Do you know that Covid 19 can damage your lungs?

As a non-medical person, I shy away from talking about the medical aspects of Covid 19.

But I recently came across an article about lung scarring due to Covid 19. 

Well, I know about lung scarring. 

A couple of years ago, I had blood clots in my lungs.  What the doctor called pulmonary embolism.  I accidentally found this medical condition when running on the treadmill. 

I used to burn about 430 + kilocalories in my half-hour run and then a few days before Chinese New Year, I found that I could not continue running after about 10 min.

The worst part was that I also do weights so when I had chest pain the next day, I put it down to straining myself with the weights.

To cut a long story short, the chest pain and my inability to run continued for a week. Ya. I still tried to run. 

After the Chinese New Year holidays, I decided to see my heart specialist who arranged for a MRI scan.   

The scan showed I had blood clots in my lungs. 

I was hospitalized for a week with daily dozes of blood thinner. And I was on blood thinner for a year.

 

It is now a few years after that and despite all my efforts on the treadmill, I cannot get past 400 kilocalories.  I inferred that my lungs had been scarred.

The doctor told me that I was lucky to have the treadmill run as it brought up the symptoms.  Many others have died because there are no symptoms and they only find it out when they collapsed.

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So when I saw this BBC news about the tens of thousands of recovered Covid 19 patients who needed to be recalled to check if they have been left with permanent lung damage, I know what it meant. 

Experts are concerned that a significant proportion could be left with lung scarring, known as pulmonary fibrosis. The condition is irreversible and symptoms can include severe shortness of breath, coughing and fatigue.

Sounds very much like what I had then. 

This condition has been reported in various countries around the world

• In a study from China, 66 of 70 patients still had some level of lung damage 

• In a study in Italy, doctors are scanning the lungs of people three months after they fell ill. The University Hospital of Padua estimates that 15 % to 20 % of those treated in intensive care at the hospital for Covid-19 have scarring

After I saw this lung article, I decided to do a web search of blood clots and Covid 19.

I was shocked to find out that a substantial proportion of the patients who died of Covid 19 actually died of blood clot in the vessels in the lungs.

This I can relate. 

One article said that the coronavirus causes blood to become stickier and immobilized patients in critical care have an even higher risk of developing blood clots. 

Between 30 and 50 percent of COVID-19 patients in intensive care are also at a high risk of a potentially fatal pulmonary embolism. 

I am not sure how many saw the Star article about this blood clot

• In a German study that looked into 184 patients admitted to ICU, pulmonary embolism occurred in 25 (14%) patients, catheter-associated thrombosis in two, and one had deep vein thrombosis in the leg.

• A French study that performed screening lower limb ultrasound on Covid-19 patients found a staggering 70% of them with blood clots

• Recent post-mortem reports in Italy, France and Belgium have shown a high incidence of thrombosis in pulmonary arteries in the lungs.

So what we really need is not hydroxychloroquine but Wafarin, Xarelto…yes these were the blood clot medication I took.

I can advise President Trump. 

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PS: This blog is for me to better understand COVID 19 as this will impact my investments. If you are also into equities, follow me at i4value.asia.

Disclaimer:  I am not an epidemiologist, healthcare worker, pharmacist, or staff in the Ministry of Health, but rather is someone with a strong interest in numerical analysis.  The content is an attempt to understand what is happening in the battle against COVID 19 from a data-based perspective. The opinions expressed here are based on information extracted from readily available public sources but I do not warrant its completeness or accuracy and should not be relied on as such.