When Symptoms of Covid-19 Don’t Go Away

[glockman]

Research is underway to assess the pandemic’s long-term effects and find ways to prevent and treat lasting symptoms.

By Jane E. Brody

• Oct. 12, 2020

Judy Londa, a 55-year-old Brooklynite who had been traveling by subway to teach art in a Manhattan public school earlier this year, developed symptoms of Covid-19 two days before in-person schooling was abruptly canceled mid-March.

Ms. Londa said she was very ill for two weeks with “intense chest tightness that felt like a car was parked on it and barely able to walk from one room to another.” But she stayed out of the hospital, using FaceTime to consult regularly with her doctor, an infectious disease specialist.

By May she felt well enough to stroll around the neighborhood, gradually increasing the distance she walked. She expected a full recovery. But now, more than six months after she fell ill, walking up even a short hill can exhaust her, and she wonders if she will ever again feel like the athletic, energetic, healthy woman she was before the novel coronavirus turned her life into a roller coaster of recurring illness despite no evidence of an active infection.

“I will feel better for about five days and able to walk a mile or more and do yoga, then I’m flattened again for another five days,” Ms. Londa told me. “On-and-off like a switch, the same symptoms keep repeating — a feeling like cement is pushing on my chest, chills, cough, sore throat, dry mouth, tingling in my arm, an irregular heartbeat. I’m about to fall asleep, then suddenly start gasping for air like I’m drowning, and I have to get up and walk. It’s really, really depressing.”

Covid-19 also has left her with health problems she never had before: pre-diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and premature ventricular contractions — a heart flutter caused by extra beats in one of the heart’s pumping chambers. Checking with Covid-19 survivors on Facebook, she found that others shared her lingering, recurring symptoms. Ms. Londa has been fairly well the past 10 days, but to conserve energy she has been teaching remotely.

At the start of the pandemic, doctors were necessarily focused on combating the acute effects of Covid-19 and saving lives, but research is now underway to assess its long-term effects and find ways to prevent and treat lasting symptoms. There is increasing concern that the pandemic will result in “a significant surge of people battling lasting illnesses and disabilities,” the journal Nature reported.

In a commentary in The Lancet in September, an international team of infectious disease specialists conceded that “we do not know what to tell our patients when they are asking about the course and prognosis of their ongoing complaints.” Among the many unknowns they cited: “Does acute Covid-19 cause diabetes? Or other metabolic disorders? Will patients develop interstitial lung disease?”

They wondered, too, “which symptoms might be explained by the anxiety caused by a new disease and by the isolation, and which symptoms are secondary to a complicated form of Covid-19.” At present, the unknowns about long-term consequences of this potentially devastating viral infection far outnumber the knowns.

One fact already known: A person need not have had severe disease to experience symptoms that persist for months and, time will tell, possibly for years. Even some people who had mild Covid infections continue to experience symptoms long after recovering from the acute illness.

The range of reported symptoms is vast. They include unusual fatigue from physical or mental activity, brain fog, temperature irregularities, rashes, memory problems and insomnia. It’s as if the body’s immune response to the coronavirus has thrown the nervous system out of whack, according to Dr. Dayna McCarthy, rehabilitation specialist at the Mount Sinai Center for Post-Covid Care.

The lasting effects among those who survived another serious coronavirus disease, SARS, are not very encouraging. As the Mayo Clinic reported, “Many people who have recovered from SARS have gone on to develop chronic fatigue syndrome, a complex disorder characterized by extreme fatigue that worsens with physical or mental activity, but doesn’t improve with rest. The same may be true for people who have had Covid-19.”

The Covid-19 virus can damage the lungs, heart and brain, increasing the risk of persistent health problems. According to the Mayo experts, “Imaging tests taken months after recovery from Covid-19 have shown lasting damage to the heart muscle, even in people who had only mild Covid-19 symptoms.” The illness can cause very small blood clots that can block capillaries in the heart and permanently injure the heart muscle. The disease can also weaken blood vessels and injure the kidneys and liver.

Covid can scar the lungs’ tiny air sacs and cause long-term breathing difficulty even if the scars partially heal. This effect on lung function ended the life of 107-year-old Marilee Shapiro Asher, a celebrated artist in Washington, D.C., who remained professionally active until Covid-19 laid her low in early spring. During five days in the hospital, she recovered from the acute infection, then died several months later with virus-caused damage to her lungs that left them brittle and filled their air sacs with fluid.

With SARS, a 15-year follow-up of patients found that most lung recovery took place within two years, but some mild pulmonary effects remained indefinitely in more than a third of recovered SARS patients.

Brain-related effects of an active Covid-19 infection can include strokes, seizures and a temporary paralysis called Guillain-Barré syndrome. Many Covid patients lose their sense of smell and taste during the acute illness, but for some this neurological effect persisted for months after they had otherwise recovered. And questions remain whether the viral infection also will raise the risk of later developing neurological problems like Parkinson’s disease or Alzheimer’s disease.

People who were severely ill with Covid-19, especially those who spent weeks or longer isolated in intensive care with or without a ventilator, can develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome and persistent problems with anxiety and depression. Their emotional trauma may cause recurrent nightmares and a fear of being alone and even of going to sleep.

