Targeting the mouth - where a lot of these viruses actually spread from - seems like such an obvious approach I'm honestly surprised we don't already have something like this in common use

I never got the HPV vaccine and am now too old. Recently I had a papilloma removed from my soft palate near my uvula. They checked it for cancer but not HPV, even though they said it was almost certainly HPV.

So for $129 I took the OraRisk HPV test which tests for 51 strains, including the ones associated with cancer, and the results came up negative.

So I maybe sort of probably don't have HPV, or may have but don't anymore. Or maybe something like that.

My innate immune system is here for chewing gum and binding viral glycans, and I’m all out of specific lectins.

Looks like this works by apparently binding complex N-glycans on the viral envelope. I can’t imagine this is particularly specific, but the good news is that in the mucosa, you should see relatively few N-glycans, so I guess it will hit the right stuff?

This is a great example of why I think dental medicine should not be separate from the rest of modern medical practice. It's all connected.

The antiviral valacyclovir was discussed in an article in The Economist recently. Is used to treat herpes simplex or herpes zoster (shingles). What the Economist article discussed is that the drug seems to reduce the severity and onset of dementia. The drug's patent expired long ago.

I'll be seeing my doc soon and will be requesting to begin treatment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valaciclovir

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7045215/