Thread by @loscharlos

It's surreal to read what has likely caused my severe, suffocating, debilitating #LongCovid breathlessness for 2 years.

"A team of researchers zeroed in on microscopic abnormality the way oxygen moves from the lungs into the blood vessels of LC patients"
globalnews.ca/news/8950820/l…

“'Those feelings of breathlessness are completely consistent with our finding that we’re not moving the oxygen as efficiently as we should'

Many #LongCovid sufferers have been stumping Docs as to what’s wrong with them.. routine clinical tests come back with normal readings."

"Using an MRI technique five times as sensitive and has five times the spatial resolution of a CT scan, the researchers were able to see how tiny branches of air tubes in the lungs were moving oxygen into the red blood cells of their patients."

"Red blood cells are responsible for transporting oxygen from the lungs to the rest of the body. Any disruption in the flow of this oxygen to red blood cells will trigger the brain to say, ‘breathe more’ — resulting in a feeling of breathlessness, Parraga explained."

"All 34 of the patients who participated in the study were experiencing problems in the level of oxygen being absorbed by their red blood cells.

And they all had the same result, regardless of the severity of their symptoms or whether they had been hospitalized for COVID-19 "

“The takeaway is that now we know what’s wrong..

The reason why this anomaly is happening is not yet known. But identifying this as a possible trigger for these patients’ symptoms is an important step in trying to learn more"

"Up until now, normal tests performed on these patients have not picked up what’s happening..

There’s nothing that’s absolutely obvious & so these individuals are now given an answer that actually there is something at this very particular site down the pathway that is abnormal"

ALL OF THIS is incredibly consistent with #MicroClots being at the source of this. Whether the clots are the end cause, or caused by persistent virus, etc is the question imo.

Thanks @clidihd for h/t. This is so validating, frustrating & scary to read.

LASTLY, there is absolutely no reason to think why this is only happening in the lungs. To me this is likely a very key culprit in every organ system.

LongCovid #MedTwitter what are some therapeutic hypothesis you'd like to see tested when reading about this issue?
@farid__jalali @calirunnerdoc @EdoajoEric @drclairetaylor @doctorasadkhan @drschweig @DaveLeeERMD @zalaly @fearnley_k @dbkell @bcdelaney1 @MVGutierrezMD @WesElyMD