5 ms·

Losing your sense of smell, while painful, is nothing compared to what other things can happen to the surviors. 50% of ICU patients have clotting problems. In f

Losing your sense of smell, while painful, is nothing compared to what other things can happen to the surviors. 50% of ICU patients have clotting problems. In fact it's so common that all covid patients are now put on anti-clotting medication, immediately, no questions asked. Would you mind losing your leg (getting that clot stuck in lower limbs)? Or getting a stroke (getting that clot in your brain), and losing a significant part of brain capacity, such as the ability to speak? Then, 30% have serious kidney problems and require nephrologist care or outright dialysis [1]. And we're still learning. Never forget the unknown unknowns. It's ridiculous to quote some survival statistic and call it a covid-barbecue. [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-hijacks-the-body-from-head-to-toe-perplexing-doctors-11588864248 https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronavirus-hijacks-the-body-fr...

C1sc0cat 6y ago
From uk experience if you go into ICU or any high risk ward they tend to put you in the inflatable leg splints. Serous kidney problems are no joke and you might well end up with chronic kidney failure - so you will be on the pathway to dialysis and transplant in the future.
arcticbull 6y ago
50% of ICU patients isn't even close to 50% of infected though, so it's important to keep that in mind.
- abiogenesis 6y ago
  Did 50% of infected lose their sense of smell or taste?
  - PeterisP 6y ago
    Not 50%, but a significant portion - IIRC the South Korea studies had 30% prevalence of smell loss for infected with mild symptoms; but it generally was temporary, unlike the cases described in this article.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    Sense of taste is strongly influenced by sense of smell, and a stuffy nose significantly attenuates your sense of smell. As such, basically every cold ever will knock out both your sense of smell and consequently your sense of taste for the duration. Hyposmia is also, in its own right, a symptom of the flu, of the common cold and of sinusitis. [1] [1] https://www.raleighcapitolent.com/blog/lost-sense-of-smell?entryid=109&tabid=89 https://www.raleighcapitolent.com/blog/lost-sense-of-smell?e...
perl4ever 6y ago
I think in high school someone was trying to scare us into not driving drunk or recklessly, and imprinted on me that while you may see in the newspaper someone is no longer in "critical" condition, and be like "oh, good they're fine now" they may have devastating life long effects. No matter what kind of illness or injury, you don't see how bad and permanent it often is unless you are personally involved or close to the person, but by the time you are an adult, you should know this is generally the case. The outside world, including the keepers of medical statistics write down on their scorecard that someone recovered, but it's not really like that.
- bennyelv 6y ago
  My personal observation is that even if you know that to be the case, it's all to easy to fool yourself using the platitudes that knowing it should prevent. It's only really people who live with conditions that have long term effects on your life that really understand it.
GuB-42 6y ago
And about 30% of ICU patients die. If you get to that point, it is really, really bad, worse than most cancers. The thing with losing the sense of smell is that it seems to happen mostly to mild cases. Cases where you wouldn't even call yourself a "survivor" any more than you would call yourself a flu survivor or a common cold survivor. That's the scary part, we are not talking about a few percents, most of them elderly people. This is about middle aged, healthy people, who may not even be part of the statistics, and therefore more likely to be underrepresented.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

C1sc0cat 6y ago

From uk experience if you go into ICU or any high risk ward they tend to put you in the inflatable leg splints. Serous kidney problems are no joke and you might well end up with chronic kidney failure - so you will be on the pathway to dialysis and transplant in the future.

arcticbull 6y ago

50% of ICU patients isn't even close to 50% of infected though, so it's important to keep that in mind.

abiogenesis 6y ago
Did 50% of infected lose their sense of smell or taste?
- PeterisP 6y ago
  Not 50%, but a significant portion - IIRC the South Korea studies had 30% prevalence of smell loss for infected with mild symptoms; but it generally was temporary, unlike the cases described in this article.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  Sense of taste is strongly influenced by sense of smell, and a stuffy nose significantly attenuates your sense of smell. As such, basically every cold ever will knock out both your sense of smell and consequently your sense of taste for the duration. Hyposmia is also, in its own right, a symptom of the flu, of the common cold and of sinusitis. [1] [1] https://www.raleighcapitolent.com/blog/lost-sense-of-smell?entryid=109&tabid=89 https://www.raleighcapitolent.com/blog/lost-sense-of-smell?e...

perl4ever 6y ago

I think in high school someone was trying to scare us into not driving drunk or recklessly, and imprinted on me that while you may see in the newspaper someone is no longer in "critical" condition, and be like "oh, good they're fine now" they may have devastating life long effects. No matter what kind of illness or injury, you don't see how bad and permanent it often is unless you are personally involved or close to the person, but by the time you are an adult, you should know this is generally the case. The outside world, including the keepers of medical statistics write down on their scorecard that someone recovered, but it's not really like that.

bennyelv 6y ago
My personal observation is that even if you know that to be the case, it's all to easy to fool yourself using the platitudes that knowing it should prevent. It's only really people who live with conditions that have long term effects on your life that really understand it.

GuB-42 6y ago

And about 30% of ICU patients die. If you get to that point, it is really, really bad, worse than most cancers. The thing with losing the sense of smell is that it seems to happen mostly to mild cases. Cases where you wouldn't even call yourself a "survivor" any more than you would call yourself a flu survivor or a common cold survivor. That's the scary part, we are not talking about a few percents, most of them elderly people. This is about middle aged, healthy people, who may not even be part of the statistics, and therefore more likely to be underrepresented.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]