Strokes, heart attacks, sudden deaths: Does America understand the long-term risks of catching COVID

[Nittersing]

"A 35-year-old acquaintance drops dead from a hemorrhagic stroke. A friend in her 40s, and another in his 70s, experience recurrent spells of extreme dizziness, their hearts pounding in their chests when they stand. A 21-year-old student with no prior medical history is admitted to the ICU with heart failure, while a 48-year-old avid tennis player, previously healthy, suddenly suffers a heart attack. A relative is diagnosed with pericarditis, an inflammation of the protective sac surrounding the heart.

I can’t confirm the exact etiology of all these cases. But every one of the people I mentioned had a history of COVID either days or months beforehand–and all of them experienced only mild cases of infection at the time.

Is it possible, despite everything we know, that we still underestimate COVID’s reach and danger? It is not normal for me to know so many people with severe conditions. Not normal at all.

Lengthy social media threads have begun compiling lists of people much like those mentioned above, and while there are many possible causes for their health misfortunes, the sheer volume of cases speaks to something more worrisome than just a Twitter phenomenon."

https://fortune.com/2022/10/06/strokes-heart-attacks-sudden-death-america-long-term-risks-catching-covid-carolyn-barber/

[SheltieLover]

1. Guessing not, judging by lack of masks

[BlackSkimmer]

10. I'm not seeing any of our leaders wearing masks.

I’m assuming they’re vaccinated, as I am, and I also assume they have access to all the latest info.

[liberal_mama]

25. Our leaders should be wearing masks to set a good example. I assume a lot of people aren't wearing

masks because they see politicians not wearing masks. People really should be wearing masks, especially in areas of high community transmission. Covid is not over and thousands of Americans are dying and becoming disabled every week.

My beloved dad (early 70s and healthy) died of Covid 2 weeks ago. He had all of his vaccines/boosters. It was the most horrible and painful death you can ever imagine. It's so much worse than if he had just dropped dead of a heart attack. I would be devastated, but I can accept that people eventually die. But this was different. Some scumbag plague spreader infected him and I feel that he was murdered by that person.

I read all the latest Covid studies too. Wear a good mask (N95 or equivalent), it can save your life, or the life of someone you love. It can prevent you from developing all sorts of terrible health consequences from Covid infection.

No family should have to go through the pain my family is experiencing right now.

[BlackSkimmer]

30. Yes, I was unlucky enough to contract it before the vaxes came out.

I’m very healthy, and I was over the worst in a week. Full recovery took much longer. I’ve never been that sick before.

I wear my mask because I have no wish to revisit that. However, I have friends who have taken their cue from Biden, et.al., and they seem convinced it’s safe now. These same people wore masks before it was recommended and after the mandate dropped.

But they’re certain that if Democratic leaders aren’t wearing masks, then things must be safe. I don’t share their confidence.

[barbtries]

37. I'm so sorry for your loss.

I agree with you about the masks. There's more than just covid out there. Flu, RSV, these can make you miserable and can kill you too.

I have to say though, I have not seen the sequelae the OP has, not by a long shot. Many people I know have had covid, at least more than one time, but no serious problems as of yet. But that's the thing about this virus: NOBODY knows how their body will react to it.

Again, heartbroken for your family and the years stolen from your dad.

[Warpy]

18. Masks aren't magic

and don't protect the wearer as much as they stop infected people from infecting others. That means if I have the faintest scratchy throat or sniffle, on goes the mask if I'm going to be around other people.

The CDC has said they're no longer necessary for healthy people. My state has a 92% vaccination rate and while we're having an outbreak now, hospitalizations are few and death rates have gone far down.

No one was masked at my doctor's office last Monday, and I saw few at Wally's when I got my drugs. They are no longer necessary for healthy people.

I had the original disease in all its nasty glory in March, 2020, before they knew what it did to people. I noticed I was making a lot of really hilarious typos and that I didn't pick them up easily unless a post had sat there for 10 minutes or so. It was bizarre. I've mostly stopped doing that and I pick them up quickly now, so the damage wasn't permanent. Now the typos that slip through are ordinary brain fart typos and they stay there because I can't see them.

However, I haven't stroked out or dropped dead from a heart attack. I guess it's true, you can't kill an Irishman.

[Duppers]

41. Exactly. TY.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

2. K&R. We'll be paying for this for a long, long time.

[dembotoz]

3. heard it before hear it again get your shots

[Quakerfriend]

4. Sadly, I don't think we will ever know for sure

just how damaging Covid is.

And, most people simply don’t want to believe that these conditions- particularly the wide array of serious heart conditions- might be tied to their bout of Covid.

