> Wayne Sebastianelli was clear that B10 hasn't cardiac MRI'd every athlete who tested positive for Covid. However, among ones that were cardiac MRI'd (don't know number or why they were MRI'd) about 1/3 "had the level of inflammation that was determined to be myocarditis."
...
> One more thing: it wasn’t a “study.” It appears he got this info somewhat informally from other athletic doctors from other schools, which may explain the rough numbers.
Among other things.
So I'd recommend at least changing the title, as it's not actually the case (that we know of) that 1/3 of covid-positive players have myocarditis, just 1/3 of covid-positive players who were MRIed.
A local paper wrote an article on a couple sentences from Sebastianelli’s hour-long talk to a local school board about whether sports were safe during covid. During that talk, he off-handedly mentioned this 30-35% number that he heard from some other doctor. He probably misheard or misinterpreted it. But once the number gets into a headline, it becomes a study showing a medical fact. Even after the retraction (not really a retraction in that it’s not something that was ever published in the first place), that number is still in a HN front page title.
Non-COVID is one thing, but even among those with COVID, we may have a biased sample here. Suppose that 97% of the COVID athletes didn't have chest pain or other symptoms of myocarditis and thus had no reason to get an MRI, and that the remaining 3% is broken down into "2% got an MRI and didn't have myocarditis, 1% got an MRI and did have myocarditis"; that would match the reported 1/3 rate of myocarditis among those who got MRI'd, but it would be only 1% among those with COVID.
We've seen this type of sampling bias before, where people having a problem makes them more likely to choose to get tested for it, which leads to an unrealistically high "x% of people have this problem" estimate.
Seeing that athletes routinely take PEDs to help with recovery and muscle growth, I'm curious as to the rate of heart muscle inflammation in C19-negative athletes as well.
Anabolic steroids and some other PEDs are a known risk factor for heart damage. I think that increased testing has made those are less common now among college athletes compared to 10 years ago, but obviously it's hard to get reliable data on that.
Could be. I'm not a doctor. But I think you will still agree that a survey of the rest of the group would be necessary to draw any valid, non-clickbait conclusions whatsoever.
I'm a young guy, 25, with no underlying health conditions. Could stand to lose 10-15 pounds. Covid put me on my back for a good two weeks. Even now, five and a half months after I had it, I still get some headaches and chest pain if I do anything too strenuous.
I don't really consider myself a long-hauler, based on what I've read of their symptoms I'm way better off. I know at some point reading stuff like this is fear mongering because anybody can drop dead for any reason at any time. But I still check everything every day, to make sure that I'm alright. It's hard to communicate to people who haven't had it yet that you don't know what's going to set it off.
I had plain old regular flu in January/Feb 2019, it almost knocked me flat and arrived on the same week I was moving house just to amp things up. It wasn't until June that I actually felt normal again and didn't feel like sleeping 13 hours a day.
Having read about and listened to reports about covid "long haulers" (look up Vincent Racaniello's YouTube channel[0], his podcast team of virologists, doctors and immunologists discuss this frequently) I'm making pretty damned sure I'm taking every precaution to avoid becoming infected with coronavirus, especially now that I'm in my 50's. I don't think you're fear mongering, for some people succumbing to covid can leave some pretty nasty long term effects.
Yeah, I had a flu about 8 months ago. It was utter hell.
I was in bed for a good week and a half, the fever and just feeling like I was dying was awful, at some points during it I couldn't walk from bed to the en-suite bathroom without feeling like I was going to pass out.
Even about 4 months or so later the cough persisted to the point where I had to go to hospital to get my throat and lungs x-ray'd as I was coughing up thick bloody mucus.
It was hell, also rashes which I presume were caused by the fever are still annoying me now occasionally with random outbreaks of horrible itching.
Fuck that noise. I think that was the first time I've had the flu. If covid is even worse than the flu then I want no part of it!
When I had the flu a few years ago, I regretted not having a will. I texted a family member how to get my things in order, as that was all I could physically muster.
