In one of his Twitter posts, he says that “postcovid lungs look worse than any kind of terrible smoker’s lung we’ve ever seen.”
“Everyone is so worried about mortality and that’s terrible and it’s terrible. But man, and all the survivors and people who have tested positive, it’s going to be a problem,” Dr. Bankhead-Kendall said.
COVID “long carriers”: some who first saw mild symptoms with debilitating problems months later
Like many, he has treated thousands of patients since March.
Of them, he tells CBS 11 News those who have had symptoms of COVID-19 every time they present with a severe chest x-ray. And those who were asymptomatic have a severe chest x-ray 70% to 80% of the time.
“There are still people who say,‘ I’m fine, I don’t have a problem ’and you take off your chest x-ray and they have a bad chest x-ray,” he said.
Here is a photo of a normal lung, a smoker and a COVID-19 lung that Dr. Bankhead-Kendall shared with CBS 11 News.
Healthy lungs are clean and black represents air. In the smoker’s lung, white lines are indicative of scarring and congestion. While the COVID lung fills with white.
“Either you’ll see a lot of those dense white scars or you’ll see it all over your lungs. And if you don’t have any problems now, the fact that it’s on your chest x-ray is sure to tell you to have problems later,” he said. Dr. Bankhead-Kendall.
He said it is too early to know the extent of the impact of COVID-19 on your body or whether the scars will heal, but he said it is important that if you are short of breath after COVID-19 disappears , keep in touch with your primary care physician.
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