More than 2 million people around the world have been infected with the novel coronavirus, but there's still a lot we don't know about how the disease affects the human body.
Respiratory issues are one of the key symptoms of infection, but other complications — like kidney issues and heart problems — have more recently risen to the surface as physicians struggle to better understand how to treat their patients.
With COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, doctors are also seeing blood clots in the lungs and bodies of patients. Clots can travel and create blockages in veins, leading to strokes, heart attacks, and other issues.
Some of the patients with blood clots are in hospitals in critical condition, while others diagnosed with the complications are otherwise healthy enough to be sent home.
That's what happened to Michael Reagan, a 49-year-old COVID-19 patient.
'It feels like a toxin is in my body'Reagan, who works for an international biomedical company in New York, was diagnosed with COVID-19 in late March and had been recovering at home in New York City for weeks. He was taking azithromycin, an antibiotic used to treat infections, and hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial medication, as a participant in a clinical trial.
His symptoms included breathing problems, a high fever, and coughing up blood. Reagan said he was starting to feel a little better early last week until he suddenly began to experience a high fever once again, along with chest pains.
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When he went into the hospital, Reagan said doctors told him coronavirus-related pneumonia had spread into both lungs. A pulmonologist later told him he had dozens of little blood clots throughout his lungs.
"It feels like a toxin is in my body," Reagan told Business Insider.
Blood clots in recovering coronavirus patients are a new worry for doctors. In early autopsy data from Northwell Health, about 40% of coronavirus patients who died after leaving the hospital appeared to have experienced major clotting events, like a massive heart attack or lung clots, Business Insider previously reported.
In a recent observational study, Dutch researchers reported that about one-third of the 184 coronavirus patients they observed in the intensive-care unit had a complication associated with a clot.
To treat his blood clots, Reagan ended up staying overnight in a hospital to receive tissue plasminogen activator, a protein used to treat heart attacks and strokes that helps break down blood clots. Reagan was then sent home with Eliquis, a blood thinner."I had no idea a blood clot could hurt so bad," Reagan said.
Because the pain is so intense, Reagan said he has trouble bending over or lifting his left arm. |