Strange, and most likely unrelated, I’ve known 3 people who had Covid and several weeks later found out they had breast cancer.

[JudyM]

12. That is strange

Maybe because it’s an inflammatory condition so it accelerates previously undetected cancer? That would be astonishingly rapid, though.

It clearly has a broader impact on the physiology of so many people, far beyond the immediate symptoms. All these folks who keep saying “it’s like the flu now” are not on top of the reality of the risk.

[SoBlueInFL]

20. Posted in wrong spot!

[lostnfound]

31. Sure it could be related

‘patients with presumed long COVID had proteins in their blood demonstrating rapid changes in their blood vessels in the weeks and months after a confirmed COVID-19 infection“

Rapid changes in blood vessels could easily be related. Cancer cells co-opt blood vessels to feed themselves.

VE-Cad (VE-cadherin) is on list of biomarkers that are elevated in long Covid. ‘

VE-cadherin is also known to “enhance cancer cell adhesion to endothelial cells”. ‘Vascular endothelial (VE)-cadherin is expressed aberrantly by breast cancer cells..”

[Wounded Bear]

5. Anti-vaxxers are blaming them all on the vaccines...

[Hugh_Lebowski]

13. It's not impossible it's at least related to vaccination, when you get down to it

In a rushed rollout like we had (of necessity) for a novel virus, it's theoretically possible that every single possibility wasn't accounted for.

Not saying it's LIKELY but if it turns out that vaccinated people who'd only had mild cases are dropping dead not that long after that case in higher numbers ... it would be cause to at least wonder, put it like that.

At this point right now there's little cause to think this phenomenon, if even real to begin with, is related to the vaccines. So these people are just grandstanding ATM.

[lostnfound]

26. Could be confounding variables IMO

COVID is far worse. Aftermath of covid shows at least a few consistent biomarkers treated to abnormal blood vessel makeup.

But there is that myocarditis link for lne of the vaccines that affected young men in particular. Since most people who got COVID in early 2021 subsequently got the vaccines and sometimes boosters, it’s a bit confounding.

[Quakerfriend]

6. A large prospective study looking at 40K people

who had had Covid in Europe found a worsening of all medical conditions post Covid- diabetes, arthritis , asthma etc. etc.- but, particularly heart conditions.

I’ll see if I can find the reference.

[JudyM]

14. Appalachiablue posted an article re: Covid causing a slew of neurological disorders, too.

Covid Can Raise Risk of Developing 44 Neurological Disorders, Incl. Alzheimer's, New Study Suggests
Here: https://www.democraticunderground.com/114229120

My mother still has a drop in her cognitive abilities from a quickly-resolved case of Covid she experienced in July. Apparently this is most common with seniors, and there’s some research suggesting it resolves back to baseline in many cases. Fingers crossed over here!

[SoBlueInFL]

23. I've got an article saved on my computer. Here's the link:

https://scitechdaily.com/brain-shrinkage-even-mild-cases-of-covid-19-can-leave-a-mark-on-the-brain-such-as-reductions-in-gray-matter/

[Rebl2]

7. Have a friend

who has a friend that had a daughter in early twenties die from a blood clot while she had Covid. This was before vaccinations were available. I believe she had gotten some better then got worse again. Her mom was a nurse and don’t think the daughter was ever in the hospital-likely no room at that time. Very sad.

[Scrivener7]

9. Important article. Thank you.

I did a Halloween outing in a theater. I was masked, but I decided that was my swansong of populated places for a while till we see what this strain in Asia is going to do to us.

[W_HAMILTON]

11. Maybe nothing to do with COVID, but...

...my mom just had a stroke sometime around this past Friday. She is elderly (mid-80s), so maybe it is expected and her situation would be written off by most, but she also had COVID back when it first hit around the summer of 2020 (well before vaccines).

[Initech]

15. No, and the MAGA lunatics would rather drop dead than "comply".

[bucolic_frolic]

19. And there is hope that trend will continue for years to come.

Red households - anti-vaxxers - may be more unhealthy from covid than the rest of us.

[Initech]

36. And they will never get it either.

Of course that's what happens when your brains are rotted by propaganda and you're unable to tell bullshit from reality.

[markodochartaigh]

16. One way

to look at the problem is to look at excess deaths, the number of deaths greater than what would have been expected during the same period in previous years. Excess deaths are up by around half a million, depending on the measures used. Since covid often is asymptomatic or has symptoms which could be mistaken for another disease, and especially since covid was highly politicized by the right- so people may be biased in their reportage, and since testing was handled more as a profit making opportunity than as a health care issue, it will be extremely difficult for scientists to understand the true death toll of the pandemic. But a half million deaths is nothing to sneeze at, that is twice any other cause except heart disease, cancer, or covid itself.

