“It’s Terrifying”: Doctors Say Half of COVID Patients “Healed” Still Suffering

Recovered COVID patients are confusing doctors with unusual pain, non-normal lungs, and various helpless psychological problems.

“What we see is very scary,” said Professor Gabriel Izbiki of the Shaaresedec Medical Center in Jerusalem, told The Times in Israel. “After weeks of testing, more than half of the patients are still showing symptoms.”

At Bnei Brak, Israel’s first community clinic, doctors have seen a surge of painful patients everywhere over the past few days, appearing to come from somewhere.

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“It can appear on the arms, legs, or other places where the virus doesn’t directly affect it, and when asked about the level of pain on a scale of 1-10, it can be 10, and people do Elan Schenker, director of a month-old clinic in Bnei Black operated by Maccabi Healthcare Services, said: “This is more common than last week. .”

Man coughing (iStock)

“Broken” by a virus

A patient in the clinic told The Times of Israel, provided her name was not made public. She was diagnosed in March and was negative a month ago. However, women in their 40s living in Bnei Black are still very tired and anxious and can only walk for a few minutes at a time.

“I feel like he’s broken,” she said, her husband, who also had a coronavirus in March and was negative last month. “He’s actually worse than when he was hospitalized.”

This was especially shocking to the family as they did not need oxygen during the first hospitalization in March and April and X-rays did not damage the lungs. He was hospitalized again in April with pneumonia-like symptoms and declared negative in May. However, the man developed pain and serious breathing problems and was seen at the clinic of a cardiologist, neurology specialist, rehabilitation team, and other specialists.

“It’s one of the hardest cases, but he’s not the worst, and we have more suffering patients,” said Schenker.

For all illnesses, patients may be freed from long hospital stays and use of ventilators may slow down complete recovery, although COVID-19 causes a pattern not normally seen. ing.

“I’m surprised that not only are people suffering from what we expect, but what we didn’t realize was relevant,” he told the Times in Israel. “It’s not a textbook.”

He emphasized that not all his patients were newly recovered. “Some of them contracted the coronavirus in March, so they may have recovered for several months,” he said.

Gabriel Izbiki, Director of the Lung Institute at the Shaarezedec Medical Center in Jerusalem (Shaarezedec Medical Center)

Izbicki, director of Shaare Zedek’s Pulmonary Institute, also emphasized that many of his patients have long been declared free of coronaviruses. One of the biggest surprises he said is the inability to predict which patients will find it difficult to get sick and which will not.

“There is no correlation between the severity of the illness in the hospital and the degree of subsequent symptoms,” he said, preliminary to his study of recovered patients treated in hospitals and coronavirus hotels. We discussed the results.

“Of the symptoms we checked, we revealed an overall weakness in addition to shortness of breath, persistent coughing, and other complex respiratory and lung problems in the majority of patients,” he said. He added that Schenker was also familiar with strange pains.

Pain is intolerable to some people, while others describe it as a greater discomfort: a burning sensation, a tingling sensation, or an uncomfortable sensation when the limbs do not feel normal.

These painful patients usually do not give a red light during major physical examinations. Schenker said: “We checked their lungs and heart and they are sick and have no neurological problems. I can see nothing on the scan, but I have this pain. Again and again. Is also said.”

Dan Oyero, Deputy Director of Medicine at Maccabi Healthcare Services in Central Israel (provided by Maccabi Healthcare Services)

Dan Oyello, deputy director of health care for Maccabi in central Israel, said that the most important problem doctors are addressing is the widespread changes in people’s lives, and doctors cannot predict endpoints. Said.

“The worst thing to do is to compare your current condition with what it was a few weeks before you were infected,” he said. “And they say they can’t do what they used to do.”

The taste and smell lost during illness may sometimes not return. Given that doctors have limited experience with illness, they cannot give a definite answer when asked if a patient will relapse. “I don’t know,” Oero said.

When doctors can call precedents from other illnesses, it may be bad news.

Eran Schenker, director of the clinic that recovered COVID patients at Bnei Brak, operated by Maccabi Healthcare Services (provided by Maccabi Healthcare Services)

“We have two lungs, but each lung is operating at 50%, so one lung equals one. That could happen for the rest of our life,” he said. He draws this conclusion from the pattern of lung damage seen in several other illnesses, but usually only affects patients who previously had lung complications.

“The damage was not done by a virus, but by an inflammatory process that, as we know from other diseases, does not leave the lungs with the ability to exchange oxygen as before,” Schenker commented.

Izbicki said COVID-related lung damage can affect patients of all ages and shares the concern that people are unable to restore full lung function. “I don’t know if the lung function tests will be normal,” he said.

Some patients require physical therapy. Schenker said: “We’ve seen cases of extreme weight loss that make people feel difficult to walk.” On the other hand, some people who can move their body have the energy to do so. Some people are not motivated.

Recovered patients with coronavirus see a cardiologist at a special clinic in Bneibrak operated by Maccabi Healthcare Services (in favor of Maccabi Healthcare Services).

Some of these patients are young and usually well, Schenker said.

“They may be educators, lawyers, and other professions, but it’s amazing how many people got back to work, but when they sat for an hour, they felt uneasy, I feel anxious and sometimes people suffer more than I expected.”

Oero said: “The main complaint is actually fatigue, compact [intense periods] Low energy-can’t name us. Many say they don’t have the energy they used to have. They are more tired. Some people say that they are not motivated to do things. We can’t name complaints or tell them that we have a particular syndrome, but we try to help them. “