A Texas trauma surgeon says it is uncommon that X-rays from any of her COVID-19 sufferers come again with out dense scarring. Dr. Brittany Bankhead-Kendall tweeted that, “Post-COVID lungs look worse than any type of terrible smoker’s lung we’ve ever seen. And they collapse. And they clot off. And the shortness of breath lingers on… & on… & on.”
“Everyone’s just so worried about the mortality thing and that’s terrible and it’s awful,” she informed CBS Dallas. “But man, for all the survivors and the people who have tested positive this is — it’s going to be a problem.”
She’s handled 1000’s of sufferers since March.
Bankhead-Kendall says sufferers who’ve had COVID-19 signs present a extreme chest X-ray each time, and those that had been asymptomatic present a extreme chest X-ray 70 to 80% of the time.
“There are still people who say ‘I’m fine. I don’t have any issues,’ and you pull up their chest X-ray and they absolutely have a bad chest X-ray,” she mentioned.
In this photograph of a traditional lung, smoker’s lung and a COVID-19 lung that Dr. Bankhead-Kendall shared with CBS Dallas, the wholesome lungs are clear with a number of black, which is principally air. In the smoker’s lung, white strains are indicative of scarring and congestion — whereas the COVID lung is crammed with white.
CBS Dallas
“You’ll either see a lot of that white, dense scarring or you’ll see it throughout the entire lung. Even you’re not feeling problems now the fact that that’s on your chest X-ray — it sure is indicative of you possibly having problems later on,” Bankhead-Kendall identified.
She mentioned it is too early to know the extent of COVID-19’s affect in your physique or if the scarring will heal, nevertheless it’s vital that in the event you’re experiencing shortness of breath after your COVID-19 goes away, you keep in contact along with your main care physician.
She provides, “There is no long-term implication of a vaccine that could ever be as bad as the long-term implications of COVID.”
