Joe Rogan Reveals COVID-19 Diagnosis, Took Ivermectin, Other Interventions

Joe Rogan at a ceremonial weigh in for UFC 264 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, on July 9, 2021. (Stacy Revere/Getty Images)

Joe Rogan, a high-profile podcast host, comedian, and UFC commentator, revealed that he was diagnosed with COVID-19 and took a cocktail of interventions to treat his symptoms, among which was ivermectin.

In an Instagram post on Wednesday, Rogan said that he had returned home from a trip late on Aug. 28 “feeling very weary.”

“I had a headache, I just felt just run down,” the 54-year-old recounted, adding, “Just to be cautious, I separated myself from the family, slept in a different part of the house, and throughout the night, I got fevers and sweats—I knew what was going on.”

Rogan said that after his COVID-19 diagnosis, he decided to use “all kinds of meds ... everything,”

“Monoclonal antibodies, ivermectin, Z-pak, prednisone—everything,” he said. “And I also got an NAD drip and a vitamin drip and I did that three days in a row.”

Rogan said that as of Wednesday, he felt “great,” and “pretty [expletive] good.”

Rogan has the most-streamed podcast on Spotify and his Instagram account has 13.1 million followers.

His vaccination status is unclear. However, he has been criticized by public health officials for having said that healthy young people need not worry about taking a COVID-19 vaccine.

“I’m not an anti-vax person,” Rogan later clarified on his show in late April. “I believe they’re safe and encourage many people to take them.”

In a podcast posted on Sept. 8, Rogan said he obtained Ivermectin from a doctor.

Ivermectin is a generic medicine that can be produced cheaply in many places around the world. It has been widely used against some parasitic worms, and to combat scabies, lice, as well as rosacea. Ivermectin has been considered as a repurposed medicine in tackling COVID-19, especially when used in the early treatment.

William Campbell and Satoshi Omura in 2015 won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery and applications of ivermectin. The drug is also listed on the World Health Organization’s List of Essential Medicines, and is an FDA-approved antiparasitic agent.

Doctors and healthcare professionals have praised ivermectin for having successfully helped thousands of their patients survive the initial waves of COVID-19. Two groups, the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance and the British Ivermectin Recommendation Development group, have been campaigning for the off-label use of the drug to combat the disease amid the pandemic.

However, this approach against the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus has been met with resistance from other doctors and federal agencies including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which has said that the drug is not FDA-approved for use in treating or preventing COVID-19 in humans.

“Taking large doses of this drug is dangerous and can cause serious harm,” according to the FDA. “If you have a prescription for ivermectin for an FDA-approved use, get it from a legitimate source and take it exactly as prescribed.”

The agency said that ivermectin is “often used in the U.S. to treat or prevent parasites in animals,” and that it “has received multiple reports of patients who have required medical support and been hospitalized after self-medicating with ivermectin intended for horses.”

The FDA warned that “many inactive ingredients found in animal products aren’t evaluated for use in people, and that in some cases, it is unclear ”how those inactive ingredients will affect how ivermectin is absorbed in the human body.”

The FDA said that it “has not reviewed data to support use of ivermectin in COVID-19 patients to treat or to prevent COVID-19.”

Update: This article has been updated to include the latest details of Rogan’s acquisition of Ivermectin.