Indeed, Ms. Londa said it’s impossible to know how many of her recurring symptoms or their severity are the result of unresolved anxiety stemming from the acute illness or to a fear that she may never again be the person she was before Covid.

A study of 179 recovered Covid patients in Italy revealed a “worsened quality of life” months later in 44.1 percent, with a high proportion reporting ongoing fatigue, shortness of breath, joint pain and chest pain. In Dr. McCarthy’s experience, however, post-Covid patients do get better, although symptoms tend to wax and wane and improvement “is glacially slow.” She suggests that patients do things in smaller doses and not push themselves to live as they did before Covid, which can make their problems worse.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/12/well/live/coronavirus-symptoms-covid-19-persistent.html

 

[UltimaOnline]

Edit : Mods, pls merge with Glockman's thread, thanks :
https://www.sammyboy.com/threads/when-symptoms-of-covid-19-don’t-go-away.293782/


Londa said she was very ill for two weeks with “intense chest tightness that felt like a car was parked on it and barely able to walk from one room to another.” But she stayed out of the hospital, using FaceTime to consult regularly with her doctor, an infectious disease specialist.

By May she felt well enough to stroll around the neighborhood, gradually increasing the distance she walked. She expected a full recovery. But now, more than six months after she fell ill, walking up even a short hill can exhaust her, and she wonders if she will ever again feel like the athletic, energetic, healthy woman she was before the novel coronavirus turned her life into a roller coaster of recurring illness despite no evidence of an active infection.

“I will feel better for about five days and able to walk a mile or more and do yoga, then I’m flattened again for another five days,” Londa told me. “On-and-off like a switch, the same symptoms keep repeating — a feeling like cement is pushing on my chest, chills, cough, sore throat, dry mouth, tingling in my arm, an irregular heartbeat. I’m about to fall asleep, then suddenly start gasping for air like I’m drowning, and I have to get up and walk. It’s really, really depressing.”

COVID-19 also has left her with health problems she never had before: prediabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and premature ventricular contractions — a heart flutter caused by extra beats in one of the heart’s pumping chambers. Checking with COVID-19 survivors on Facebook, she found that others shared her lingering, recurring symptoms. Londa has been fairly well the past 10 days, but to conserve energy she has been teaching remotely.

At the start of the pandemic, doctors were necessarily focused on combating the acute effects of COVID-19 and saving lives, but research is now underway to assess its long-term effects and find ways to prevent and treat lasting symptoms. There is increasing concern that the pandemic will result in “a significant surge of people battling lasting illnesses and disabilities,” the journal Nature reported.

In a commentary in The Lancet in September, an international team of infectious disease specialists conceded that “we do not know what to tell our patients when they are asking about the course and prognosis of their ongoing complaints.” Among the many unknowns they cited: “Does acute COVID-19 cause diabetes? Or other metabolic disorders? Will patients develop interstitial lung disease?”

They wondered, too, “which symptoms might be explained by the anxiety caused by a new disease and by the isolation, and which symptoms are secondary to a complicated form of COVID-19.” At present, the unknowns about long-term consequences of this potentially devastating viral infection far outnumber the knowns.

One fact already known: A person need not have had severe disease to experience symptoms that persist for months and, time will tell, possibly for years. Even some people who had mild COVID-19 infections continue to experience symptoms long after recovering from the acute illness.

The range of reported symptoms is vast. They include unusual fatigue from physical or mental activity, brain fog, temperature irregularities, rashes, memory problems and insomnia. It’s as if the body’s immune response to the coronavirus has thrown the nervous system out of whack, according to Dr. Dayna McCarthy, rehabilitation specialist at the Mount Sinai Center for Post-COVID Care.

The lasting effects among those who survived another serious coronavirus disease, SARS, are not very encouraging. As the Mayo Clinic reported, “Many people who have recovered from SARS have gone on to develop chronic fatigue syndrome, a complex disorder characterized by extreme fatigue that worsens with physical or mental activity, but doesn’t improve with rest. The same may be true for people who have had COVID-19.”

The COVID-19 virus can damage the lungs, heart and brain, increasing the risk of persistent health problems. According to the Mayo experts, “Imaging tests taken months after recovery from COVID-19 have shown lasting damage to the heart muscle, even in people who had only mild COVID-19 symptoms.” The illness can cause very small blood clots that can block capillaries in the heart and permanently injure the heart muscle. The disease can also weaken blood vessels and injure the kidneys and liver.

COVID-19 can scar the lungs’ tiny air sacs and cause long-term breathing difficulty even if the scars partially heal. This effect on lung function ended the life of 107-year-old Marilee Shapiro Asher, a celebrated artist in Washington, D.C., who remained professionally active until COVID-19 laid her low in early spring. During five days in the hospital, she recovered from the acute infection, then died several months later with virus-caused damage to her lungs that left them brittle and filled their air sacs with fluid.

With SARS, a 15-year follow-up of patients found that most lung recovery took place within two years, but some mild pulmonary effects remained indefinitely in more than a third of recovered SARS patients.

