A staggering array of over 200 symptoms are still experienced by post-COVID patients despite recovery from the initial illness.
Almost one in ten of those who have recovered still have ongoing symptoms, including dizziness, diarrhoea, shortness of breath, fatigue and a debilitating brain fog that can last for months or even years, according to the BBC.
A new imaging technique has revealed the source of long-lasting Covid in the lungs, ScienceAlert reported.
“It is disappointing that even long-term COVID patients describing breathing problems show normal results on standard clinical breathing tests,” said respirologist Michael Nicholson of St. Joseph’s Health Care London, adding that the findings allow them to show the presence of a physiological impact on [patient] lungs that correlate with their symptoms.
The scans also showed the extensive damage that COVID-19 can cause to a person’s respiratory organs.
Extensive lung damage
According to the study published in Radiology, abnormal gas transfer and pulmonary vascular density were reported in patients with post-acute COVID-19 syndrome (PACS).
Whether caused by the virus itself or the body’s response, some mechanism effectively reduced the function of the patients’ pulmonary vessels, affecting many of the smallest ones where essential gas exchange takes place.
To monitor activity in these tiny airways and blood vessels in real time, the researchers, led by Western University physicist Alexander Matheson, instructed 40 volunteers — 34 with post-acute COVID-19 syndrome and 6 without — to inhale polarized xenon gas an isotope that resonates at a characteristic frequency in an MRI.
To summarize their findings, even an insufficiently severe infection in patients with post-COVID symptoms shows an abnormality in the exchange of oxygen across the alveolar membrane in red blood cells, said Western University medical biophysicist Grace Paraga.
Apparently, the transition of oxygen in red blood cells was suppressed in those symptomatic patients who had COVID-19 compared to healthy volunteers, she added.
In addition, vascular damage is reflected by the MRI scan, suggesting that the flu-like symptoms common to COVID-19 are not just another respiratory disease, but also a vascular disease.
Also read: CDC warns us about the unusual symptoms that come with monkeypox
Potential mechanisms for impaired gas exchange
The team illustrated several potential mechanisms for the change in gas exchange they witnessed, showing that some vessels may lose their flexibility, which reduces available blood, changes blood pattern, diverts blood away from regions of gas exchange, or blocks blood to get there.
However, the team fears that their sample size may not be sufficient to provide a more conclusive generalization, but they are open to further investigation.
However, whatever the mechanism behind it, it’s clear to them that the virus gets involved and messes with the circulatory system, targeting directly the endothelial cells that line the walls of our blood vessels and heart.
In fact, any infection with COVID-19 carries a risk of damage to blood vessels, from clotting problems to heart disease.
“I was on oxygen for almost two months after COVID, and it took me almost three months to get to a place where I could go for a walk without being out of breath,” according to one study participant, noting that the virus can have very serious long-term consequences that are not trivial.
Related article: South Korea’s first homemade Covid vaccine approved for 18+
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