heartrate dropping below 60bpm.
I also had internal buzzing feelings… so tilorone definitely did cause long-term changes in me. My tinnitus got quieter.
Did 2 days magnesium. It may or may not have increased my buzzing feelings.
Did 4 days no magnesium. On the last day of that, I took a nibble of hydroxychloroquine.
Did 7 days of hydroxychloroquine, 200mg/day. I’m not sure what it did, but I tolerate this drug. My irregular heartbeat may have changed. On the second day, I had part of my day where I couldn’t hear tinnitus. That was new.
Did 1 day no HCQ. My heart or artery felt like it was pumping really hard, which is a new symptom.
Did 3 days of sucking on a cinnamon toothpick 3 with tea tree oil and menthol. My irregular heartbeat hasn’t shown up in the past 3 days, and I’ve had moment where I couldn’t hear my tinnitus.
Irregular heartbeat came back today. [image] Jury’s still out on that one. Honestly I wasn’t expecting it to do anything.
Ok I’m currently experimenting with low dose tilorone in combination with other things. It’s really knocked my irregular heartbeat down, and my tinnitus is staying low right now. It made my sleep a little worse in the beginning (was sleeping a lot but not napping during the day), and now for whatever reason my sleep has gotten better but it’s not as good as before I started this combination.
Overall my symptoms are at an all-time low right now because the irregular heartbeat thing really bothered me the most- I would get tired at the same time and that was my most impactful symptom. Will update in several weeks to see how things turn out in the end.
- One 125g tilorone pill a week.
- A 200mg pill hydroxychloroquine pill every day.
- One cinnamon tea tree oil toothpick every day. Not sure if this does anything.
- 8 drops of orange (peel) essential oil. Not sure if this does anything.
- Plus COVID prophylaxis:
- 4mg ivermectin every day
- One teaspoon black seed oil every day. This is used to dilute the orange essential oil.
Interferons have some unfun side effects
Well I learned the somewhat hard way that interferons have nasty side effects. Yes they fight a broad range of viruses but the side effects are unfun. Tilorone has another mechanism of action against viruses, so it might be better than putting interferons directly into your body.