Brain-related effects of an active COVID-19 infection can include strokes, seizures and a temporary paralysis called Guillain-Barré syndrome. Many COVID-19 patients lose their sense of smell and taste during the acute illness, but for some this neurological effect persisted for months after they had otherwise recovered. And questions remain whether the viral infection also will raise the risk of later developing neurological problems like Parkinson’s disease or Alzheimer’s disease.

People who were severely ill with COVID-19, especially those who spent weeks or longer isolated in intensive care with or without a ventilator, can develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome and persistent problems with anxiety and depression. Their emotional trauma may cause recurrent nightmares and a fear of being alone and even of going to sleep.

Indeed, Londa said it’s impossible to know how many of her recurring symptoms or their severity are the result of unresolved anxiety stemming from the acute illness or to a fear that she may never again be the person she was before COVID-19.

A study of 179 recovered COVID-19 patients in Italy revealed a “worsened quality of life” months later in 44.1%, with a high proportion reporting ongoing fatigue, shortness of breath, joint pain and chest pain. In McCarthy’s experience, however, post-COVID-19 patients do get better, although symptoms tend to wax and wane and improvement “is glacially slow.” She suggests that patients do things in smaller doses and not push themselves to live as they did before COVID-19, which can make their problems worse.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/symptoms-covid-19-dont-away-183957021.html

 

[Hypocrite-The]

Soylent GREEN...is the best option for long haulers

 

[nayr69sg]

Edit : Mods, pls merge with Glockman's thread, thanks :
https://www.sammyboy.com/threads/when-symptoms-of-covid-19-don’t-go-away.293782/


Londa said she was very ill for two weeks with “intense chest tightness that felt like a car was parked on it and barely able to walk from one room to another.” But she stayed out of the hospital, using FaceTime to consult regularly with her doctor, an infectious disease specialist.

By May she felt well enough to stroll around the neighborhood, gradually increasing the distance she walked. She expected a full recovery. But now, more than six months after she fell ill, walking up even a short hill can exhaust her, and she wonders if she will ever again feel like the athletic, energetic, healthy woman she was before the novel coronavirus turned her life into a roller coaster of recurring illness despite no evidence of an active infection.

“I will feel better for about five days and able to walk a mile or more and do yoga, then I’m flattened again for another five days,” Londa told me. “On-and-off like a switch, the same symptoms keep repeating — a feeling like cement is pushing on my chest, chills, cough, sore throat, dry mouth, tingling in my arm, an irregular heartbeat. I’m about to fall asleep, then suddenly start gasping for air like I’m drowning, and I have to get up and walk. It’s really, really depressing.”

COVID-19 also has left her with health problems she never had before: prediabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and premature ventricular contractions — a heart flutter caused by extra beats in one of the heart’s pumping chambers. Checking with COVID-19 survivors on Facebook, she found that others shared her lingering, recurring symptoms. Londa has been fairly well the past 10 days, but to conserve energy she has been teaching remotely.

At the start of the pandemic, doctors were necessarily focused on combating the acute effects of COVID-19 and saving lives, but research is now underway to assess its long-term effects and find ways to prevent and treat lasting symptoms. There is increasing concern that the pandemic will result in “a significant surge of people battling lasting illnesses and disabilities,” the journal Nature reported.

In a commentary in The Lancet in September, an international team of infectious disease specialists conceded that “we do not know what to tell our patients when they are asking about the course and prognosis of their ongoing complaints.” Among the many unknowns they cited: “Does acute COVID-19 cause diabetes? Or other metabolic disorders? Will patients develop interstitial lung disease?”

They wondered, too, “which symptoms might be explained by the anxiety caused by a new disease and by the isolation, and which symptoms are secondary to a complicated form of COVID-19.” At present, the unknowns about long-term consequences of this potentially devastating viral infection far outnumber the knowns.

One fact already known: A person need not have had severe disease to experience symptoms that persist for months and, time will tell, possibly for years. Even some people who had mild COVID-19 infections continue to experience symptoms long after recovering from the acute illness.

The range of reported symptoms is vast. They include unusual fatigue from physical or mental activity, brain fog, temperature irregularities, rashes, memory problems and insomnia. It’s as if the body’s immune response to the coronavirus has thrown the nervous system out of whack, according to Dr. Dayna McCarthy, rehabilitation specialist at the Mount Sinai Center for Post-COVID Care.

The lasting effects among those who survived another serious coronavirus disease, SARS, are not very encouraging. As the Mayo Clinic reported, “Many people who have recovered from SARS have gone on to develop chronic fatigue syndrome, a complex disorder characterized by extreme fatigue that worsens with physical or mental activity, but doesn’t improve with rest. The same may be true for people who have had COVID-19.”

The COVID-19 virus can damage the lungs, heart and brain, increasing the risk of persistent health problems. According to the Mayo experts, “Imaging tests taken months after recovery from COVID-19 have shown lasting damage to the heart muscle, even in people who had only mild COVID-19 symptoms.” The illness can cause very small blood clots that can block capillaries in the heart and permanently injure the heart muscle. The disease can also weaken blood vessels and injure the kidneys and liver.