Then I got better. It wasn't as bad as the flu could get, but I felt what it feels like to have your body stop so totally that even going to the bathroom to vomit is a herculean task, danger heightened by the stairs I'd stumbled past. It felt like I was simply going to die. And many have it worse, even among those who live.
Of course, sometimes it's not too much. Broad range on these things.
Such a strange virus. I’m 34, just found out I have the antibodies. At no point in the last 7 months did I feel the slightest bit sick at all. So I guess I’m just one of the lucky ones, or it was a false positive. Hope you continue to heal and get back to normal soon!
Any idea what your ballpark vitamin D situation was prior to catching Covid? And how much sunlight exposure were you getting on average?
My doc noticed my vitamin D level was a little low ~5 years back so he recommended I take some over the counter vitamin D supplements....which I've been taking casually since then. Obviously it's anecdotal, but I rarely ever get sick.
Could you describe what you mean by "too strenuous"?
I don't know if I ever had it (I still get tested occasionally), but I don't ever feel 100% anymore. I don't know if this feeling is psychological or if it has something to do with COVID-19.
> COVID-19 has existed for less than six months, and it is easy to forget how little we know about it. The standard view is that a minority of infected people, who are typically elderly or have preexisting health problems, end up in critical care, requiring oxygen or a ventilator. About 80 percent of infections, according to the World Health Organization, “are mild or asymptomatic,” and patients recover after two weeks, on average. Yet support groups on Slack and Facebook host thousands of people like LeClerc, who say they have been wrestling with serious COVID-19 symptoms for at least a month, if not two or three. Some call themselves “long-termers” or “long-haulers.”
> I interviewed nine of them for this story, all of whom share commonalities. Most have never been admitted to an ICU or gone on a ventilator, so their cases technically count as “mild.” But their lives have nonetheless been flattened by relentless and rolling waves of symptoms that make it hard to concentrate, exercise, or perform simple physical tasks. Most are young. Most were previously fit and healthy. “It is mild relative to dying in a hospital, but this virus has ruined my life,” LeClerc said. “Even reading a book is challenging and exhausting. What small joys other people are experiencing in lockdown—yoga, bread baking—are beyond the realms of possibility for me.”
> COVID-19 symptoms can sometimes persist for months. The virus can damage the lungs, heart and brain, which increases the risk of long-term health problems.
The rest of the studies cited by Mayo are all in the same range, feel free to check. Mayo Clinic or not, you're seriously going to draw conclusions over this?
What, pray tell, does it take for something to be considered "scientific" in your mind? Those sample sizes are nothing to sneeze at for a brand new pandemic. And what conclusions do you think anyone is drawing other than "some percent of people are affected by covid for the long term?" Especially on the comments for a post detailing a significant percent of covid positive athletes being affected by myocarditis?
That article is terrible. It's anecdotal, a biased sample from a group of people who self-identify as "long-haulers".
If you conduct a survey of a group of anti-vaccination activists, I'm sure that a high percentage will tell you that vaccines gave their child autism.
Moreover, this:
"A quarter of respondents in the Body Politic survey have tested negative, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have COVID-19."
Okay. I guess it doesn't mean that, but it means that you should be skeptical of the claims of causality.
I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out to be true though. Post viral fatigue has been a thing since before COVID it just never got any attention because it affected too few people.
I had idiopathic post viral hypersomnia in graduate school, from a bad respiratory infection. For more than entire semester, I could do nothing but sleep for 12+ hours a day. On one occasion, I slept through an entire day. I even fell asleep in the student union once with my laptop in front of me. Needless to say, it wasn't there when I woke up.
No treatment was really able to help me. I was already on adderall, and, while it could keep me upright, I felt like a zombie the whole time. I ended up consulting a sleep neurologist, who basically said they could try "activating" antidepressants (I was already on one), or stimulants, which I was also already on. I don't know if modafinil was a thing yet, but I never heard them mention it.
