1/🧵🎥 Former ICU Nurse with #LongCOVID👇 describes disabling #POTS (Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome)
“I'm an Ivy League grad & former ICU nurse who got COVID a year ago (before #vaccination). I had no medical problems & now suffering Long COVID so badly…”
2/ …”that I can’t work in the ICU and basically have a desk job. POTS & Long COVID gave me a racing heart, dizzy head & inability to function adequately in life. It’s horrible. My brain fog makes it impossible to execute tasks to care for patients. Life as I knew it seems over.”
3/ …she said, “It irks me to hear people downplay this disease when I'm suffering this badly a year later. I’ve been vaccinated myself now. We are surging again. People are scared. Let’s talk this out & find a way out of the €%£! pandemic.”
This study in 43 ICU pts showed 50% had heart injury on admission & 70% by 3 dys. This included disease of the pericardium sack, electrical rhythm, plus the heart muscle itself. What does all this mean? @CHESTCritCare
5/ Studies show the heart muscle, electrical system & the area around our heart (sack + fluid) can all be involved early in #COVID19. The CHEST study👆found there was more right-sided 💔problems especially when there is lung destruction, which happens a ton in #COVID…
6/ To understand POTS in #LongCOVID, we have to 🧐 about a crossover disease involving BOTH heart & nervous system. This paper proposes 4 mechanisms: hypovolemia, destroyed peripheral neurons, brainstem problems, and immune problems. Fascinating & Scary.
7/ The type of 💔 failure this nurse has leaves the pumping fxn of the heart preserved, but the relaxation gets damaged. It leads to shortness of breath & “tachycardia” that disables her. This can help explain many pts #LongCOVID symptoms. She’s on two powerful meds to help.
8/ 🎥 Our nurse has ongoing ankle swelling, heart racing, anxiety, and her life is totally topsy-turvy because of #LongCOVID heart failure. It’s been ~1 YEAR & this has likely changed her life forever. She has chosen to share her story to help others. Listen to Jennifer!👇
9/fin
Please do not neglect your own health after #COVID19 or discount another person’s #LongCOVID symptoms just because they “look normal” on the outside. Remember what the boy said to the mole & the horse to the boy…@CharlieMackesy @Dr2NisreenAlwan
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Today the mom of a 4 y/o boy who is in 📚#EveryDeepDrawnBreath wrote me & said to share this pic (w his twin). The family’s story can help us understand life after #CriticalIllness:
“Dr. Wes, we are 2 years out & he’s got a new limp!”
WHY?
2/ Mom writes: “Many appointments later we have learned that either his septic shock, ECMO, or the strokes caused damage to his growth plates. His left leg & foot are shorter than his right leg & right foot.”
This feature of pediatric #PICS will also affect sick #COVID19 kids.
3/ She goes on… “The doc at the children's hospital who we see said any of these 3 conditions can cause this to happen and our son had all three (strokes, septic shock, ECMO).”
In my last week’s @WashingtonPost piece, I wrote, “Any health-care professional who has to make impossible ethical choices likely incurs MORAL INJURY.”
2/ This article tackles it: bit.ly/2Vp0Rka
It’s not burn-out, which is characterized by exhaustion, cynicism, and decreased productivity.
Moral injury occurs when we’re forced to make decisions that go against our deeply held beliefs.
3/ Moral injury was used in 2009 to describe Iraq soldiers’ responses to actions in war. It is “perpetrating, failing to prevent, bearing witness to, or learning about acts that transgress deeply held moral beliefs and expectations.”
My #1 point: "The main thing is to listen. As soon as we start jamming stuff down someone’s throat, they quit listening because we’re not listening to them.”
2/ "So what I found is just to be a person & say, 'I'm looking at you in the eyes,' I'm here for you, and I want to listen to what what's going on with you, and you tell me, please, what is it that's getting you afraid?' …
3/ “Try and really understand, put yourself in their place and then on an individual basis, address each fear…1 by 1..."
In her @ScienceMag piece, @Dr2NisreenAlwan teaches that @Twitter & FB served a purpose but can’t remain our authority in defining devastating disability suffered by millions after #COVID19. We must have more science!
2/ In 2020 the main support for pts with prolonged symptoms came from online testimonials and absent community testing sites, people were left to guess as to whether or not their crazy symptom profile was due to COVID.
3/ “A common theme emerged: lack of recognition by the medical profession. Patients, including doctors, w #LongCovid consulted healthcare providers & their symptoms were commonly minimized, dismissed, or labeled as anxiety.”
Look how my patient’s right leg flails around. This is INVOLUNTARY. He’s trying to stop but his brain is doing this against his will. It is “hemiballismus” & was caused by a fungus deep inside his brain. Read🧵
Link: bit.ly/3ixnWcx
2/ He was having these movements day & night. Unable to sleep. We admitted him to our ICU and realized the fungus Cryptococcus was causing a brain infection called meningitis. He had no underlying immune diseases or other health problems.
Another 🎥, all shown w his permission
3/ His MRI showed 2 pockets of infection on both sides of his brain in a place called the basal ganglia, which controls movement. This area had to heal for him to rest and be at peace again.
🎥👇This man is suffering a form of longCovid wrought by complications of his ICU illness. He’s a clear example of the most severe form of #longCovid, also known as #PICS, for “post intensive care syndrome”…
2/ There are vastly different ways Covid will affect people over future months & years. Do we split those into multiple diseases or lump them into 1 big syndrome (w subgroups) to grab millions of people & help grow advocacy & gain footing?
3/ #PICS is mainly encompassed by cognitive difficulties, an acquired dementia called ADRD (#Alzheimers Disease & Related-Dementias), as well as #PTSD and depression PLUS profound muscle and nerve disease called ICU-AW (ICU Acquired Weakness).