Aug 24, 2020
New tech like #MR can help doctors with #covid19 cases
Some intensive care units in various hospitals throughout this county have designated units for COVID-19 patients. As an intensive care doctor, I’ve been seeing a lot of COVID-19 patients in our designated Coronavirus ICU. It’s one thing to read about Coronavirus in the medical literature, but to be actually seeing real patients with this disease is another experience altogether. There are a lot of things I’ve learned, but for this video, I’ll focus on the top 10 that stand out to me. So, starting at the bottom with number 10, is, signs/symptoms.
The most common symptoms that I’m seeing are fever, cough, shortness of breaths, and body/muscle aches. I haven’t seen many patients with the other symptoms we often hear about, such as loss of taste and smell, or nausea, and diarrhea. I have not seen any rashes related to Coronavirus, probably because I only see adult patients. I will say that even though confusion and delirium are very common in the ICU in general, there does seem to be more of that with Coronavirus. A lot of COVID-19 patients who require hospitalization have low levels of vitamin D. And this is consistent with what we are seeing in a lot of recent studies that have been coming out. But of course, correlation doesn’t necessarily mean causation, so does it just so happen that a lot of patients who have moderate or severe COVID, happen to have low vitamin D levels? Maybe, maybe not. And does that mean that we should give every hospitalized patient with Coronavirus big doses of vitamin D when they hit the door? Maybe. And does that mean people, in general, should supplement with vitamin D? And what is the ideal level of vitamin D for the population, especially when it comes to COVID-19? Should we be targeting the current general recommendation for everyone, irrespective of COVID-19, with a goal of 20 ng/ml? or should we aim for higher, like 30, or perhaps 40? No one knows for sure the answers to these questions. But there are studies being done on this. And as we speak there are 3 RCT for vitamin D and Coronavirus.