I thought my life was over. What could I even do with my life, if I always had to sleep 12-14+ hours a day? No doctor seemed to be able to do anything, there was no specific cause, and it's such a rare condition that most people don't know it exists. That, along with the stigma that comes with invisible disabilities (and, believe me, this certainly was disabling) almost made me want to give up.
Then, I started getting better. I didn't know why I got better, but, at that point, I didn't care. I had my life back.
All in all, it was an awful experience, which I wouldn't even wish on someone I hated.
"Idiopathic" means that the cause is unknown. So when you say "idiopathic post-viral...from X", you're trying to imply something that cannot be implied. One may have happened after the other, but the "idiopathic" means "it's unlikely to have been caused by it".
Not for nothing: I had idiopathic hypersomnia in graduate school, too -- it tends to happen when you're depressed from being in graduate school. As you were already on an antidepressant, and it was a suggested treatment for your illness, it sounds like this is a more probable cause than the one that you're trying to imply.
>If you conduct a survey of a group of anti-vaccination activists, I'm sure that a high percentage will tell you that vaccines gave their child autism.
If people have vague symptoms that are uncertain and ambiguous, then their opinions on the nature of their illness are probably not terribly useful or accurate.
But if there exists a severe illness, it seems almost certain that there are some people out there who have a mild form of it that is ambiguous and uncertain because there is a spectrum.
More generally, I believe that evolution implies that diseases evolve in a manner such that people find them hard to identify. Because humans are pretty ruthless at eliminating diseases that catch their attention. HIV is an example of a virus that had gotten very close to coexisting, but then people noticed it and have been trying to wipe it out. Vague chronic problems that are blamed on the victim are inherently what everything logically has to become in the long run.
To take the argument to the extreme, even hypochondria must be a physical disorder, even though of course like cancer etc. there might be many causes that are arguably not the same.
I'm not claiming that it's impossible that there are long-term Covid symptoms. It's clearly possible: we know that it happens to a non-trivial percentage of people who are infected with influenza, and other common viruses.
What we don't know -- and what articles like this ignore -- is how common and serious the symptoms are. And asking a group of people, one-quarter of whom haven't even tested positive for the virus, to self-report everything that has them feeling crummy, is not science.
The Atlantic is not a scientific journal, but their "science writer" should at least be aware of this basic standard of evidence, and at best, avoid the temptation to spread panic based on speculation.
In normal times, I could care less what the Atlantic chooses to publish under the name of "science". But right now, thoughtless misinformation from media authorities is leading to panic, and it's the equivalent of yelling "fire" in a crowded theater.
Don't you believe it's a good thing to discuss facts and findings about a pandemic which already infected a few million people around the world, and changed everyone's lives?
I mean,in the US alone covid already killed nearly 190k people from a pool of around 6200k infected. Doesn't this justify having informed evidence-based discussions?
A lot of people need to have control of their lives.
One manifestation of this is when they look at people that have bad things happening to them, they come up with a list of how they can avoid that thing happening to them.
Sometimes those things are very reasonable - I'll avoid these dangerous behaviors, I'll engage in these good behaviors, I'll avoid those areas, etc. But sometimes the threats are not the kind that you can really avoid. Sometimes people respond by blaming the afflicted with having poor intrinsic attributes, as opposed to their own superior attributes. Sometimes people respond by simply disbelieving the afflicted, discounting evidence that they would have considered otherwise. Because it is simply too taxing to really consider the risk.
I don't know you from Adam, I have no idea if that's what's motivating you, but what you said reminds me of what other people say in that situation.
It's interesting. I played a round of golf, on a golf cart, a day for a few days last week and by the end of the third day I was out of it. The other day I lugged an 80 pound window A/C up to my fourth floor walk up and it wiped me out for three days. But I can go for for a 5 mile walk and be pretty much fine.
Yes, a bunch of times. I was one of those people that kept testing positive for a few months after I got better. First tested positive in mid march, and then tested positive through May 1st at which point I just stopped doing it b/c everybody (read: doctors) thought I was fine. Finally tested negative mid July.