COVID-19 can scar the lungs’ tiny air sacs and cause long-term breathing difficulty even if the scars partially heal. This effect on lung function ended the life of 107-year-old Marilee Shapiro Asher, a celebrated artist in Washington, D.C., who remained professionally active until COVID-19 laid her low in early spring. During five days in the hospital, she recovered from the acute infection, then died several months later with virus-caused damage to her lungs that left them brittle and filled their air sacs with fluid.

With SARS, a 15-year follow-up of patients found that most lung recovery took place within two years, but some mild pulmonary effects remained indefinitely in more than a third of recovered SARS patients.

Brain-related effects of an active COVID-19 infection can include strokes, seizures and a temporary paralysis called Guillain-Barré syndrome. Many COVID-19 patients lose their sense of smell and taste during the acute illness, but for some this neurological effect persisted for months after they had otherwise recovered. And questions remain whether the viral infection also will raise the risk of later developing neurological problems like Parkinson’s disease or Alzheimer’s disease.

People who were severely ill with COVID-19, especially those who spent weeks or longer isolated in intensive care with or without a ventilator, can develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome and persistent problems with anxiety and depression. Their emotional trauma may cause recurrent nightmares and a fear of being alone and even of going to sleep.

Indeed, Londa said it’s impossible to know how many of her recurring symptoms or their severity are the result of unresolved anxiety stemming from the acute illness or to a fear that she may never again be the person she was before COVID-19.

A study of 179 recovered COVID-19 patients in Italy revealed a “worsened quality of life” months later in 44.1%, with a high proportion reporting ongoing fatigue, shortness of breath, joint pain and chest pain. In McCarthy’s experience, however, post-COVID-19 patients do get better, although symptoms tend to wax and wane and improvement “is glacially slow.” She suggests that patients do things in smaller doses and not push themselves to live as they did before COVID-19, which can make their problems worse.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/symptoms-covid-19-dont-away-183957021.html

I have that too even though I have never had Covid.

It is called Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA)

 

[mojito]

Dramamamasia.

 

[Leongsam]

Influenza is no different.

health.com

5 Ways the Flu Can Affect Your Health Even After You Feel Better
Amanda MacMillan

9-11 minutes


You probably know by now some of the major reasons you should get your flu shot this and every year: More than 80,000 people died from the flu last year in the United States, including many otherwise healthy children and young adults. And while the shot doesn’t offer 100% protection against the virus, it’s certainly better than nothing. Even if you do get sick, being vaccinated reduces your risk of getting a severe case of the flu and winding up in the hospital. It also makes it less likely that you’ll pass the flu onto others.

But there’s another, lesser known argument for getting the flu shot, and for taking other precautions against influenza, as well: The flu isn’t just a health risk for the seven days or so that you’re physically sick with the virus—it can also have some lasting effects that could affect your health for weeks, months, or even permanently. Here are some of the ways the flu can be a risk factor for health issues, even after you’re feeling better.

Heart attack and stroke risk

A number of studies have linked influenza to an increased risk of heart attack and stroke, and scientists have theorized that the inflammatory response triggered by the flu can fuel the development of atherosclerosis, a contributor to heart and artery disease. In a study published this year in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), Canadian researchers found that the risk of having a heart attack was six times higher during the week after being diagnosed with the flu, compared to the year before or after a flu infection.

Other research has suggested that this association persists past those initial seven days of infection: A 2004 NEJM study found that while the increased risks of heart attack and stroke were both highest in the first three days after diagnosis, the dangers only “gradually fell during the following weeks.” And in 2008, researchers reported in the European Heart Journal that the risk of stroke after a flu diagnosis remained elevated up to three months.

“Most people who have studied this agree that two to four weeks, and maybe even into that second month, there is an increased risk of heart attack and stroke,” says William Schaffner, MD, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University. But the message hasn’t yet reached the general public, he adds, or even a lot of physicians. “When I mention this to doctors during continuing education classes, they sit up in their chairs; they’ve never heard this before.”

Secondary infections

The flu can also do a number on the immune system, which can leave people vulnerable to other illnesses and infections—like pneumonia, for example. And while pneumonia is often referred to as a complication of the flu, it’s also not unusual for a person to come down with it once their initial flu symptoms have passed.

“It happens quite often,” says Sharon Nachman, MD, chief of the division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Stony Brook University School of Medicine. “People feel poorly, then they start to feel better, and all of a sudden they feel poorly again and they wonder why they’re not getting better. And actually it’s because you don’t still have the flu; you have a new, secondary infection.”

Those infections are sometimes bacterial, says Dr. Nachman, which means that antibiotics are likely needed to treat them. It can be normal to feel like you’re not at 100% following a bad case of the flu, says Dr. Schaffner—but if you don’t feel better after a few weeks, talk to your doctor to rule out something more serious.
Out-of-whack test results

The body has to work hard to fight the flu virus, and it can take time to recover to its pre-flu state. So it shouldn’t be surprising that a recent case of influenza can affect the results of blood tests and medical screenings, says Dr. Nachman.

