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Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients

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121–130 of 197 posts

Re: Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients

#121
post #33

There's so much blind speculation in this comment section. The kind that's intriguing and fun when it's about engineering/math/whatever, but dangerous when it's about the health effects of an ongoing pandemic. I hope moderators do something about it.

I remember a schooltrip we made to a museum. Some old guy told us an anecdote about mushroom books. How was it determined how many skulls a mushroom should get? Well, he explained there was this guy who had eaten poisonous mushrooms for the purposes of rating them. One mushroom he had eaten made him very sick and he was all alone, and apparently barely made it out alive. That one got three skulls.

Buyers beware, and if you are not, thank you for your sacrifice.

Re: Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients

#122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on all the YouTube videos by doctors I've watched, heart failure is a known, expected and quite common consequence of severe respiratory disease.

I would find a better authority than 'youtube doctors' for the health of anyone you love. Some are great, but all are in it for attention. The ultimate motives of many online attenion seekers, no matter their profession are, lets say, unclear.

agree on the overall point, but the ultimate motve seems plainly clear to me: stature and esteem. it's an underlying motive too widely shared among the animal kingdom to assume otherwise.

whether any given youtuber deserves that stature and esteem is certainly unclear, as that takes direct observation of the person over time to ascertain.

Re: Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients

#123

So, I've been battling this bug for the last three weeks or so, probably caught it on the way back from my last job in Finland. I expected an empty plane instead it was packed like it was the last train out of San Fernando and everybody was scared there never would be another one. After a week or so symptoms started in spite of having self-isolated already after the flight, so that's why I figure that is where I caug…

It does sound like you're close to shaking the bug, and congrats on that! I think I'm a couple days ahead of you; I didn't monitor RHR while I had active symptoms, but anecdotally, I did start feeling a little less rough a couple days before the fever broke this past Saturday. (I also only had active symptoms for about 12 days all told, so I may have had a less severe case just in general.) Not that you probably need…

No, for sure, I will take it easy for at least two weeks past last symptoms but thank you for the reminder. Can't wait for this to be over. I normally don't care about my heart rate at all, know my resting heart rate is 58 or thereabouts which is quite low but never was a problem. Then, few days after symptoms started I woke up with my heart going really fast and that's when I started to take notice.

Re: Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does sound like you're close to shaking the bug, and congrats on that! I think I'm a couple days ahead of you; I didn't monitor RHR while I had active symptoms, but anecdotally, I did start feeling a little less rough a couple days before the fever broke this past Saturday. (I also only had active symptoms for about 12 days all told, so I may have had a less severe case just in general.) Not that you probably need…

No, for sure, I will take it easy for at least two weeks past last symptoms but thank you for the reminder. Can't wait for this to be over. I normally don't care about my heart rate at all, know my resting heart rate is 58 or thereabouts which is quite low but never was a problem. Then, few days after symptoms started I woke up with my heart going really fast and that's when I started to take notice.

> Can't wait for this to be over.

Same! Spring's my favorite season, especially early spring as the world comes back to life. Not being able to be safely out in it, even to the limited extent of our own backyard, hurts.

Re: Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients

#125
post #104

So, I've been battling this bug for the last three weeks or so, probably caught it on the way back from my last job in Finland. I expected an empty plane instead it was packed like it was the last train out of San Fernando and everybody was scared there never would be another one. After a week or so symptoms started in spite of having self-isolated already after the flight, so that's why I figure that is where I caug…

FWIW anecdotally, I notice my resting HR is often elevated any time I'm sick, or even hungover.

Same here - cold, flu, infection, and yes, hangover. I always assumed it was the same for everyone, but apparently not everyone has an elevated heart rate when hung over - or perhaps they just don't notice it as much.

Re: Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients

#126

There is a paper circulating that claims that the virus impedes red blood cells leading to organ failure including lungs, and not the other way round.

so if it impedes red blood cells does this mean my gout is helping me out?

Could you explain the gout - bloodcell - lung damage connection to a non clinician? (me)

Re: Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a hypothesis [0] that the virus attacks red blood cells and impacts their capacity to transport O2, and that the lung damage is actually caused by that, and not directly by the virus. Elevated heart rate makes a lot of sense. [0] see thread and linked paper: https://twitter.com/yishan/status/1244717172871409666

Reference?

Preprint is here: https://chemrxiv.org/articles/COVID-19_Disease_ORF8_and_Surf...

The study seems to be based entirely on computational modeling. As far as I know, there is no direct "wet lab" experimental evidence for its hypothesis. Hopefully people will investigate further soon.

Re: Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients

#128
post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Until we see evidence of heart issues in patients without pneumonia complications That's exactly what they're seeing, and why this article was written: "An initial study found cardiac damage in as many as 1 in 5 patients, leading to heart failure and death even among those who show no signs of respiratory distress ." Unfortunately the article doesn't say what percent of people with cardiac damage did not have respi…

From the article: Patients who had heart disease before their coronavirus infections were much more likely to show heart damage afterward. But some patients with no previous heart disease also showed signs of cardiac damage. In fact, patients with no preexisting heart conditions who incurred heart damage during their infection were more likely to die than patients with previous heart disease but no COVID-19-induced c…

Yeah, this logic is used often in epidemiology, and this thought comes to my head every single time.

We also don't probably know all the possible heart conditions out there!

Finally, while someone might not have a condition (disease), they also might not have good function of the heart, this is not considered a pre-existing condition. This tends to happen with people who are overweight, leading to arteriosclerosis, but since the norm has moved so far in one direction, our criteria for disease might have moved as well.

Finally, the lungs and heart work in coordination to bring oxygen to the rest of the body. If the lungs stop functioning (which may not have direct symptoms that we expect)... I think it's pretty easy to fill in the rest.

Re: Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speculation on treatments for Covid-19 has already killed people: https://ktla.com/news/arizona-man-dies-after-taking-form-of-...

Speculation is fine; this guy died from self-medicating. There is a difference. We shouldn't resort to censoring to protect stupid people.

[deleted]

Re: Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients

#130

So, I've been battling this bug for the last three weeks or so, probably caught it on the way back from my last job in Finland. I expected an empty plane instead it was packed like it was the last train out of San Fernando and everybody was scared there never would be another one. After a week or so symptoms started in spite of having self-isolated already after the flight, so that's why I figure that is where I caug…

Is avoiding this bug a realistic goal for most of us? It simply won't be feasible to keep people locked down until a safe and effective vaccine is available (at least 18 months, maybe longer). Transmission is still going on due to essential activities, and voluntary compliance is going to get gradually worse. So the reality is that something like 70% of us will be infected before herd immunity causes infections to burn out in large areas.

But it's certainly worth delaying infection for a while if you can. The treatment protocols are improving every day.

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