The Dr Ardis nicotine patch protocol, explained

The schedule that circulates

The written version of the schedule comes from a Substack write-up by Christine Kent, which quotes it as "1 x 7 mg nicotine patch each 24 hours for 6 consecutive days". The write-up presents the schedule as coming from a video by Dr Ardis, and it links that video on BitChute. Because the schedule mostly travels by word of mouth, details shift from one retelling to the next, and this is the version that has a written source behind it.

The shape of it is simple. It uses the lowest common patch strength, one patch worn around the clock, and a short course measured in days rather than months. That simplicity is a large part of why it has spread, since the whole thing can be passed on in a single sentence.

Why a 7 mg patch

Nicotine patches are commonly sold in three strengths, 7 mg, 14 mg and 21 mg, and 7 mg is the lowest of them. The research behind the protocol speaks of low-dose transdermal nicotine, and the published long COVID case below used exactly that strength. A patch releases its nicotine slowly through the skin, which is the reason it is the form of nicotine discussed in this research rather than a cigarette, a gum or a vape.

The release from a patch is gradual. According to a 2009 review by Benowitz, Hukkanen and Jacob, nicotine from a patch starts to appear in the blood after about an hour and reaches its highest level between three and twelve hours after the patch goes on, depending on the brand and strength. Worn for 24 hours, a patch keeps a steady, low level of nicotine in the body through the day and night, which is very different from the sharp peaks of smoking.

How it compares with the 2025 long COVID case

The closest published match to the circulating schedule is a case report by Marco Leitzke and colleagues, in Bioelectronic Medicine in 2025. It describes a 44-year-old teacher whose speech had been affected after a SARS-CoV-2 infection, who received 7 mg of transdermal nicotine per 24 hours for seven days. The authors report that her speech was fully restored and that she was able to return to work, and brain scans taken before and after the course showed a change in receptor binding that they read as support for their hypothesis.

The same paper reports a retrospective survey of 231 people who had used low-dose nicotine patches, in which 73.5% reported a significant improvement in their symptoms. The authors describe the approach as "promising and safe", and they call for randomised controlled trials and dose-finding studies to settle the right dose and course. Set side by side, the circulating schedule and the published case differ by a single day.

Where the idea behind it comes from

The protocol rests on the idea that nicotine acts on receptors that matter in COVID-19. That idea was set out in a 2020 hypothesis paper by Jean-Pierre Changeux of the Institut Pasteur and colleagues, in Comptes Rendus Biologies, which proposes that nicotinic acetylcholine receptors play a critical role in the disease. The paper grew out of a pattern seen in hospitals early in the pandemic: in an observational study at a Paris hospital, Miyara and colleagues found daily smokers among COVID-19 patients at about a quarter of the rate expected from the general population.

The 2025 Leitzke paper carries the idea into long COVID. It proposes that the spike glycoprotein of the virus stays attached to nicotinic receptors after the infection, and that nicotine, which binds the same sites, can displace it. Our guides to nicotine and long COVID and to nicotine and the spike protein cover both papers in full.

The trials so far

In acute COVID-19, nicotine patches have been tested in one large randomised trial. NICOVID-REA, published in 2022, gave a 14 mg patch or a placebo to 218 ventilated patients in French intensive care units and found the same death rate at day 28, 28%, in both groups. No randomised trial of nicotine in long COVID has reported yet, so the case report and survey above remain the main published reference for the low-dose approach.

What Dr Ardis has said

Dr Ardis has talked about nicotine at length on his own show and on other programmes. In a December 2024 episode streamed by Man in America, where he is the featured guest, his presentation says simply: "Nicotine is perfect." He discussed nicotine and long COVID directly in a 2023 interview with Dr Ben Edwards titled "Nicotine and Long-Covid", and his show's April 2024 episode, "The Other N Word", is described on its page as a three-hour presentation on nicotine.

For anyone following his work, those episodes are the place to hear his reasoning in his own words, and a selection of his talks is in our Dr Ardis video section. Dr Ardis has no connection to our store and does not endorse our patches.

48:52

Dr Ardis on nicotine: understanding the weapon and the target.

Nicotine patch safety basics

Nicotine patches can harm an unborn baby, so they are not for use in pregnancy. Keep used and unused patches out of reach of children and pets, because the nicotine left in a used patch can still poison a child or an animal. Do not smoke or use other nicotine products while wearing a patch, as MedlinePlus, the US National Library of Medicine's drug information service, advises.