“After most viral illnesses, your white blood cell count is going to be low,” she says. Other measurements, like cholesterol levels, could also be outside of their normal ranges. If you’re scheduled for any routine testing after a bout with the flu, be sure to mention it to your doctor so he or she knows that it could be a factor in your results.

A slide into disability

For elderly patients, getting the flu could be the first step in a continual downward spiral when it comes to their health and their ability to take care of themselves. Not only do older adults face a higher risk of serious complications and death while they have the flu, but they’re also at greater risk of a reduced quality of life afterward, says Dr. Schaffner.

Studies have shown that a significant percentage of nursing home residents experience major physical decline following flu-like illnesses, and that heart disease patients hospitalized for the flu required more follow-up care after they were discharged. “When we talk to geriatricians, they all nod their heads and say they’ve known this for years,” says Dr. Schaffner.

“When an infection like the flu puts you in a bed, it’s remarkable how much muscle tone you lose every day,” he adds. “And if you’re already on the edge of frailty, it can send you on the downhill slide, and it’s very difficult to get your strength and your confidence back completely.”

For this reason, he says, doctors and loved ones should pay close attention to elderly patients after a flu diagnosis. “Make sure they’re getting the help they need to get back to their normal routine,” he says. “In some cases, they may even need some physical therapy to help them do that.”

Lost strength and endurance

That loss of muscle tone and strength is especially dangerous for the elderly population, but it’s also likely to affect younger flu victims as well, says Dr. Schaffner, to a lesser extent. Exercise after the flu can help you feel better, he adds, but he recommends starting with low-intensity activity like brisk walking. “When I’ve gone back to the gym after having influenza, I’ve reduced my weights and my reps for some time before I work my way back up to normal,” he says.

Dr. Nachman agrees. “Think about it like a trauma: After they take the cast off from your broken leg, you can’t run a mile right away,” she says. “And after you’ve had a really bad viral infection, your body needs time to recuperate—and overdoing it right away can make you feel sicker.” Listen to your body, she says, and if you feel short of breath or overly fatigued, scale back for a few days.

These post-flu risks may not be as well known or as well publicized as the more obvious symptoms and immediate complications of influenza itself. But they should serve as even more reason to get vaccinated, say the experts we spoke with, and to hopefully prevent getting infected in the first place. “It makes flu an even nastier virus than we thought,” says Dr. Schaffner, “and we thought it was plenty nasty already, even without these lasting effects.”

 

[kaninabuchaojibye]

tio covid become Pes E straightaway?

 

[Leongsam]

Swine flu "long haulers".

thestar.com

Swine flu fallout: many suffer nagging symptoms long after H1N1 subsides
MMBy Michael MacDonaldThe Canadian PressMon., March 29, 2010timer3 min. read

4-6 minutes


HALIFAX, N.S. - Marga Cugnet thought she knew what she was in for when she came down with swine flu last October.

But the health administrator from Weyburn, Sask., said she was annoyed and somewhat dejected when the potent H1N1 virus left her with lingering symptoms that did not let up until earlier this month.

That’s five months of suffering through a hacking, post-flu cough and bouts of fatigue.

“I never went anywhere without having a bag of cough drops with me because I would just get into a coughing spell that wouldn’t stop,” said Cugnet, the 56-year-old vice-president of primary health with the Sun Country Health Region.

“I knew it could take months to go away, but I didn’t think it would last that long.”

Even though the global pandemic ceased making headlines weeks ago, the impact of the virus remains fresh in the minds of many Canadians who are just getting over an ailment that delivered a lasting one-two punch.

The Public Health Agency of Canada didn’t keep records on the number of Canadians who contracted mild cases of H1N1, mainly because most of them simply stayed home while recovering.

But Dr. Michael Gardam of the Ontario Agency for Health Protection and Promotion says blood tests on a sample group in that province suggested that just under 10 per cent of the population was infected in the first wave.

“The second wave was two to three times larger than the first wave, so 30 per cent total is likely reasonable,” said Gardam, the agency’s director of infectious diseases prevention and control.

These numbers are similar to estimates from other developed countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, he said.

Since April 2009, when the first cases were identified in North America, the Public Health Agency of Canada says 424 Canadians died after contracting the virus and another 8,221 have been hospitalized — 1,472 of them admitted to intensive care.

The infection rate peaked in early November, but there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest H1N1 kept tormenting the country well into 2010.
“Sometimes it takes weeks to a couple of months for people to get ... back on their feet,” said Gardam.

The vast majority of those infected with H1N1 endure what the medical community describes as “mild” symptoms lasting for about a week to 10 days, including a fever, chills, headache, sore throat, runny nose, muscle aches and general tiredness.

Cugnet said she had never been so sick.

“My husband said, ‘You never looked at your BlackBerry for six days. I thought you were dying.’”

Gardam said a dry, persistent cough and fatigue are common complaints following respiratory tract infections, including seasonal flu.

The difference with H1N1 is that it mainly affected a large segment of the population that is not used to getting seriously ill during flu season.

“We had an otherwise young and healthy population really getting hit quite hard with this,” said Gardam. “Unfortunately, this is the age group that thinks they are pretty much immune to everything. ... That’s the main reason why governments were pushing the vaccine.”

