<story><title>Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients</title><url>https://khn.org/news/mysterious-heart-damage-not-just-lung-troubles-befalling-covid-19-patients/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jacquesm</author><text>So, I&amp;#x27;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.&lt;p&gt;After a week or so symptoms started in spite of having self-isolated already after the flight, so that&amp;#x27;s why I figure that is where I caught it, no positive confirmation because tests are still pretty rare around here but all the symptoms are present. At least I hope that I did not infect anybody else by taking that precaution. One thing I noticed (besides the hacking cough that does not seem to want to go away) was a pretty highly elevated heartrate at rest. Up to 20% higher than normal.&lt;p&gt;I already had some lung damage to my right lung due to an earlier pneumonia, but also played saxophone which does a good job of teaching you how to breathe properly and may improve your lungcapacity a bit.&lt;p&gt;The last couple of weeks have been a continuous rodeo of improvement and falling back again, today is the first day that I have a bit more energy, other than that the time over the last weeks was mostly spent sleeping.&lt;p&gt;Today is the first time I&amp;#x27;ve seen my heart rate at rest below 60, and I take that as a very good sign that I&amp;#x27;m on the tail end of this.&lt;p&gt;Wouldn&amp;#x27;t wish this on my worst enemy.&lt;p&gt;If you can avoid this bug you really should. I totally believe that if I had had a worse general condition that I may have ended up in the hospital, and given the extra strain on the heart I find the heart damage not so much mysterious as logical. After all, if your lung capacity decreases due to fluid in your lungs then your heart and chest muscles will have to work harder (possibly &lt;i&gt;much&lt;/i&gt; harder) to get your blood O2 levels to saturation (if they still can...).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tandr</author><text>I totally agree with your &amp;quot;wouldn&amp;#x27;t wish this on my worst enemy&amp;quot; - 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.&lt;p&gt;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 pneumonia, and send me home. Thing that really scared me was (is) constant mild trouble breathing. It is hard to walk any distance and you have to catch wind after walking upstairs - never happened to me before. As you described &amp;quot;ups&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;downs&amp;quot; - you kind of feel ok for a day or so, and then boom, feeling like walking dead again. Worst  part (to me) is that I cannot for the life of me (no pun intended) to explain this to my SO - she thinks once you got sick and got better, everything else is bs and &amp;quot;you just don&amp;#x27;t want to leave the house&amp;quot; etc. Better is forever, right?&lt;p&gt;I would like to wish you (and all of us) best of luck and as much recovery as you can get. Take care.</text></comment>
<story><title>Mysterious heart damage, not just lung troubles, befalling Covid-19 patients</title><url>https://khn.org/news/mysterious-heart-damage-not-just-lung-troubles-befalling-covid-19-patients/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jacquesm</author><text>So, I&amp;#x27;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.&lt;p&gt;After a week or so symptoms started in spite of having self-isolated already after the flight, so that&amp;#x27;s why I figure that is where I caught it, no positive confirmation because tests are still pretty rare around here but all the symptoms are present. At least I hope that I did not infect anybody else by taking that precaution. One thing I noticed (besides the hacking cough that does not seem to want to go away) was a pretty highly elevated heartrate at rest. Up to 20% higher than normal.&lt;p&gt;I already had some lung damage to my right lung due to an earlier pneumonia, but also played saxophone which does a good job of teaching you how to breathe properly and may improve your lungcapacity a bit.&lt;p&gt;The last couple of weeks have been a continuous rodeo of improvement and falling back again, today is the first day that I have a bit more energy, other than that the time over the last weeks was mostly spent sleeping.&lt;p&gt;Today is the first time I&amp;#x27;ve seen my heart rate at rest below 60, and I take that as a very good sign that I&amp;#x27;m on the tail end of this.&lt;p&gt;Wouldn&amp;#x27;t wish this on my worst enemy.&lt;p&gt;If you can avoid this bug you really should. I totally believe that if I had had a worse general condition that I may have ended up in the hospital, and given the extra strain on the heart I find the heart damage not so much mysterious as logical. After all, if your lung capacity decreases due to fluid in your lungs then your heart and chest muscles will have to work harder (possibly &lt;i&gt;much&lt;/i&gt; harder) to get your blood O2 levels to saturation (if they still can...).</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>MrBuddyCasino</author><text>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.&lt;p&gt;[0] see thread and linked paper: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;yishan&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;1244717172871409666&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;yishan&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;1244717172871409666&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>