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I went to a cardiologist in 2021 and told them I am concerned that I have lingering health issues due to a covid infection months earlier prior to vaccines bein

I went to a cardiologist in 2021 and told them I am concerned that I have lingering health issues due to a covid infection months earlier prior to vaccines being available to the public. Heart pain, unexpected palpitations, racing heart rate, etc. Was previously training for a marathon. That cardiologist told me that covid has no effect on the cardiovascular system and the heart cannot feel pain and discharged me to a PCP after running a handful of tests to rule out anything (Echo, EKG, labs, etc) Now here we are in 2023, I have had long covid for almost 3 years and cardiologists are now admitting they are wrong. This article is pretty telling on the dismissive behavior and the truth catching up to them.

ejb999 3y ago
>>cardiologists are now admitting they are wrong. Not a surprise - almost everything initially said about covid was wrong; maybe next time people saying things should be so absolutely definitive about things they clear don't know enough about (yet). I would rather doctors hedged their advice/proclamations a bit, then to be definitive when they shouldn't be.
- waihtis 3y ago
  The ridiculous truth is that we got zealous COVID absolutists as an counteraction to Donald Trump. It was purely a political phenomena.
  - downWidOutaFite 3y ago
    The "it's just a cold" crowd was also a political reaction and they didn't come out look any better.
    - waihtis 3y ago
      For me it wasnt even a cold, i had no symptomps whatsoever
- dimator 3y ago
  > I would rather doctors hedged their advice/proclamations a bit, then to be definitive when they shouldn't be. Then we'd be complaining that they're telling us two wholely different opinions. Medicine, like science, is based on available data. I have no problem with them admitting they were wrong based on new data.
  - ejb999 3y ago
    agreed - but not only did they know they didn't have all the information - so they were in effect making a guess based on the limited information they had - but they also took the extra step of discrediting anyone that held a different opinion. That is not 'science'.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
Moru 3y ago
To be fair, this is something built into the average humanity. If we have learned something from young, it takes very much to change this belief. It can be anything from what is the best programming language to politics, religion or whatever. For discussions with the opposite belief, it easily goes into - "He has been brainwashed" - land. It's very hard to convince someone that they have been wrong their whole life, especially if there has been loads of studies supporting that case.
ajross 3y ago
> Now here we are in 2023, I have had long covid for almost 3 years and cardiologists are now admitting they are wrong. This article is pretty telling on the dismissive behavior and the truth catching up to them. I think this is being too demanding of doctors. Their opinion changed because the science changed. Discovery and understanding simply takes time. Practicing doctors aren't scientists, they aren't charged with the responsibility for discovering new disorders and treating them correctly on a per-patient basis. Their job is simply to understand the best available consensus about disorders and treat their patients accordingly. And... it sounds like your doctor did exactly that. And it surely sucks terribly that the understanding was wrong. But that's not really the fault of your doctor. No one could have treated you better at the time except via dumb luck. It's OK to accuse them of being an asshole about it, but not really about being "wrong" so much.
- thenerdhead 3y ago
  If being taken seriously is too demanding, then I will continue to do so. My story I hope shows this exact sentiment mentioned in this article: > “It’s important to acknowledge that these patients are suffering,” Anagnostopoulos says. “Many of them are young and unaccustomed to being sick or held back in any way from what they want to do. They often feel they haven’t been taken seriously. And what they want to know is that the doctor sitting with them is developing a plan for improvement.”
  - ajross 3y ago
    I think I agree with you there. But being unsympathetic and being wrong are two different states, and it's important to distinguish the two. The doctor did the "right" thing according to the understanding of the time, they were just a jerk about it. And that's being a bad doctor, but it's not delivering "incorrect" treatment. It's basically a converse take to the "You're not wrong, you're just an asshole" meme.
    - thenerdhead 3y ago
      Cardiologists aren't exactly known for their bedside-manner. Also I did present these reputable journals this article alluded to: > As the COVID-19 pandemic was getting underway in early 2020, doctors in Wuhan, China, began to report that many patients hospitalized with the disease had cardiac injuries. Heart attacks were frequent, especially in patients with underlying risk factors, and there were numerous cases of myocarditis, which occurs when the heart’s muscle layers become inflamed. Roughly a quarter of patients with severe COVID-19 had elevated blood levels of troponin, a protein marker for cardiac damage. Still was dismissive of covid having any effect on cardiovascular. But you can only learn so much in 60 minutes over 3 months right?
jxramos 3y ago
I can understand their skepticism, but these professionals should always be open to new data and should at the very least make a note of it in your records so the retrospective analyses can be done. Do you know if any of your symptoms got recorded?
- orangepurple 3y ago
  American doctors are trained to dogmatically accept medical treatments uncritically. The dogma is called the "standard of care" and the entire medical, billing, and legal system will work against you if you deviate from it. They will only change their ways when they are told to do so from higher up.
  - pixl97 3y ago
    "Airplane mechanic decides service manual incorrect, custom fix leads to 200 dead" And yes, what you state is exactly what the doctor should do. Otherwise you're taking all the testing and experience of all the other doctors that have already worked on this issue and tossed it out the window. When an individual patient shows anonymous behavior your document everything you can for future investigation. You don't get to play research laboratory on your patients.
    - orangepurple 3y ago
      Doctors aren't mechanics. They are the engineers. Nurses are the mechanics.
      - pixl97 3y ago
        Engineers run it by QA before pushing it to prod.
        salawat 3y ago
        Oh, you wish. You frigging wish. That lasts until someone who is the CTO's buddy gets a hair and decides to get exec override, then pushes to prod, deleting the company financials. And the medical equivalent of QA is generally a very awe inspiring strain of nurse.
pixl97 3y ago
Ok, so lets take this the other way. The doctor says "Yep, Covid fucked you over"... What changes? That doctor is not handing you out a candy bag of medicine to see what fixes your issues. Your "was training" is still going to be that "was". Now after some large number of people like you start showing up for the same issue, then some smaller portion of them get direct diagnosis (either post death, or during some other surgery), the doctors won't know what to do as a means of treatment. It's likely it will be years longer till we have effective means of treating long covid symptoms.
- abathur 3y ago
  I suspect GP would find the subjective difference between "go home, it's all in your head" and "you aren't crazy, but I don't know how to help you" to be meaningful.
- thenerdhead 3y ago
  A lot changes. 1. I would feel taken seriously. 2. I would still be seeing them to check-up on my health. 3. I would be discussing the budding literature to try promising things (i.e. atorvastatin, AT1RB, etc) - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9520195/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9520195/ 4. Other patients who are young and healthy are also validated (i.e. we are seeing more of you) 5. etc The problem with western medicine today is that if you cannot be treated, they want you out of the system. The system is starting to get much better at adapting to these novel health challenges though. I suppose that will happen when there's 65 million across the world with these issues!
  - nradov 3y ago
    The system is already overloaded by an aging population and a shortage of practitioners. There is no capacity to schedule extra office visits for the sake of making patients feel that they are validated and being taken seriously. That may seem cruel, but that is our reality. It's only going to get worse as the demographic situation continues to deteriorate.
    - 3y ago
didntknowya 3y ago
now that COVID has a few years to run we have new data for scientist to discover it's effect. back then no one knew anything about COVID. it's not like the doctor was hiding the truth. people are expecting them to be all-knowing is just being unrealistic. did you expect him to just pull out a magical pill from his back pocket to fix everything.

