Originally Posted by
Heavyweight
I can explain why the viral pneumonia caused by COVID19 is particularly nasty. It attacks the lungs in three phases:
1. Your lungs have two types of cells....those that generate mucus and those that make cilia. Cilia are like little baseball bats. The mucus traps the virus or other contaminants and the cilia beat it out of your lungs. COVID19 does an excellent job of attacking the cilia which prevents you from effectively coughing up the viral laced mucus.
2. Next your immune system kicks in to battle the inflammation rapidly advancing in your lungs. The inflammatory response in the body is usually a very tight, controlled response. But with COVID19 we see the body flood the lungs with immunity response. Instead of those cells just repairing and clearing the damaged lung tissue, they kill everything they come into contact with. So you get more damage instead of less from your own immune response.
3. During the third and final phase your lung damage continues to build. The body’s immune response punches tiny holes in the lungs giving them a honeycomb appearance under fluoroscopy. These lesions cause scar tissue which can stiffen and protect the lungs. But in the short term this further diminishes lung capacity and this is generally when we put the patient on a ventilator. Meanwhile inflammation makes the membranes between the lung’s air sacs and blood vessels more permeable and this can then further fill with fluid.
Man...I hope this makes sense. I’m really tapped guys. Going back to bed.
Stay safe
Heavyweight
#2 is the dreaded "cytokine storm", your post was a good explanation for non-medical people.
#3 explains why COVID-19 patients seem to have pinkish frothy secretions that have to be constantly suctioned out of the ET tube. The increased permeability of the AC membrane allows blood to mix with the secretions and give it that pink color.
I hope you get better soon, REAL soon. Please keep us posted as there are several of us here who are HCW and will be all up in this crap.
11C2P '83-'87
Airborne Infantry
F**k China!
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