The Fluvoxamine Anthology Series Archives

A Collection of Fluvoxamine Posts including the "Pseudoinfection" Hypothesis & Citations

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I hope you’re all not exhausted from all of the posts! Fluvoxamine has fallen into infamous category of repurposed COVID drugs that may never see common use. It’s an SSRI that has been in use for several decades for the treatment of depression as well as other neurocognitive impairments. Overall, it’s an inexpensive drug with a broad spectrum of activity and decades of safety, to the extent that it may be even fruitful to examine it for both long COVID and for those suffering from vaccine adverse reactions.

I’ll end this entire series with one more additional post that helps to summarize a few of the key points with Fluvoxamine (Wu et. al.):

One thing to point out is Point 2. Like with most clinical trials participants under 18 and pregnant women are excluded. However, because Fluvoxamine has been prescribed for decades there should be well established evidence of its safety in children. Yes, Fluvoxamine is prescribed to children, and even pregnant women. If someone chooses to discuss Fluvoxamine with medical professionals, care should be taken to look at Point 4 and discuss possible contraindications with medications already in use.

So with that I’ll collect all of the prior Fluvoxamine posts and will include citations below. Note that my citations focus solely on science articles and papers. If readers prefer I include all of the articles I link to please let me know.

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Fluvoxamine- The Little SSRI that Could

Part I: Brief Overview, Tortuous History, and MOAs

Like with all posts the first part introduces Fluvoxamine, providing a brief history into it’s structure and development. I also briefly discuss the emerging concerns over SSRIs through the context of Fluvoxamine’s relationship to the Columbine Shooting Massacre. Lastly, I discuss some of Fluvoxamine’s mechanisms of action.

Fluvoxamine: The Little SSRI that Could – Part I

Part II: Nonclinical Examination of Lysosomotropism and the ASM/Ceramide Pathway

Going more in depth I then examine each MOA in further detail. Based on my research I found it important to discuss Lysosomotropism and the ASM/Ceramide pathway, although I decided to skip over discussing some of these MOAs in Part I, and therefore included it here. I then provide studies from the literature involving these pathways, and include studies involving these pathways, Fluvoxamine (or Fluoxetine) and SARS-COV2 infection.

Fluvoxamine- The Little SSRI That Could: Part II

Part III: Nonclinical Examination of Fluvoxamine, Sigma-1 Agonism and ER Stress

Just like Part II this post goes deeper into the last MOA being examined. It’s probably one of the most important due to the role ER Stress plays in many diseases including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and neurodegeneration just to name a few. Although there’s no studies providing a causal link between Fluvoxamine, S1R receptors, ER Stress, and SARS-COV2 infection the information provided allows for as close of an examination as possible.

Fluvoxamine- The Little SSRI That Could: Part III

Part IV: Nonclinical Examination of Fluoxetine/Fluvoxamine & Emerging Clinical Trial Results

Finally, we take a look at clinical trials involving Fluvoxamine, including the well-known TOGETHER trial. Beforehand, I provide two more in vitro assays suggesting that both Fluvoxamine and Fluoxetine are effective in reducing SARS-COV2 infection. Overall, the results all suggest that Fluvoxamine should be an effective therapeutic agent for fighting COVID.

Fluvoxamine- The Little SSRI that Could: Part IV

A Proposed "Pseudo-infection" Hypothesis

Research into Fluvoxamine led me to think about parallels between the vaccines and COVID infection. Although the original hypothesis wanted to examine the vaccines through their role in inducing ER Stress, I changed my hypothesis to examine the vaccination process through the lens of a “pseudoinfection”, addressing the importance of examining all aspects of the vaccines in order to gain a better understanding about these adverse reactions.

A Possible Relationship between ER Stress, COVID Infection, and Vaccine Adverse Reactions

Note: The Citations will make this post too long and so I will post it separately and link it here. Apologies for the inconvenience!

Link to Citations

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Citations

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2. Marčec, R., & Likić, R. (2021). Could fluvoxamine keep COVID-19 patients out of hospitals and intensive care units?. Croatian medical journal, 62(1), 95–100. https://doi.org/10.3325/cmj.2021.62.95

3. Lenze, E. J., Mattar, C., Zorumski, C. F., Stevens, A., Schweiger, J., Nicol, G. E., Miller, J. P., Yang, L., Yingling, M., Avidan, M. S., & Reiersen, A. M. (2020). Fluvoxamine vs Placebo and Clinical Deterioration in Outpatients With Symptomatic COVID-19: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA, 324(22), 2292–2300. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2020.22760

4. Rosen, D. A., Seki, S. M., Fernández-Castañeda, A., Beiter, R. M., Eccles, J. D., Woodfolk, J. A., & Gaultier, A. (2019). Modulation of the sigma-1 receptor-IRE1 pathway is beneficial in preclinical models of inflammation and sepsis. Science translational medicine, 11(478), eaau5266. https://doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.aau5266

5. Seftel, D., & Boulware, D. R. (2021). Prospective Cohort of Fluvoxamine for Early Treatment of Coronavirus Disease 19. Open forum infectious diseases, 8(2), ofab050. https://doi.org/10.1093/ofid/ofab050

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