Menu
COVID is a disease that affects your respiratory system and can cause long-term damage. How does COVID-19 affect the lungs, and what are some treatment options to address more persistent symptoms?
Today, Carda is here to discuss the effects that this virus can have on your respiratory symptoms, as well as how you can manage these effects. Read on to learn how you can support your overall pulmonary health through Carda.
Covid is a respiratory disease, which means that it affects your lungs in addition to other parts of your respiratory tract. When someone contracts the coronavirus, the sars-cov-2 virus begins to travel down their airway passages, which can irritate the lining. As the immune system fights back against the infection, the airways often swell as part of their defensive response.
In mild or moderate COVID cases, the virus often only affects one lung and only reaches the upper or sometimes the upper and lower parts of the respiratory tract. However, in more severe cases of COVID-19, the virus can infect both lungs, which can cause more swelling and fluid buildup in the lungs.
In severe cases, COVID can even travel past the respiratory tract and reach the tiny air sacs called the alveoli that facilitate oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange. When the virus reaches the alveoli, it can cause damage to their lining and walls, causing them to swell and thicken.
This increased thickness can diminish the lungs' ability to exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide, which can be life-threatening and may lead to respiratory failure.
If you experience symptoms that persist or come back after you no longer have the virus, then this could be a sign that you have lung damage due to severe COVID-19.
These persistent symptoms can include:
Additionally, if you notice that your lung capacity feels diminished, such as that even light, non-demanding day-to-day activities make you short of breath, this could also be a sign that you have developed lung damage from COVID.
Lung damage from COVID-19 and other variants can cause other health conditions to build up, including pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome, pulmonary fibrosis, or worsened COPD. Let’s take a closer look at each of these complications below.
A COVID-19 infection can cause pneumonia, a respiratory infection that occurs when there is inflammation and fluid buildup in your lungs. Pneumonia affects the alveoli, which are the tiny air sacs in your lungs that facilitate oxygen and carbon dioxide exchange as you inhale and exhale.
In this infection, these little sacs fill with fluid, which can diminish their oxygen intake and lead to shortness of breath and low oxygen levels. Other pneumonia symptoms can include a cough, fever, chills, nausea, chest pain, and fatigue.
While pneumonia can present in one or both lungs, pneumonia caused by COVID often appears in both lungs. COVID-19 pneumonia can also last longer and be harder to treat than a regular pneumonia infection.
If pneumonia persists, the infection can lead to ARDS, or Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. With ARDS, there is so much fluid buildup in the alveoli that a person experiences severe shortness of breath.
ARDS is a serious condition that can lead to lung failure if a person does not seek immediate medical attention. Someone who has a particularly hard time inhaling enough air and presents with rapid, shallow, and labored breathing may have ARDS.
If you experience immense difficulty breathing and feel like you still cannot intake enough air no matter how quickly you inhale, you should seek immediate medical attention. Treatment for ARDS often involves supplemental oxygen through a hospital ventilator machine.
Sometimes, the coronavirus disease can damage your lung tissue such that it thickens and scars. With stiff lungs, the tissue is not able to expand as well, and your lungs cannot adequately fill with enough air. As such, a patient will likely experience shortness of breath, chest pain, and fatigue as prominent symptoms of this type of lung damage.
This type of lung tissue damage is called pulmonary fibrosis. Pulmonary fibrosis is a chronic condition that gradually worsens over time. Treatment options focus on managing the disease to mitigate the discomfort that its signs and symptoms can cause.
If a person with a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) diagnosis develops COVID, then they can experience worsened COPD. COPD, which is actually an umbrella term for a group of diseases that affect the lungs, occurs when there is lung damage such that obstructions in the airflow passages lead to diminished oxygen intake.
Typically, COPD progresses gradually, and a patient with this chronic lung disease could go for years only experiencing mild symptoms. However, if another infection, such as COVID-19, aggravates the lung tissue, then COPD could progress more rapidly.
If you notice exacerbations in your shortness of breath or wheezing, more prominent chest pain, a change in your cough, or more prevalent fatigue, then these could all be signs that your COPD is progressing, and you should talk to your healthcare provider.
Usually, your healthcare provider will order some tests or imaging to determine if you have lung damage. There are many different test options, each differing in complexity and in how it portrays results.
A common, less complex test your healthcare provider may order is spirometry, which helps assess your lung capacity. With a spirometry test, your doctor will ask you to inhale and exhale deeply through a tube. As you exhale, the spirometer measures the volume of air that you breathe out at various times during your exhale.
Your doctor may also order more complex imaging tests, including a chest X-ray, a computerized tomography (CT) scan, or a chest ultrasound.
Unfortunately, while there is no way to reverse damage to the lungs, there are ways to mitigate the signs and symptoms that the damage can cause. As such, treatment for COVID lung damage often involves addressing and managing the symptoms.
Eating a healthy diet, getting plenty of sleep, and managing stress are generally good lifestyle treatment options for a person who has lung damage due to COVID. Additionally, it’s important to seek help for tasks that aggravate your symptoms.
In some cases, your healthcare provider may prescribe medications or put you on supplemental oxygen therapy to help manage your shortness of breath. Additionally, your doctor may recommend engaging in safe exercises that work to strengthen your lung muscles.
One of the best ways to support your lung health after COVID-19 is to listen to your body and plan a daily routine accordingly. If your body is telling you that you cannot do as much because you still experience shortness of breath, then it’s okay to take some more time to rest.
Maintaining a lifestyle that reflects your wellness and overall well-being is also important. You can do this by eating a healthy diet, getting enough sleep, staying hydrated, and engaging in pulmonary-safe exercise routines.
Participating in a lung rehabilitation program is another great way to accomplish your lifestyle and well-being goals, especially with guidance from expert physiologists to help mentor you in your exercise routine. Let’s go a little bit more in-depth into what lung rehab is below.
Lung rehab is a program that emphasizes education, lifestyle changes, and guided exercise in order to strengthen one’s lung muscles and promote overall pulmonary health. In a pulmonary rehab program, a person often works with a healthcare provider and a physiologist to develop a treatment plan as they recover from their lung disease.
Lung rehab can be hard to commit to in person since you have to factor in transportation, parking, and learning alongside a group of people. However, Carda offers a fully virtual cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation program that you can participate in at home.
Once you get a referral from your healthcare provider and sign up online, we’ll send you all the at-home equipment you need to get started on your pulmonary rehabilitation journey.
The coronavirus is an infectious disease that infects the lungs. COVID-19 infections can be mild or moderate, in which cases they often resolve on their own with no residual symptoms or lung tissue damage. However, COVID-19 infection cases may also be more severe and can cause permanent lung damage.
While lung damage due to COVID-19 is unfortunately not reversible, there are treatment options that you can use to help manage your long-term residual symptoms at home. Additionally, the long-term effects of COVID-19 are still not fully known or understood because the virus has not been around long enough to truly study the long-term effects.
Talk to your healthcare provider today if you are still experiencing COVID symptoms long after your recovery. They may suggest that you participate in a pulmonary rehabilitation program to strengthen your lung muscles and support your overall respiratory strength and health.
Sources:
Long COVID: Long-Term Effects of COVID-19 | Johns Hopkins Medicine
COPD - Symptoms and causes | Mayo Clinic
How To Manage Fatigue and Other Long COVID Symptoms | Cleveland Clinic
Long COVID or Post-COVID Conditions | Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
.png)