No
A normal amount? Probably a little more than normal? Like a turkey/ham sandwich or chicken caesar salad for lunch and then some entre for dinner? I'm not a vegetarian if that's what you're getting at
I don't think I've been "wiped out" as you say. So maybe this is more psychological or something different. Or if I ever had it, it might have affected me differently. Who knows!
The effect of lockdowns on mental health is undoubtedly large, however I would hazard against ruling a very large number of people with numerous studies & epidemiologists behind them as purely psychological.
Be careful with supplements containing fat-soluble compounds , of which Vitamin D is one. Vitamin D is a hormone. Careful!
Same goes for any metals.
Taking supplements occasionally shouldn't be harmful. A vitamin D supplement every once in a while should be ok, specially if you are locked up and not getting sufficient sunlight.
The key being "occasionally". However, if you routinely take them, please have a checkup done on the next opportunity you get. If you don't have any deficiencies, you shouldn't need supplementation.
Vitamin C should be fine. It is water-soluble, excess can be disposed of, if your kidneys are normal.
Also, get your blood work done regularly and do your annual checkups with your Doctor. There's no reason to guess that you might be vitamin deficient, you can just go check.
Most folks are deficient, and it is difficult, though not impossible to overdo it. Also, if you are living at 35+ degrees latitude, dark skinned, or ~50+ years old, you are deficient.
Your warnings to be careful are careful in the wrong direction, ie. dangerous.
This is the thing that's frustrated me from the beginning. So many people assume that it's like the flu, that you get sick and maybe you die but otherwise you go back to normal and there's been abundant evidence that this simply isn't the case. And I'm just some schmuck who reads a lot. We're going to see a lot of people with long-term impacts on their health from this on top of all the dead and we still have people claiming it's no big deal.
This is a problem with a lot of science reporting. Things get filtered through so many reports that it is tough to know what they mean anymore. The 10% number in your report references another report which references this report [1].
Here is part of the abstract:
>The incidence of viral myocarditis was studied prospectively at the Central Military Hospital 1 in Finland in connection with an A1 virus influenza epidemic in Jan. 1978. Of 104 conscripts taken consecutively to hospital because of a sudden respiratory infection, 41 had serologically confirmed influenza A, 37 were serologically negative, while in 26 it was not possible to carry out complete virological analyses. Six of the serologically confirmed influenza patients had acute myocarditis on the basis of serial electrocardiographic ST segment and/or T wave changes, unresponsive to beta-blockade. The incidence of the influenza A myocarditis was thus 9% of the 67 verified and suspected cases of influenza taken together.
So 6 people of the 67 people who went to a single Finnish Hospital in 1978 with influenza had myocarditis. Through a game of telephone that becomes "myocardial involvement in seasonal influenza infection has been reported in up to 10% of cases" which clearly isn't the conclusion of the original study. The original sample is tiny and it is already measuring from a population of people who were sick enough to go to the hospital. 30-35% would be a hugely alarming number, especially among 18-23 year old Division 1 athletes. It would be difficult to find a healthier population of people.
Thanks for doing the leg work. That's why I threw a question on the end - figured it would generate discussion more than anything.
And I totally agree with your conclusion. It's an alarming figure and if further numbers prove to be similar, it shows just how worse this is than the aforementioned flu.
While what you say is true, you should be sure to apply the same standard of evidence to the claims made here.
As the currently top comment is pointing out, the "30-35%" is based on, essentially, rumor. They haven't given MRIs to every Division I athlete. Some unknown number of people had MRIs, and 30% of those had myocarditis.
Was this a representative sample? We have no way of knowing. But here's a scary article, regardless.
I read the top comment which I thought hit that point strong enough that I didn't need to mention it, but yes the 30-35% number is nowhere close to definitive either. After seeing your comment and rereading my post I edited the 2nd to last sentence in my comment from "30-35% is a hugely alarming number" to "30-35% would be a hugely alarming number" due to the uncertainty.
It’s not the number you’re looking for, but the CDC lays out the similarities of long term complications of the flu and Covid.