ejb999 3y ago

>>cardiologists are now admitting they are wrong. Not a surprise - almost everything initially said about covid was wrong; maybe next time people saying things should be so absolutely definitive about things they clear don't know enough about (yet). I would rather doctors hedged their advice/proclamations a bit, then to be definitive when they shouldn't be.

waihtis 3y ago
The ridiculous truth is that we got zealous COVID absolutists as an counteraction to Donald Trump. It was purely a political phenomena.
- downWidOutaFite 3y ago
  The "it's just a cold" crowd was also a political reaction and they didn't come out look any better.
  - waihtis 3y ago
    For me it wasnt even a cold, i had no symptomps whatsoever
dimator 3y ago
> I would rather doctors hedged their advice/proclamations a bit, then to be definitive when they shouldn't be. Then we'd be complaining that they're telling us two wholely different opinions. Medicine, like science, is based on available data. I have no problem with them admitting they were wrong based on new data.
- ejb999 3y ago
  agreed - but not only did they know they didn't have all the information - so they were in effect making a guess based on the limited information they had - but they also took the extra step of discrediting anyone that held a different opinion. That is not 'science'.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

Moru 3y ago

To be fair, this is something built into the average humanity. If we have learned something from young, it takes very much to change this belief. It can be anything from what is the best programming language to politics, religion or whatever. For discussions with the opposite belief, it easily goes into - "He has been brainwashed" - land. It's very hard to convince someone that they have been wrong their whole life, especially if there has been loads of studies supporting that case.

ajross 3y ago

> Now here we are in 2023, I have had long covid for almost 3 years and cardiologists are now admitting they are wrong. This article is pretty telling on the dismissive behavior and the truth catching up to them. I think this is being too demanding of doctors. Their opinion changed because the science changed. Discovery and understanding simply takes time. Practicing doctors aren't scientists, they aren't charged with the responsibility for discovering new disorders and treating them correctly on a per-patient basis. Their job is simply to understand the best available consensus about disorders and treat their patients accordingly. And... it sounds like your doctor did exactly that. And it surely sucks terribly that the understanding was wrong. But that's not really the fault of your doctor. No one could have treated you better at the time except via dumb luck. It's OK to accuse them of being an asshole about it, but not really about being "wrong" so much.