A recent study found that H1N1 landed a higher proportion of Canadians in intensive care units than seasonal flu, and the seriously ill victims were also younger than average. The median age for patients hospitalized with H1N1 was 28, compared to 71 for people admitted for seasonal influenza or flu-related pneumonia.

There are no comparable statistics for those who suffered from mild symptoms.

Dr. Todd Hatchette, director of virology and immunology at the Queen Elizabeth II Health Science Centre in Halifax, said a nagging cough is the result of recently inflamed airways that are slow to heal.

“It almost triggers a bit of temporary asthma,” he said. “Your body is hyperactive to getting narrowed airways. ... It’s your body’s own reaction to itself.”
Doctors sometimes prescribe inhalers or oral steroids to open the airways.

Cugnet said she didn’t take any medication.

“I just toughed it out,” she said. “It’s a nasty virus that takes a long time for your body to get rid of.”

Swine flu is expected to return in the fall as the dominant influenza strain, a pattern witnessed after previous pandemics.

But the impact is expected to be minimal because of the number of Canadians who either got the flu or were vaccinated.

 

[tobelightlight]

all the crap about the long term effect has many misleading points to let you think that this virus is so dangerous.

If you are sick, what did you do? did you go and feast like mad. No. a sick person will have no appetite to eat anything. u body wants you to go on a fast. fasting will heal your body. so what did the patient do and what is given to patient? medicine, a toxic cocktail of ingredients call medicinal drug. how to heal if like that?

There is no mention of taking in food that will heal you body. after fasting or before fasting, did the patient eat any highly nutritious food that will NOURISH the body and strengthen the immune system? NO.. usually doctor will tell you to eat anything. Anthing as in fast food, processed food which contains more toxic cocktail ingredients?

the doctors don't even know what nutrition is? just stick to pulling bullet out from body and fix broken bones, you are seen for being more useful if you do just that.

 

[whoami]

Swine flu "long haulers".

thestar.com

Swine flu fallout: many suffer nagging symptoms long after H1N1 subsides

No wonder 24/7 i hear majority sinkies kpkb here. Tat explains it.

 

[SBFNews]

Coronavirus: 'Long COVID' can be a 'rollercoaster' of different symptoms that move around the body - study | UK News

news.sky.com

"Long COVID" could be a combination of four different syndromes affecting the body at the same time, new research suggests.

Coronavirus patients still suffering debilitating symptoms after seven months may be experiencing a mixture of post-viral fatigue syndrome, post-intensive care syndrome, permanent organ damage and long-term COVID syndrome, researchers claim.

The study, carried out by the National Institute for Health Research, warns that about 60,000 people could be living with long COVID in the UK.

Children are also at risk - and there is no guarantee that people who are less vulnerable to COVID-19 will not experience ongoing symptoms.

They include breathlessness, chronic fatigue, 'brain fog', permanent organ damage, anxiety and stress.

Some patients also experience a "rollercoaster of symptoms" that "move around the body", according to Dr Elaine Maxwell, the author of the review.

Others suffer "floating" symptoms, which affect one party of the body for a time - only to be replaced by separate ones in a different area, she added.

Dr Maxwell said: "The list of symptoms is huge and covers every part of the body and brain.

"We believe that the term 'long COVID' is being used as a capsule for more than one syndrome, possibly up to four.

"People without a clear diagnosis told us they're often not believed by health services.

"There are people who never had any support in hospital, never had a test, have no record of ever having had COVID, except their own personal history. They may be suffering far more than somebody who's ventilated for 21 days."

She also warned that the number of people with long-term coronavirus symptoms is likely to increase as the pandemic continues.

A separate study published in the British Journal of General Practice reported that long COVID patients are still struggling with simple tasks months on from their diagnosis.

One 34-year-old woman who took part in the study said she needed a break after tasks such as peeling vegetables.

She said: "I have to do a chore, sit down for 15, 20 minutes and then do the next, which frustrates me. It's like peeling potatoes, I can't peel the carrots straight afterwards."

Meanwhile, there have been warnings over an increased number of under-65s dying of heart disease as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

The British Heart Foundation found there have been more than 800 "excess deaths" from heart and circulatory conditions in England and Wales since the start of the UK outbreak.

This means 800 more people have died of heart problems than average over the past five years.

The charity is urging anyone with symptoms to get them checked and heart patients to be prioritised in hospital as the second wave of the virus hits.

 

[kaninabuchaojibye]

Coronavirus: 'Long COVID' can be a 'rollercoaster' of different symptoms that move around the body - study | UK News

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"Long COVID" could be a combination of four different syndromes affecting the body at the same time, new research suggests.

Coronavirus patients still suffering debilitating symptoms after seven months may be experiencing a mixture of post-viral fatigue syndrome, post-intensive care syndrome, permanent organ damage and long-term COVID syndrome, researchers claim.

The study, carried out by the National Institute for Health Research, warns that about 60,000 people could be living with long COVID in the UK.

Children are also at risk - and there is no guarantee that people who are less vulnerable to COVID-19 will not experience ongoing symptoms.