Both COVID-19 and flu can result in complications, including: Pneumonia, Respiratory failure, Acute respiratory distress syndrome (i.e. fluid in lungs)
Sepsis, Cardiac injury (e.g. heart attacks and stroke), Multiple-organ failure (respiratory failure, kidney failure, shock), Worsening of chronic medical conditions (involving the lungs, heart, nervous system or diabetes)
Inflammation of the heart, brain or muscle tissues, Secondary bacterial infections (i.e. infections that occur in people who have already been infected with flu or COVID-19)
Most of the population wants to take risks with their health for activities that they find enjoyable. Heart disease and other chronic conditions are the direct result of that. It's not surprising that people are rebelling against lockdowns based on the current culture in western countries.
Myocarditis can be directly the result of transmissible diseases, even the common cold.
That is, if you shrug off the cold and think your tougher than that, a myocarditis can a complication of it. Wonder how many sportspeople continued to train while having initial symptoms...
Most athletes undergo a physical at the beginning of their respective seasons, which probably includes testing for irregular heart conditions. That's how these cases get discovered.
I think the point of the comment was about the difference between risking only your health (bad diet -> heart disease) vs risking the health of others as well (coronavirus 'rebels').
Which is ironic because people with conditions like heart disease almost overwhelmed the healthcare system during the pandemic...
"Approximately 90% of hospitalized patients identified through COVID-NET had one or more underlying conditions, the most common being obesity, hypertension, chronic lung disease, diabetes mellitus, and cardiovascular disease."
It certainly can be but not in the way you are suggesting. Every child's diet is set by their parents. Children can develop plaque in their arteries too. And when they become independent they will likely continue the diet that was started in childhood.
However, this is a straw man. I commented on risk not transmissibility.
I suspect some of this is news coverage and metrics.
People tend to chase after what is measured. Most of the metrics are rates of people who get it and rates death. This is further broken down by region and demographic. So, we talk a lot about these things.
The other issues surrounding it are either not being measured or the measurements are not public. So, we are not talking about them or chasing after things that impact them.
I conclude that few people have had the full blown flu recently; or any disease that has fevers > 100 degrees.
Chock it up to the vaccine, significant herd immunity, etc.
Last significant fever I had was an inconsistent barely 100 degrees (walking pneumonia 8 years ago), and if I could wear a mask around others and work from home to prevent those cough or chills for a handful of nights there'd be no question about it.
Are they actually looking for it or do they just assume no one has it because no one has reported a problem yet?
There has been at least one confirmed case among MLB players[1]. It is also interesting to note that this cites a 10-20% number for the occurance of myocarditis among people with COVID-19.
My bad. I read the link about the Big 10 which didn't mention anything about who was tested and didn't click through on the response about the NFL since it was a Twitter link and I assumed it wouldn't have any additional info.
This is really promising. I hope it holds up because if so, it has to mean there was some mistake or misunderstanding with the original report. (Well, or something malicious somewhere, but that doesn't make a lot sense to me since there's really nothing for anyone to gain.)
This is basically my biggest objection to the young people (it's weird to write that as a young person) not taking Covid19 precautions. Yeah it won't likely kill you (your morning commute is higher risk) but it has a high probability of leaving you with permanent damage that could knock an unknown amount of time off your life. This is even true for the flu by the way, just likely much less so. It's a nebulous risk that's hard to quantify, so people tend to not even consider it. It's still a risk though, and it could even be a very large risk, we really just don't know.
I'm 28 and got it mid-March (from a roommate, I was already isolating at home but just sharing an apartment was enough). Last week I tested 60% of the expected level of gas diffusion at the Boston COVID pulmunology clinic.
That's about it. There's no treatment, there's no medication, and if it were to get worse the only option is a lung transplant. I have to learn to breathe more deeply and my heart will wear out significantly faster due to the higher arterial pressure and faster pulse. I've got to be careful exercizing; 50% diffusion is considered the point where a light jog drives you into hypoxia. My o2 sensor says I drop down to the low 80s if I miss a breath at the wrong time. That's just going to be the new normal for the next 50 years, should I be so lucky.
