Anosmia, “Happy Hypoxia” and other weird coronavirus symptoms explained

Anosmia, “Happy Hypoxia”, and Thrombosis: What Scientists Know and Do Not Know

TThe Covid-19 pandemic is an unprecedented event in modern medicine, with healthcare providers seeing an abnormal number of severely ill people. Many providers believe that the new coronavirus causes strange behavior in the human body. In some cases it may be correct, but not in all.

Some of the side effects associated with Covid-19 are abnormal symptoms of respiratory infections, but some are more frequently observed by doctors due to the large number of infected people. As pandemics occur, both physicians and the general public struggle to distinguish between the two as a way to better understand the virus. The following are three symptoms that have recently been noted.

One symptom described as Mysterious complications The severity of Covid-19 infection is the presence of blood clots in severely ill people.

so Pre-publishing research The authors elaborated on the autopsy findings of 20 people in Louisiana who died of Covid-19 and described the coagulation of small blood vessels in the lungs of many patients. A group of Dutch scientists also described Inpatient series People with coagulation complications; most of those complications were in the veins of the lungs.

The process of clot formation in human blood involves hundreds, if not thousands, of proteins and cells. Doctors specializing in blood disorders can usually identify the cause of coagulopathy by looking for patterns in blood tests that measure the amount of these proteins and cells.

However, coagulation with many serious Covid-19 infections avoids that effort. Blood tests on people with these infections “do not fit the usual pattern,” says Adrienne Phillips, a hematology and oncology specialist at Wel Cornell Medicine in New York City. This makes it difficult to identify the root cause of coagulation in these people, and as a result makes it difficult to make broad recommendations to prevent or treat these clots.

Another unusual feature of coagulation associated with Covid-19 is associated with the size of the blood vessel in which the thrombus was found. Critically ill patients who are not using Covid-19 often have large blood clots as a side effect of lack of locomotion and disease-related inflammation in the body. These factors make coagulation more likely to occur, and for many years, the most ill people have, of course, been given antithrombotic medications during hospital stay.

However, many people with Covid-19 who are taking antithrombotic drugs still develop thrombosis in their lungs. It occurs not only in large blood vessels, but also in very small blood vessels. “It makes this coagulation unique,” says Phillips. The abnormal location of these clots raises concerns that coagulation is not only a side effect of Covid-19 infection, but in fact its feature.

These thrombotic features are so unusual that there is growing concern that coagulation is responsible for the majority of catastrophic infections, so agents that prevent or destroy thrombi may help people infected with the novel coronavirus. Several studies are underway to investigate whether it is possible.

This set of symptoms may seem unusual, but it is not the symptoms themselves, but the number of people experiencing the disorder.

The existence of “happy hypoxia” is a phenomenon in which people with low blood oxygen levels do not actually feel short of breath, and are also treated as news reports. Clinical Conundrum. The extent of lung disease caused by Covid-19 is not yet fully understood, but this particular symptom is not new, says Martin Tobin, professor of lung and emergency medicine at Loyola University.

Regarding lung functioning in the context of Covid-19 infections, “our understanding of how the body responds to major challenges remains unchanged,” he says.

At baseline, people always produce carbon dioxide waste as a side effect of their normal metabolism, as the human body needs a stable supply of fresh oxygen to live. A healthy lung exchanges oxygen for carbon dioxide in many small air sacs of the lung.

When a part of the lung completely blocks air or blood flow, it will not be replaced and oxygen levels will drop. However, carbon dioxide, which is more easily exchanged than oxygen, will still leak from the lungs unless the rest of the lung tissue is relatively healthy and hardened by age or disease, such as uncontrolled asthma or severe pneumonia. there is.

As a result, oxygen and carbon dioxide levels are low, and people can actually feel fairly comfortable at low oxygen levels if they aren’t actually exercising, Tobin says. Prior to this outbreak, doctors occasionally saw this same pattern in people with healthy lungs who developed bacterial pneumonia called “lobar pneumonia.”

“This is a very contagious virus affecting thousands, tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands of people,” Tobin said. Doctors aren’t used to assessing people with respiratory problems with these numbers, and they don’t have to make decisions on a large number in a very short period of time. Therefore, while this set of symptoms may seem unusual, in reality it is not the symptoms themselves, but the number of people experiencing them.

The loss of odor associated with Covid-19 has been reported by so many in the relatively early stages of the infection route, often with no nasal inflammation.

There are relatively common Covid-19 complications that are less common in other infections. Among them are odors and loss of taste. Ah Pre-publishing research A group of German author groups compared 45 infected individuals diagnosed with Covid-19 with 45 uninfected ones, with 40% of infected individuals and none of the uninfected individuals losing their sense of smell I have found another Peer-reviewed French studies Almost half of all people infected with Covid-19 have found odor loss lasting an average of 9 days. Eighty-five percent of those who lost their odor also lost their taste. But Case report French investigators often emphasized the absence of other symptoms associated with loss of olfaction, noting that 60% of those with an olfaction have runny nose.

Long before the advent of Covid-19, doctors realized that odors could get worse Various conditions, Infections between them. Ah Japanese language learning The virus was confirmed in 15 of 24 people who reported smelling problems after headache and nasal discharge. Most were rhinoviruses, one of the most common causes of runny nose, and one was coronavirus.

It is often when a cold in the head causes a loss of smell I thought it was the result Of swelling and mucus in the nasal cavity that blocks olfactory receptors. However, persistent swelling of these passages kills the nerve cells that carry the olfactory sensation to the brain, resulting in the inability to sniff even after the swelling is gone (although usually Swelling will return).

The loss of odor associated with Covid-19 has been reported by a large number of people relatively early in the infection pathway, and often it is rare for the nasal cavity to lack inflammation or secretions. These features allow some scientists to Nerves involved in odor sensing Or Other cells in the lining Nasal passage. But, like all the strange symptoms associated with infection, further investigation is needed to really understand what is happening.