In one of her Twitter posts, she says “post-covid lungs look worse than any terrible smoker’s lung we’ve ever seen.”
“Everyone’s so concerned about mortality and that’s awful and awful. But humans, and all the survivors and the people who tested positive, this is going to be a problem,” said Dr. Bankhead-Kendall.
COVID ‘long haulers’: Some who first saw mild symptoms experienced debilitating problems months later
Like many, she has treated thousands of patients since March.
Of them, she tells CBS 11 News that those who have had COVID-19 symptoms show a serious chest X-ray each time. And those who were asymptomatic show a severe chest X-ray 70% to 80% of the time.
“There are still people who say ‘I’m fine, I’m not having any problems’ and you pull up their chest x-ray and they have absolutely bad chest x-ray,” she said.
Here’s a picture of a normal lung, smoker’s lung, and a COVID-19 lung that Dr. Bankhead-Kendall shared with CBS 11 News.
The healthy lungs are clean and black represents the air. In the smoker’s lung, white lines indicate scarring and congestion. While the COVID lung is filled with white.
“You will either see a lot of those white dense scars, or you will see it all over the lungs. problems later, ”said Dr. Bankhead-Kendall.
She said it is too early to know the impact of COVID-19 on your body and whether the scars will heal, but she said it’s important if you experience shortness of breath after your COVID-19 clears , you should keep in touch with your primary care physician.
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