They include breathlessness, chronic fatigue, 'brain fog', permanent organ damage, anxiety and stress.

Some patients also experience a "rollercoaster of symptoms" that "move around the body", according to Dr Elaine Maxwell, the author of the review.

Others suffer "floating" symptoms, which affect one party of the body for a time - only to be replaced by separate ones in a different area, she added.

Dr Maxwell said: "The list of symptoms is huge and covers every part of the body and brain.

"We believe that the term 'long COVID' is being used as a capsule for more than one syndrome, possibly up to four.

"People without a clear diagnosis told us they're often not believed by health services.

"There are people who never had any support in hospital, never had a test, have no record of ever having had COVID, except their own personal history. They may be suffering far more than somebody who's ventilated for 21 days."

She also warned that the number of people with long-term coronavirus symptoms is likely to increase as the pandemic continues.

A separate study published in the British Journal of General Practice reported that long COVID patients are still struggling with simple tasks months on from their diagnosis.

One 34-year-old woman who took part in the study said she needed a break after tasks such as peeling vegetables.

She said: "I have to do a chore, sit down for 15, 20 minutes and then do the next, which frustrates me. It's like peeling potatoes, I can't peel the carrots straight afterwards."

Meanwhile, there have been warnings over an increased number of under-65s dying of heart disease as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

The British Heart Foundation found there have been more than 800 "excess deaths" from heart and circulatory conditions in England and Wales since the start of the UK outbreak.

This means 800 more people have died of heart problems than average over the past five years.

The charity is urging anyone with symptoms to get them checked and heart patients to be prioritised in hospital as the second wave of the virus hits.

liddat dotard how?

 

[Leongsam]

liddat dotard how?

Don't believe all this crap about long haulers and ignore all the doomsday scenarios. Covid is just a minor infection for the vast majority of those that catch it just like most other diseases.

Singaporeans should worry more about dengue fever and influenza which is killing many more people compared to Covid.

 

[sweetiepie]

Covid-19 also has left her with health problems she never had before: pre-diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and premature ventricular contractions — a heart flutter caused by extra beats in one of the heart’s pumping chambers. Checking with Covid-19 survivors on Facebook,

KNN my uncle suspect she at 55 is time to have all the mentioned then she point it to covid leelated KNN pre diabetes high cholesterol high BP ventricular contractions etc KNN my uncle also have all these KNN

 

[glockman]

KNN my uncle suspect she at 55 is time to have all the mentioned then she point it to covid leelated KNN pre diabetes high cholesterol high BP ventricular contractions etc KNN my uncle also have all these KNN

Yes, growing old is hell. KNN KNN KNN

 

[kaninabuchaojibye]

y worry
kkj can erect can liao

Yes, growing old is hell. KNN KNN KNN

 

[kaninabuchaojibye]

y worry
kkj can erect can liao

Yes, growing old is hell. KNN KNN KNN

 

[Leongsam]

y worry
kkj can erect can liao

Only if you have somewhere worthwhile to put it.

 

[laksaboy]

Paul Pogba and Christiano Ronaldo should be worried.

 

[Hypocrite-The]

COVID-19 damaging the heart more than other viral infections
Heart
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Matters of the heart are complex — so it should come as little surprise just how complicated the heart's relationship with coronavirus seems to be.

Around one in four people hospitalised with COVID-19 suffer heart damage, according to new research published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

In a series of review papers, researchers have outlined what is known about COVID-19's effects on the heart, and why people with heart disease are at increased risk of severe COVID-19.

Here are five key take-aways.

Cardiovascular disease makes you more vulnerable
In addition to being male, over the age of 60 or having a chronic health condition, research shows cardiovascular disease increases your risk of severe COVID-19 and death.

In Australia, cardiovascular disease (which is an umbrella term for all diseases affecting the heart or blood vessels) affects 4.2 million people.

If you become infected with COVID-19, having cardiovascular disease or any risk factors for it — including high cholesterol, high blood pressure, obesity or diabetes — means you're more likely to fare worse than someone with a "better baseline", said interventional cardiologist Sarah Zaman.

"COVID-19, in a large proportion of patients, causes myocardial injury or heart damage," said Dr Zaman of Monash University.

The body's ACE2 receptors — which the SARS-COV-2 virus binds to — are especially important in people with heart disease and other cardiovascular risk factors, since they play an important role in regulating processes such as blood pressure and inflammation.

"By binding to these receptors, [the virus] causes a lot of downstream effects that can influence inflammation, constriction of your arteries … and can result in high blood pressure," Dr Zaman said.

"So those people need to be a little bit more careful and limit their risk of transmission."

COVID cardiometabolic syndrome identified
Recognising the significance of these individual risk factors, US researchers have identified a new COVID-related cardiometabolic syndrome in patients with high body fat, unstable blood sugar (or diabetes), high cholesterol and high blood pressure.

Cardiologist and executive director of the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Jason Kovacic, said it brought together overlapping risk factors into a unifying theory around cardiometabolic health and poor COVID-19 outcomes.

"Cardiometabolic syndrome has been well described over the last couple of decades," said Professor Kovacic, who is an editor at the Journal of the American College of Cardiology but was not involved in the research.

