Ayurveda treatment helps 60-year-old patient recover from Covid-19

Pune, 3 June 2020 : In the time of COVID 19 when we see all negative stories from every corner of the country, Mr. Umesh (name changed to protect identity) a 60 years old person from a well-known business family of Pune has a very positive story to say.

He is staying in a joint family of 26 members. One fine day he developed symptoms like sore throat and sneezing which progressed to fever with dry cough in few days for which he was treated with some antibiotics by a physician with no relief. Since Pune is a known hotspot of coronavirus disease, he got suspicion of COVID 19 infection and immediately approached Dinanath Mangeshkar Hospital. He was attended in Emergency department and was admitted and tested for COVID-19. He was later found to be positive for COVID-19.

On around fifth day after developing the symptoms his condition started worsening. His oxygen saturation was continuously depleting. Since he was a known hypertensive from last 9 years and considering his age it was a challenge for the treating doctor to maintain his health, specially protecting heart and other vital organs like lungs. Gradually he started developing dyspnoea (difficulty in breathing). He was put on oxygen supplementation through nasal cannula for maintaining oxygen saturation. Besides he was treated with steroids to regulate the hyper responsive immune response. His breathlessness was progressing and however, in spite of all this, his condition was deteriorating. Gradually as the oxygen saturation was decreasing the doctors decided to put him on mechanical ventilation .But the family members were not comfortable with this and they refused to give consent for this and started searching for any other option .In this difficult times a family friend of them gave an advice to try Ayurveda and referred them to meet Dr.Yogesh Bendale of Rasayu Ayurved clinic.

Dr.Bendale took the complete details of patient and designed a complete patient specific treatment plan considering age and hypertension ( B.P.) as biggest risk factors, towards modulating the immune response, maintaining respiratory functions, lungs protection, heart protection and reducing inflammation including multiple Ayurvedic parameters. Permission was obtained from the intensivist of Deenanath Mangeshkar hospital to start Ayurveda medicine along with conventional therapy. Luckily, the treating doctor immediately permitted for Ayurveda Rasayana Therapy by Dr. Yogesh Bendale. The most important part here to mention here is, Deenanath Mangeshkar Hospital and all the ICU staff was highly supportive, positive and made sure about the compliance of Ayurveda Rasayana Therapy in ICU.

After starting Ayurveda therapy along with conventional therapy, patient started showing positive response. From next day,there was a pause on further progression of the disease. In next two days the patient’s temperature returned to normal and oxygen saturation also improved. The patient was out of danger. There was no need of mechanical ventilation. The aim of starting the Ayurveda therapy was fulfilled, patient was rescued and no ventilator support was required. Medicines were continued further and in next two days patient was able to walk with minimum respiratory discomfort. On 10th day of starting Ayurveda Rasayana treatment the patient was discharged completely asymptomatic.

These results are quite not in tune with the Public perception of Ayurveda that this system of medicine is slow acting and is of not much use in acute or critical cases. Dr,Bendale says that the real strength of Ayurveda lies in its multi-system biology approach and patient centric approach .It acts in syncs with body’s own defence mechanism and thus can be of a great use in  critical cases as well . He believes that body’s immune system plays a critical role in management of COVID-19 infection. Currently in absence of any potential and effective antivirus therapy , the main focus of treatment is towards providing symptomatic management and supportive therapies, while the body fights with the virus. Thus when we are so much dependent on body’s own defence mechanism it becomes pertinent to boost this endogenous mechanism and accelerate the recovery, says Dr.Bendale.

Meanwhile another important point which needs to be highlighted here is that detailed contact tracing of this patient leads to 11 of 26 members in his family being tested positive. However luckily 8 of these 11 positive members were completely asymptomatic whereas others were having mild symptoms. This is very important to note here that even though all the family members were in contact, only some of them got infected and only a few of those who got infected developed symptoms. The immune system of the individual plays an important role here. Young patients and those without any comorbid illness has a good immunity and thus they either don’t get infected or they don’t develop symptomatic disease. This is what exactly Ayurveda aims to do when it comes to treatment of such pandemic. Ayurveda’s approach is not towards any specific antiviral medicine which will directly kill the virus, rather it works along with the immune system of the person and leads to a faster recovery and eventually helps in deactivation of Virus. Ayurveda has a separate branch of medicine called as “Rasayana “these Rasayana medicines are potent immunomodulators and helps protect the body against various pathogens. Such immunomodulation by Ayurveda medicine is completely natural and does not cause any adverse effects on body. It will not only help in faster recovery of COVID 19 patients, but it will also help to prevent COVID infection in high risk individuals like healthcare workers and people with comorbid illness.

Dr. Yogesh Bendale is having vast experience in treating other viral disorders like Hepatitis B, C, HIV patients in addition to treatments of seasonal flu like viral infections, especially to co-morbid patients having DM, HT, Cardiac diseases/disorders etc. So far, many of these chronic, viral diseases do not have any vaccine available and as such most of these lead to other life threatening complications like liver cancer and other types of cancers. Dr. Bendale further added that Ayurveda is playing a vital role in not only controlling progression of these diseases but also  complete or partial reversal of these diseases. The most important contribution which ‘Rasayana Therapy’ can give is to increase the life span with better quality of life of these patients. Dr. Yogesh Bendale is spreading ‘Rasayana Therapy’ all over the world since more than 25 years for all such challenging and chronic diseases which have certain limitations in modern medicines. One of the most important facts about these medicines is that the safety and efficacy of these ‘Rasayana Therapy’ is validated on global parameters. Dr.Bendale believes that application of Rasayana therapy at community level will certainly help to reduce the spread of disease and can also help reduce requirement of already scare intensive care facilities like ventilators. He believes that Ayurveda has a great potential to play an important role in bringing down the effect of this pandemic on the Nation.

Rasayana therapy also deals with management of geriatric diseases. We all know that the coronavirus disease has worst prognosis in elderly population. We have seen the deadly effect of this disease in European countries like Italy which has a large number of elderly population. Continuous administration of Rasayana therapy in elderly population will help address low immunity in this strata of population and can thus reduce the rate of infection and mortality in elderly.Integrative medicine is gaining a lot of importance these days at global platforms. Integrating Ayurveda in COVID management will help not only to improve the outcomes in positive patients but also it will help reduce the spread of disease.