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

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

#151

Post by bpodgursky »

paulsutter wrote: post #109
dcolkitt wrote: post #28

This headline is definitely a lot scarier than the actual body of the study. The most likely cause of the heart damage by far is the systemic inflammation induced by pneumonia. We know this because pneumonia patients of all types often have heart strain afterwards[1]. But that damage is very rarely permanent as the risk subsides back to baseline given enough time. Until we see evidence of heart issues in patients wit…

Hospitalization rates for people aged 20-44 are in the range of 15% to 20%. You might want to read up on the experience of COVID-19 hospitalization before you decide that there's little risk from infection. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1105402/covid-hospitaliz...

The 15-20% number is very stale. The current numbers are under 3% across that cohort: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...

0–9 years 0 13 0·00% (0·00–0·00)

10–19 years 1 50 0·0408% (0·0243–0·0832)

20–29 years 49 437 1·04% (0·622–2·13)

30–39 years 124 733 3·43% (2·04–7·00)

40–49 years 154 743 4·25% (2·53–8·68)

50–59 years 222 790 8·16% (4·86–16·7)

60–69 years 201 560 11·8% (7·01–24·0)

70–79 years 133 263 16·6% (9·87–33·8)

≥80 years 51 76 18·4% (11·0–37·6)

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

#152

Post by Florin_Andrei »

dcolkitt wrote: post #28

This headline is definitely a lot scarier than the actual body of the study. The most likely cause of the heart damage by far is the systemic inflammation induced by pneumonia. We know this because pneumonia patients of all types often have heart strain afterwards[1]. But that damage is very rarely permanent as the risk subsides back to baseline given enough time. Until we see evidence of heart issues in patients wit…

So then similar kinds of damage should occur in flu-induced pneumonia patients. (if those assumptions are true, etc)

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

#153

Post by timmytokyo »

411111111111111 wrote: post #31

let me preface this by mentioning that i havent been tested for covid-19. two weeks ago i've been having real issues breathing. it felt like my upper body was borderline paralyzed and i had to really force myself to fully breathe in. this wasn't constant but happened every day for several hours each. especially at night. i got worried that i might have the virus so i checked my temperature and oxygen blood saturation…

I'm having the exact same experience. I live a few miles from the first outbreak location near Seattle. I first started experiencing symptoms at the end of February. Shortness of breath, extreme fatigue, loss of appetite, dry cough, and a fluctuating temperature that never went beyond mild fever (37.5C / 99.5F). My most concerning symptom was the sensation that I just couldn't get enough air.

I went to the ER one night in early March because I felt like I was going to pass out. They gave me a chest X-ray, blood tests, nasal flu swab, and ECG. Everything came back normal. No pneumonia visible in the X-Ray.

I continued to rest and recover, and things finally started to get back to normal a couple weeks ago. I thought I'd kicked this thing, whatever it was. But then the shortness of breath returned. (I've not had fever or cough.) I've cycled like this -- between struggling for breath and feeling normal -- for over 4 weeks now. I'm currently experiencing another downturn where I find it difficult to breathe normally. During my difficulties breathing, I find that standing up seems to help the most.

I'm open to the possibility that this is psychogenic. I've tried to avoid reading about the news, and that helps to distract me. But there doesn't seem to be any obvious psychological trigger to my breathing difficulties. I just wish I could get back to normal.

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

#154

Post by stordoff »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #48
411111111111111 wrote: post #31

let me preface this by mentioning that i havent been tested for covid-19. two weeks ago i've been having real issues breathing. it felt like my upper body was borderline paralyzed and i had to really force myself to fully breathe in. this wasn't constant but happened every day for several hours each. especially at night. i got worried that i might have the virus so i checked my temperature and oxygen blood saturation…

You could be having panic attacks; based on the fact you've got numbers, it sounds to me like you're actively monitoring your own blood saturation, which already implies you may be worrying too much about things like that. Don't underestimate the effects of worry and stress. If it's temporary and you don't have other symptoms then you probably don't have the virus.

Incidentally, I went the other way. I somehow got fixated on my breathing[1], and "thought" (rationally I knew it was wrong, but the anxiety overrides) that I wasn't breathing enough unless I forced myself to, to the point I didn't sleep for multiple nights as I was convinced I would be in trouble if I fell asleep. Got a cheap O2 sat. meter, checked it was above ~95, even after holding my breath for tens of seconds, and after a couple of hours it didn't bother me anymore. I think seeing actual evidence was enough to jolt me out of it, at least in that case.

Still got my baseline, for lack of a better word, OCD compulsions, but they're at least somewhat more manageable than that was.

[1] OCD/GAD can sometimes latch onto some weird things out of the blue, at least for me - having a diagnosis of central sleep apnea didn't really help either

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

#155

Post by tandr »

jacquesm wrote: post #143
tandr wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree with your "wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy" - this is probably the worst pneumonia-flu-like sickness I went (still going?) through. I am now convinced that if I will catch it (or some mutated off-spring of this) again, I might not make it. Looks like I got it too about 3 or 4 weeks ago. No cough, no fewer, just a growing chest pain. Went to doctor back then, he prescribed antibiotics against pneu…

You too, hang in there.

Thank you, I am trying my best :)

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

#156

Post by watwut »

pubstik wrote: post #110
dboreham wrote: post #73

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.

They are better then random programmers on HN who think respiratory disease can't be linked to heart problem due to respiratory in name.

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

#157

Post by [deleted] »

timmytokyo wrote: post #153
411111111111111 wrote: post #31

let me preface this by mentioning that i havent been tested for covid-19. two weeks ago i've been having real issues breathing. it felt like my upper body was borderline paralyzed and i had to really force myself to fully breathe in. this wasn't constant but happened every day for several hours each. especially at night. i got worried that i might have the virus so i checked my temperature and oxygen blood saturation…

I'm having the exact same experience. I live a few miles from the first outbreak location near Seattle. I first started experiencing symptoms at the end of February. Shortness of breath, extreme fatigue, loss of appetite, dry cough, and a fluctuating temperature that never went beyond mild fever (37.5C / 99.5F). My most concerning symptom was the sensation that I just couldn't get enough air. I went to the ER one nig…

[deleted]

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

#158

Post by cycrutchfield »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #91
jacquesm wrote: post #86

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…

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

Note that yishan is not a doctor and the study he referenced is entirely in silico, not in vitro.

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

#159

Post by rckoepke »

jakogut wrote: post #101
MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #91

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

> There is a theory [0] (unproven!) Would it be more appropriate then to call it a hypothesis?

This is my understanding as well, would love if an expert could weigh in on the question.

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

#160

Post by jacquesm »

nokcha wrote: post #127
jacquesm wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So that's worth just about nothing then for now. Thank you.
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