A Brooklyn woman desperately ill with the coronavirus is breathing easy this Mother’s Day thanks to a novel treatment her medical-student son helped provide.
Josephine Bruzzese, who is 48 and otherwise healthy, woke up on March 22 with a fever, body aches, dry cough and trouble breathing. She lost the ability to smell or taste. Her family rushed her to NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn in Sunset Park.
“She was so short of breath she couldn’t speak” said her 23-year-old son, James.
The hospital diagnosed the mom of four with pneumonia, but with no coronavirus tests available, it sent her home as a suspected COVID-19 case.
Some symptoms improved when Bruzzese, who works in banking, was given the antibiotic azithromycin and the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine — but she still couldn’t breathe. ............................
“We were very worried because she couldn’t stand up without almost passing out from shortness of breath,” her son said. “Her respiratory symptoms were very severe.” Horowitz had an idea. He suggested trying glutathione, an anti-oxidant produced by the liver that has been used to reduce inflammation in those suffering from the tick-borne illness.
“When you get a viral infection with a huge amount of inflammation you don’t have enough glutathione to be able to protect your very sensitive lung tissue,” Horowitz said.
James did not hesitate to give his mom the nutritional supplement, which they had in the house for Julia. After one 2,000-milligram dose, the family witnessed a miracle.
“Within an hour my breathing got better. It was amazing. I sat up, I got up,” Josephine Bruzzese recalled. She even started to make her bed. “I went and I took a shower.”
She took the pills for five days and had no relapse, her son said.
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