Dr. Drew Jones of Pulmonary Associates of Richmond is taking center stage in news reports on how his treatment helped a doctor recover from COVID-19. According to ABC’s 8News in Richmond, Virginia, Dr. Jones treated another Richmond-area doctor, Dr. Jeff Brown, with what included Actemra, a drug recently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a treatment option for patients in critical condition with COVID-19. While Dr. Brown began feeling “like a new person” within a few short hours of treatment, Dr. Jones explains that, despite the positive result, they “still don’t know all the details of how to treat this.” You can watch Dr. Brown’s personal recounting of his full COVID-19 recovery story on our Facebook page, and watch the full 8News news story below.
In the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Dr. Jones compared the illness to a forest fire. Putting out a match? Easy. But, once the match catches the brush on fire and it starts to spread, that’s when things get increasingly more difficult. For Dr. Brown, the forest fire was about to spread.
While Dr. Jones believes the treatment was part of the reason Dr. Brown recovered so quickly, he also does not disregard the timing of the treatment. Generally, the treatment Dr. Brown received is reserved for those patients of COVID-19 who are experiencing organ failure. Dr. Jones, however, intervened and had Dr. Brown start treatment before it got to that point.
There may be more to the treatment than just the Actemra. According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, vitamin C may also have played a part in Dr. Brown’s speedy recovery. Vitamin C is injected into the bloodstream at a count of “4,000 to 5,000 times the normal amount.” At this time, it is unknown whether it was the Actemra, the vitamin C, or a combination of the two that helped Dr. Brown recover so quickly.
“The playbook for treating COVID-19 is being written on the fly,” the article states, but this successful treatment is indeed a “ray of light,” as Dr. Jones called it, but there is still a lot of learning to do. By working with other medical professionals to discover what’s happening under the surface, Dr. Jones is optimistic that we will all get through this.
Our team at Pulmonary Associates of Richmond is doing everything we can to help our patients with their fight against COVID-19, as well as helping in COVID-19 recovery. While this is an uncertain time, it is also a time when new discoveries will help save the day, as Dr. Jones has already demonstrated. If you have questions, please visit us online or call (804) 320-4243 to set up a telemedicine appointment. We wish you the best of health in all things!