Honestly the oxygen is the least inconvenient thing. Each breath gets me a bit more air than a normal person would get on top of Mt Ranier, but I've already pretty much adjusted to that. Low oxygen is hard to notice and adjusted for quickly, but nobody talks about the CO2. CO2 is being locked into my blood by the same scars/thickening that are keeping oxygen out. Many people can relate to extended altitude sickness (and how much it sucks) but very very few people my age have elevated CO2 like this. The closest you can get is sprinting until you're sucking air, and you can't catch your breath even if you take the biggest breath you can, until your ribs creak. I have been living in that moment for six months. I highly recommend against it. At the best times I'm anxious and forgetful; at the worst I'm just lying down for hours trying to breathe as quickly and deeply as possible with an intense sensation of being on the verge of passing out. It sucks, its cutting into my lifespan and it's very seriously affecting my quality of life.
Long hauler effects like this seem to be in the double digit percentages, which puts the number of people around a hundred times higher than the fatalities. Seriously, it's very not fucking worth it. Even if I recover partially -which is unlikely, at this point- or even if you "only" get a less physical impact like postviral syndrome, its going to severely fuck up years of your life, FAR worse than whatever quarantine is doing to you.
It was almost nothing aside from the shortness of breath, although the loss of smell was distressing. Very mild soreness, minor weird and unproductive cough. The shortness of breath was unlike any sickness I've ever had and got me to go to the emergency room when I was scared of passing out. By the time I got there (30+ min; had to get picked up) my o2 was in the low 90s which is not much cause for concern.
The trick of it is that if breathing difficulty is the only symptom, it's very difficult to diagnose. You breathe faster and your heart beats faster to keep your o2 at 98+. In the emergency room there's no way to tell me (50% breathing capacity, 94 o2 sat, 120 bpm) from someone scared about losing their sense of smell (98 o2, 120 bpm, 100% breathing). The only way to actually distinguish is the amount of scarring on a CT scan (which is very rough, varies person to person, and really needs a prior CT) or a diffusion test, which requires the person to be well enough to breathe into a big machine for 15 or so minutes.
Since so few people have gotten such a workup, AFAIK there's no real sense of how severe the normal infection is. I would guess myself to be in the 80-95th percentile for unluckiness at my age. If the impact on my breathing had been just a bit better, I think I would have just acclimated to the new normal and called it a lingering cough. The "sick"-like effects were so mild that I would have otherwise guessed it was unrelated. Then again I'm prone to ignore stuff like that.
I deeply hope doctors keep a close eye on how the average person's lungs are affected in terms of gas exchange and scarring. Even if you don't notice a change, good breathing habits can help reduce arterial pressure and reduce strain on your heart.
I wish this was a top level comment. This is awful and incredibly distressing to read, I'm so sorry for you for this. I wish everyone understood this horrible disease caused possibly permanent disability. I'm particularly sorry about the CO2 levels, I don't think other commenters generally understand the gravity of that.
I'm good almost always! It's only once or twice a day that my breathing becomes sketchy enough that it dips if I miss a good breath. No need for oxygen therapy unless you're constantly hypoxic, AFAIK.
There is no evidence that there is a "high probability of leaving you with permanent damage". What you are saying is all based on some anecdotes. Take Covid seriously, assess your risk based on actual data. Don't spread misinformation.
Actually there is some data surfacing and so far it's indicating as much as 1/3 of people have lingering effects - even of those who did not develop symptoms - and some percentage of those will be permanent. You are actually the one spreading misinformation here by saying there is no data. We all wish there was higher quality data, but it's definitely not no data.