thenerdhead 3y ago
If being taken seriously is too demanding, then I will continue to do so. My story I hope shows this exact sentiment mentioned in this article: > “It’s important to acknowledge that these patients are suffering,” Anagnostopoulos says. “Many of them are young and unaccustomed to being sick or held back in any way from what they want to do. They often feel they haven’t been taken seriously. And what they want to know is that the doctor sitting with them is developing a plan for improvement.”
- ajross 3y ago
  I think I agree with you there. But being unsympathetic and being wrong are two different states, and it's important to distinguish the two. The doctor did the "right" thing according to the understanding of the time, they were just a jerk about it. And that's being a bad doctor, but it's not delivering "incorrect" treatment. It's basically a converse take to the "You're not wrong, you're just an asshole" meme.
  - thenerdhead 3y ago
    Cardiologists aren't exactly known for their bedside-manner. Also I did present these reputable journals this article alluded to: > As the COVID-19 pandemic was getting underway in early 2020, doctors in Wuhan, China, began to report that many patients hospitalized with the disease had cardiac injuries. Heart attacks were frequent, especially in patients with underlying risk factors, and there were numerous cases of myocarditis, which occurs when the heart’s muscle layers become inflamed. Roughly a quarter of patients with severe COVID-19 had elevated blood levels of troponin, a protein marker for cardiac damage. Still was dismissive of covid having any effect on cardiovascular. But you can only learn so much in 60 minutes over 3 months right?

jxramos 3y ago

I can understand their skepticism, but these professionals should always be open to new data and should at the very least make a note of it in your records so the retrospective analyses can be done. Do you know if any of your symptoms got recorded?

orangepurple 3y ago
American doctors are trained to dogmatically accept medical treatments uncritically. The dogma is called the "standard of care" and the entire medical, billing, and legal system will work against you if you deviate from it. They will only change their ways when they are told to do so from higher up.
- pixl97 3y ago
  "Airplane mechanic decides service manual incorrect, custom fix leads to 200 dead" And yes, what you state is exactly what the doctor should do. Otherwise you're taking all the testing and experience of all the other doctors that have already worked on this issue and tossed it out the window. When an individual patient shows anonymous behavior your document everything you can for future investigation. You don't get to play research laboratory on your patients.
  - orangepurple 3y ago
    Doctors aren't mechanics. They are the engineers. Nurses are the mechanics.
    - pixl97 3y ago
      Engineers run it by QA before pushing it to prod.
      - salawat 3y ago
        Oh, you wish. You frigging wish. That lasts until someone who is the CTO's buddy gets a hair and decides to get exec override, then pushes to prod, deleting the company financials. And the medical equivalent of QA is generally a very awe inspiring strain of nurse.

pixl97 3y ago

Ok, so lets take this the other way. The doctor says "Yep, Covid fucked you over"... What changes? That doctor is not handing you out a candy bag of medicine to see what fixes your issues. Your "was training" is still going to be that "was". Now after some large number of people like you start showing up for the same issue, then some smaller portion of them get direct diagnosis (either post death, or during some other surgery), the doctors won't know what to do as a means of treatment. It's likely it will be years longer till we have effective means of treating long covid symptoms.

abathur 3y ago
I suspect GP would find the subjective difference between "go home, it's all in your head" and "you aren't crazy, but I don't know how to help you" to be meaningful.
thenerdhead 3y ago
A lot changes. 1. I would feel taken seriously. 2. I would still be seeing them to check-up on my health. 3. I would be discussing the budding literature to try promising things (i.e. atorvastatin, AT1RB, etc) - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9520195/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9520195/ 4. Other patients who are young and healthy are also validated (i.e. we are seeing more of you) 5. etc The problem with western medicine today is that if you cannot be treated, they want you out of the system. The system is starting to get much better at adapting to these novel health challenges though. I suppose that will happen when there's 65 million across the world with these issues!
- nradov 3y ago
  The system is already overloaded by an aging population and a shortage of practitioners. There is no capacity to schedule extra office visits for the sake of making patients feel that they are validated and being taken seriously. That may seem cruel, but that is our reality. It's only going to get worse as the demographic situation continues to deteriorate.
  - 3y ago

didntknowya 3y ago

now that COVID has a few years to run we have new data for scientist to discover it's effect. back then no one knew anything about COVID. it's not like the doctor was hiding the truth. people are expecting them to be all-knowing is just being unrealistic. did you expect him to just pull out a magical pill from his back pocket to fix everything.