"It seems that those four factors really do intersect and interact across COVID-19 … to cause worse outcomes."

People with COVID-19 and metabolic and cardiovascular dysfunction are more likely to experience blood clotting and poor immune function, Professor Kovacic said. Obesity can also make it more difficult for someone to breathe if they end up on a ventilator.

"They tend to have worse lung function, really high glucose levels when they wind up in the ICU, and all of this adds together to cause more problems," he said.

Black and white photo of Jason Kovacic sitting at his desk.
Jason Kovacic is a professor of medicine at the University of New South Wales and Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.(Supplied: Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute)
According to the researchers, the coronavirus pandemic had exposed unexpected cardiovascular vulnerabilities and the need to improve cardiometabolic health on a global scale.

For high-risk individuals, especially people with diabetes, they emphasised the importance of maintaining a healthy diet and regular exercise routine.

"The role of healthy lifestyles and pharmacotherapy targeting metabolic drivers to reduce cardiovascular risk is well established," the researchers wrote. "However, lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic support shorter-term benefits of these interventions."

Dr Zaman said she wasn't sure how useful it was to classify cardiometabolic risk factors into a new COVID-19 syndrome, but agreed we should focus on improving them in the context of the pandemic.

"If half our population is obese, diabetic or has high blood pressure, we're going to have half of our population doing worse if they get infected," she said.

The heart gets caught in the COVID crossfire
COVID-19 primarily targets the lungs and other parts of the respiratory system, but the virus can also affect the heart and worsen existing heart conditions.

It does this by either causing acute heart damage, inflammation of the heart, or injury to the heart muscle so that the heart doesn't function as well.

"ACE-2 receptors are predominantly expressed in the lungs … but they're also expressed in the heart," Dr Zaman said. "COVID-19 can cause direct damage to the heart by the virus actually invading the heart, although that's probably the less common mechanism."

More common is inflammation-related injury to the heart muscle, which is caused by the huge immune response triggered by the virus. There is a powerful relationship between inflammation and blood clotting, Professor Kovacic said.

"Inflammation can cause the vessels of the heart — the arteries — to block up and cause a heart attack," he said.

Heart attacks can also happen as a result of the damage inflicted upon the lungs by COVID-19, whereby a person's heart needs to work harder to pump blood to the rest of their body.

"COVID-19 decreases the ability of the lungs to oxygenate the blood, so you get high demand on the heart because it's got to do a lot of work," Professor Kovacic said.

"There is a lot of stress placed on the heart, and yet the lungs have a reduced ability, so you get this oxygen imbalance … and that can lead to a heart attack."

An ECG showing high blood pressure, high heart rate and irregular breathing.
Heart injury can be detected through an increase in cardiac enzymes and cardiac arrhythmias.(Getty Images: Kerrick)
According to the researchers, COVID-19 can also lead to microvascular dysfunction (complications in the small vessels and capillaries of the heart) as well as stress cardiomyopathy.

"That can occur in the heart in severely stressful conditions, including emotional stress or physical stress, such as being in an ICU bed," Professor Kovacic said. "That itself can cause cardiac muscle injury and damage."

All of these factors can be responsible for cardiac injury in hospitalised COVID-19 patients, which means it can be difficult to work out exactly what mechanism is responsible for what damage, Professor Kovacic said.

"There is quite a lot going on."

The long-term effects are still unclear
In recent months, it's become apparent that COVID-19 can have lingering effects, with many patients reporting ongoing fatigue, breathlessness and "brain fog" for weeks or months after their infection.

But the data, especially on cardiovascular impacts, are still limited.

"We know in some patients, you can get cardiac damage and that can lead to scarring of the lungs … damage to the heart, and other features that are really only just emerging," Professor Kovacic said.

"But the longer-term complications of COVID-19 … it's just going to take us time to see how things go."

The majority of patients with COVID-19 make a complete recovery, but the researchers said the long-term risks for survivors of severe COVID-19 remained uncertain and that early observations were concerning.

Some research has found evidence of ongoing heart dysfunction in recovered COVID-19 patients.

But Dr Zaman said it was difficult to know if "we're just looking for it more" because of the unprecedented research efforts being dedicated to the disease.

"I guess there is a bit of bias there," she said.

COVID-19's heart effects appear unique
Even with the extra attention, Dr Zaman said the heart damage observed in COVID-19 patients had surpassed what is typically seen in other viral infections.

"With influenza, you do see an increase in myocardial infarction (a heart attack) … but you really don't see the extent of injury that you see with COVID-19," she said.

"Some of the reports that have come out of New York and other centres have shown that the myocardial damage is anywhere from 30 to 50 per cent of hospitalised patients.

Professor Kovacic said there were several things that made COVID-19 unique in terms of its effect on the heart.

He said although inflammation was a common feature of almost all infections, the "profound inflammation" that occurs in COVID-19 was particularly striking.

"The dramatic activation of blood clotting is also very striking with COVID-19," Professor Kovacic said.

"Those two factors — the blood clotting plus the profound inflammation, together … is really what sets this disease apart."