They do, but it doesn't work to point at the person when you've broken the rules yourself. Otherwise we'd end up in a downward spiral, because it always feels like the other person started it and did worse and you were just reacting. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
We do try to do both-sides moderation when we can, because it makes the medicine easier for everybody, but we don't see everything that gets posted here. If you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, the likeliest explanation is that we didn't see it. You can help by flagging it or emailing us at hn@ycombinator.com. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
Re trolling: people are too quick to invoke the t-word when other users are propagating views that seem wrong, especially when they seem perversely wrong. We seem generally to be able to handle disagreement that's within (say) a standard deviation from our own views, but outside that, it's hard to assume good faith anymore—it feels obvious that the other person must be manipulating or lying somehow. That's not a trustworthy feeling. It probably comes from our being hard-wired for smaller groups than the ones we encounter online. In much larger groups that are spread over many places, the distribution of opinions is much wider, meaning that each of us is certain to encounter opinions that seem perversely wrong to us, just by the natural functioning of the community.
In reality, the world is a much larger place than our spectrum of feels-like-normal opinion allows for, and HN is a large enough sample of the world that this mismatch comes up here a lot. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
This is basically the problem with jumping to conclusions based on some guy's claim, because the guy then retracts his claim but most people will still believe that covid causes myocarditis.
> Key quote: "at this time, there have been no cases of myocarditis in COVID-19 positive student-athletes at Penn State."
We also don't know the health of these players prior to contracting COVID. I also wonder about factors like drug and alcohol abuse and possibly steroid use.
I had myocarditis in my twenties. It was completely debilitating. Even walking up the stairs was a struggle. It took more than a year before I felt normal again. I came quite close to loosing my job over it. I had been fit and healthy before.
It would be interesting to compare those with heart issue problems with covid infection, with those who had no issues at all, to see what the difference was. I still wonder if the initial viral quantity makes a difference, factors in your immune system, prior exposure to other coronaviruses, or some other factor that explains the highly varied response.
Now this article has posted a correction but has not changed the headline:
"CORRECTION: Penn State Health later clarified that the 30-35% figure pertaining to COVID-19-positive Big Ten athletes verbally shared with Dr. Wayne Sebastianelli by a colleague was actually published at the lower rate of 15%. He was unaware of that when he made his comments at the State College school board meeting, and when he confirmed his comments to the Centre Daily Times."
For the doctors out there, how serious is this condition? What do the measurements from the paper look like? Is it possible that these athletes due to their serious training already carry around significant inflammation from training or is the observed myocarditis not even close to the same nature as something you could induce through training?
Per my cardiologist (I'm unfortunately familiar with myocarditis through pericarditis) it is not caused by exercise. I asked him because I'd been diagnosed with peri, and that has implications down the road for myo. He told me exercise would not cause myocarditis, but if I ever developed myo, exercise could exacerbate it.
Same here--same for some members of my immediate family as well. Had a few days in a row where I got virtually no sleep and wasn't tired, either. Haven't had any symptoms and am in a low-risk area though.
It's good that the athletic departments are getting tests like this done for their athletes to provide more information about systemic damage for symptomatic & asymptomatic infections. Most insurance plans and doctors would not pay/call for MRI imaging for hearts. More systemic testing/data is needed.
Easy resolution here--give all athletes an echocardiogram when they first walk in the door as a freshman (to also check for structural/enlarged defects). And then give them one to compare it against for the ones that test positive for Covid-19. If you have myocarditis, then you get a medical redshirt.
As someone who has had perimyocarditis in the past, this is quite terrifying to hear. I don't know how my heart would handle another bout if it was serious.
SARS-Cov-2 binds to ACE receptors, which are present in cardiac muscle. The inflammation seems to be typical of how the immune system responds to this virus.
This is not directed to the comments above. Just FYI to anyone reading this thread, this type of myocarditis isn’t only seen in coronaviruses or specifically COVID-19. Rheumatic fever/Rheumatic carditis is well documented as a cause of molecular mimicry when dealing with Group A streptococcal bacterial respiratory tract infections. Similar things are seen with Coxsackie B virus causing pericarditis amongst other things. Other viruses have been implicated in the past. Some (in other sites) seem to think this a covid only issue.
