Covid-19 After effects

[Allan Carr]

One of our club members suffered what he thought was a relatively mild dose of Covid-19. He had a medical yesterday with Dr. Margaret Clamp and unfortunately has had his sign off deferred pending further tests in four week's time. His lung function test registered only 75% against a required minimum standard of 80%. Dr Clamp said she had had similar results with other divers who had suffered with Covid-19, as well as with non-divers requiring a medical as th result of Covid-19.

I had a long talk today with our grandson who is a medical scientist specialising in respiratory disorders at Charing Cross Hospital. He said that they have found that even mild cases of Covid-19 have resulted in lung function impairment, especially the exhale speed test used in diving medicals. He said that they do not carry out this test now until at least 6 weeks after recovery from symptoms. However, my grandson said that they haven't found any long-term damage from mild cases although it does take some weeks to recover even after patients feel that they are OK.

Just a warning to other members who believe that they may have gone down with Covid-19.

[Neilwood]

I suspect that more and more evidence will come out about the serious effects of this virus on the whole body never mind just the lungs.

There is already anecdotal evidence that the virus attacks more than just the respiratory system.

Quite how all of this affects divers long term remains to be seen

[cazyoung]

The virus causes the blood to become thickened and sticky this then affects all the organs in the body to a greater or lesser extent. Reduced lung function is just one of the many residual things that folks are suffering post infection. This all being well documented in the medical literature and in my place of work a study is just about to start looking at the brain in very high resolution using a very strong MRI scanner of post C-19 patients.

[iain/hsm]

Read that again and this time think engineered bio weapon.

Incidently in another unrelated "accident" out of the very Wuhan China this month is the Wuhan Kingold accident where 83 tonnes of gold used as collateral for a 20 billion yuan loan by an ex Peoples Liberation Army general turns out to be gold plated Tungsten. Good pay in the PLA I guess.

Look on the bright side they can always go into making Bic Biro balls with all that unwanted Tungsten.

[Tim Digger]

Many factors will affect the basic lung function tests done for dive medicals, these include a degree of muscle weakness post severe illness and some residual stiffness of the lung tissue that was inflamed either by the viral invasion of tissue or as a consequence in more severe cases of inflammation mediated lung damage (synonyms, ARDS, Non Cardiogenic Pulmonary Oedema) which can be caused by any severe systemic infection among many other causes. Ventilation of the lungs in this condition is fairly well understood to cause further damage as well as hopefully keeping the patient alive. In the more severe forms some patients fail to improve and healing by fibrosis can cause permanent limitation of lung function. After my bout of sepsis I had a minimal amount of non cardiac pulmonary oedema and even 3 months later a dive medical found a small but not significant decrease in my lung function (I felt back to normal by then) at a subsequent medical 2 years later I was back up to normal for height and weight. Try again in 6 months.

[Mikael]

Does anyone know a reliable private provider of Covid antibody tests (taken from a vein) close to East Sussex?
Bupa do but you have to travel to London.

[PeterL]

Does anyone know a reliable private provider of Covid antibody tests (taken from a vein) close to East Sussex?
Bupa do but you have to travel to London.

They have regional test sites and use one of the certified tests, haven’t looked in your area but would be a start.


https://medichecks.com/pages/coronav...st-information



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