And not to get political, but the quickest and most effective way to reduce those statistics is to vote for Republicans who use statistical analysis strategies such as "Ignorance is Bliss", "Don't Believe Your Lying Eyes", "Like Lambs to the Slaughter", and "A Single Death is a Tragedy, a Million Deaths is DeMoCrATiC PrOpAgAnDa".

[RockCreek]

28. This n/t

[bucolic_frolic]

17. I think it's like aging the body 40 years.

Circulation remains youthful but carrying capacity is impaired? Certain cells are aged by covid - en masse - more than others. Synchronicity is messed up.

[dugog55]

21. I scan through the obituaries every day. It is amazing how many people

between 25 and 65 died "unexpectedly". Some weeks it is two or three, some weeks as many as a dozen. The obituaries in the Post-Gazette in Pgh. usually have cause of death listed. These are written by the families of course, and when someone dies it would read; "he died after a courageous three year battle with cancer" or he succumbed to an addiction he just could not shake, or he died from "name a disease".

But when no cause of death is listed for a 48 year old person that looks healthy in their photo, I assume most are Covid related. People in their 40's and 50's do occasionally die from "natural causes", what ever that means, but not in the numbers I have been seeing over the last two years.

I am not sure if doctors are covering this up, or just not testing to see if the virus is present, but way too many younger people are dying off for apparently no reason.

[Snackshack]

22. No, we don't.

And we won’t for a very long time.

[republianmushroom]

24. NO

They think they are made of stainless steel but it is only pot medal

[Roc2020]

27. Long Covid is a constant warning to the body

Anyone that has gotten covid needs to pay close attention to the daily behavior of the body. A little paranoia may be healthy.

[ffr]

29. TFG had Covid-19.

So did just about every anti-vax Rethug that I know.

[Prairie_Seagull]

32. Another study, This from VA ST. Louis.

https://www.research.va.gov/currents/0222-VA-research-spells-out-COVIDs-down-the-road-risks-for-cardiovascular-and-mental-health.cfm


In my discussion with DR. Zihad, via email, it appears something is going on.

[Richard D]

33. One thing I know

Is that antivaxxers will blame the vaccine, not covid.

[IronLionZion]

35. Why argue with antivaxxers

when you could just wait

[Richard D]

38. True . . .

So many of my old friends - some good ones - have gone full antivax. I guess it's why I keep trying.

[IronLionZion]

34. I'm hoping they make progress on treatments for long COVID

it sounds pretty awful for the folks who have it. I've even seen it on dating profiles where women want a guy who is comfortable dating a COVID long hauler with no end in sight. yikes

[Woodwizard]

39. Qanaon and other antivax conspiracy nuts.

Twist that same data and add that all those people dropping from heart attacks or strokes is because of getting the vaccine, or what they like to call it the clot shot.

My cousin I have known since being in diapers fell down that hole.

[MyMission]

40. Any illness might affect our overall health

Especially if we are compromised or vulnerable in specific areas, having a viral or bacterial or fungal infection can and does impact any number of our functions and faculties.

But covid seems to be causing more long term damage, and drawing attention to this fact because there are so many cases, and therefore lots of data. Maybe 30-40% of folks with any illness might develop other problems (my researcher mind asks).

My cousin worked in geriatric facilities, pre-covid, and found that when he noticed a decline in mental acuity it was sometimes due to a bladder infection or a change in diet and nutrients, or meds, which could be treated and would restore some of their mental and physical vitality. He's a psychologist. And an elderly friend recently had a high BP episode when getting a blood transfusion, which led her to being diagnosed with bronchitis. 2 examples of how non covid medical problems impact our systems.

Long covid clearly impacts many systems in profound ways. One cousin developed Lupus in 2020, my friend's niece developed a heart ailment, another cousin developed some neurological issues, all had had covid. They might have developed these problems years down the road, cousin's dad had lupus, but covid seems to have accelerated the disease and deterioration of many organs and systems.

I personally believe our diets affect our health and our abilities to fight off, lessen, or delay potential conditions. I've managed high hereditary blood sugar and cholesterol for years with diet, natural remedies and supplements rather than pharmaceuticals. But covid could affect my abilities to fight and control these issues I'm aware of, let alone any I'm not aware of. (This reminds me I need to pick up more vitamin D, which many people are deficient in. Early covid studies in various countries (2020) pointed to low levels correlating to severity of illness. Not sure how that plays out for LC.)

So I got vaccinated, get boosted, still wear a mask, and still try to avoid crowded places; and eat healthy and take my supplements. I know long covid is real, and I know the risks.