Lower respiratory infections cause myocarditis extremely often. Subclinical myocarditis may well be universal in lower respiratory (lung) infections. Its one of the larger risk factors for heart attack- a flu vaccine can reduce your risk of heart attack for the entire year by 10-20%. Thats an insane return on investment.
When the lungs are infected, the heart works harder to pump blood through them. Virus-bearing blood flows directly from the lungs to the heart, and even if it isn't infected there will be a large local immune response. That means inflammation. Its nearly unavoidable once your lungs are infected. Even in young people, theres a huge difference between throat strep and lung strep (or flu)! It just isn't apparent until 20/30/40/50 years down the road.
I have to say, after all this is over I'll never brush off flu shots again.
I used to think of the flu as just "a cold, but worse", so I usually wouldn't bother to get a yearly flu shot. I saw it as five minutes of guaranteed unpleasantness vs an unlikely week of unpleasantness. My employer used to have CVS come by the office and give them to us for free; I didn't even have to pay and I still sometimes wouldn't bother.
Now via all these discussions I'm learning so much about how bad the flu can actually be for you in real, lasting ways. Really eye-opening.
Before I got COVID, I didn't even really realize that flu was asymptomatic so much, and I didn't know it was so much deadlier to the elderly. Not a good realization that I had been spreading without realizing.
That explains why I had heart palpitations last time I had flu. They continued for months afterwards too at random intervals with episodes of stabbing chest pain. Got told by multiple doctors I was fine and probably over stressed.
Do you mean this particular NCAA issue? If so, it's because it just happened: NCAA allowed training camps to begin Aug 7th. That leaves about 3 weeks for a few mini outbreaks to occur, get detected, and then perform comprehensive medical exams and tell the world about the results.
Otherwise, myocarditis has been on the CDC list of COVID risks for months, and there have been numerous reports of COVID causing lasting heart damage.
Your question incorrectly assumes we didn't know about this until now. Your familiarity of COVID details simply isn't complete. Which is no big deal: We can't all know everything on the topic. However, before I make a comment like the one you made, I try to do a few quick google searches to check my assumptions.
While anabolic steroids can cause heart problems they do not cause this type of heart problem. Source: my cardiologist who treats me for one issue that puts me at risk for myocarditis. I take anti-inflammatory steroids from time to time, so I asked about them: they're fine for my issue, and are actually used to treat myocarditis. And because I'm a curious person, I said "what about anabolic steroids?" And the response was: "don't take them, even if prescribed for something like low testosterone, because they can cause additional heart problems, though not make yours (my) any worse"
If you're still relying on the news to inform you, you're in trouble. The media is both biased and incompetent. I'm so disillusioned with the media in general.
Yes. Instead various accredited media publications and science journals from around the world, we should all be looking to random Youtubers and Facebook posters for the real truth about Covid .
That's a false dichotomy. I wouldn't recommend that either. But the media treatment of covid, specifically with regard to treatment with hydroxychloroquine is biased and completely out of touch with how medical experts consider it. If you've been getting for information from the media on that topic you almost certainly have the mistaken impression that it is not effective nor in wide use. The reality might surprise you.
I think they just want Trump to be wrong so badly that they're blind to the alternative. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
The media in general is a shadow of what it once was. Good journalism is very nearly dead. That has serious repercussions for both society and democracy.
> Wayne Sebastianelli was clear that B10 hasn't cardiac MRI'd every athlete who tested positive for Covid. However, among ones that were cardiac MRI'd (don't know number or why they were MRI'd) about 1/3 "had the level of inflammation that was determined to be myocarditis."
...
> One more thing: it wasn’t a “study.” It appears he got this info somewhat informally from other athletic doctors from other schools, which may explain the rough numbers.
Among other things.
So I'd recommend at least changing the title, as it's not actually the case (that we know of) that 1/3 of covid-positive players have myocarditis, just 1/3 of covid-positive players who were MRIed.
Update: It doesn't seem like any other schools are actually seeing this according to reports here: https://saturdaytradition.com/big-ten-football/report-multip...