Episode 21: Dr Asad Khan - H.E.L.P Apheresis

Respiratory Consultant Dr. Asad Khan just ‘celebrated’ his covid-versary. One year of struggling with some of the most debilitating Long Covid symptoms - severe urticaria, postural tachycardia syndrome (PoTS), post-exertional malaise (PEM), interstitial cystitis - to name a few. They were so severe that for many months Khan was bed bound. Despite that, he worked hard to try and find treatments that may help his condition, reading all the latest research and talking to doctors working to try and figure out what is behind his Long Covid sequelae.

Eventually, this led him to the work of Dr. Beate Jaeger at private clinic in Mülheim, Germany. Initially, she believed that by cleansing the blood using the technique H.E.L.P. Apheresis it would rid the body of remaining virus. In lay terms, H.E.L.P. Apherisis is a process that removes blood from a patient’s arm and filters it through a machine, using Heparin, to cleanse the blood. The process is usually used to cleanse the blood of L.D.L. cholesterol and fibrinogen. As Jaeger began to work on Long Covid patients she saw increased amounts of clot and fibrinogen in the blood. This lead to a collaboration with Prof. Resia Pretorius and her work on microclots in Long Covid sufferers.

Khan has just finished his twelfth Apheresis therapy and says he is feeling much better. But, as you will hear in the interview, it is the recent addition of three anticoagulant drugs that have really made a remarkable difference. So, before we start spending all our savings on this expensive therapy, we need to take stock and wait for further research into the clotting process, the identification of the presence of clots, and the best method of rectifying potential abnormalities. Certainly the fast work of Khan, Pretorius and Jaeger has brought the theory of microclots in some of us to the fore, but the identification of clots needs to be carefully assessed before patients start reaching for anticoagulants or invasive therapies, and any such treatment needs to be overseen by a qualified clinician.