E-cigarettes Can Cause COVID-19-like Condition - Rehab

E-cigarettes can cause COVID-19-like condition - rehab

On his Facebook page, rehabilitation physician and therapist Vasily Kupreichik described three cases from clinical practice in which the symptoms were similar to coronavirus - pneumonia, cough, shortness of breath, general malaise. The cause was lung damage associated with vaping, which has already been described by Western scientists. ƒ

Photo: VAPES / Flickr

“A 46-year-old man presented to the clinic complaining of shortness of breath and a full range of flu symptoms: general weakness, fatigue, chills, sweating, fever and cough. The patient said that he does not suffer from any chronic diseases, that he is not observed by doctors for any problems. He also said that he had not communicated with anyone who would have been sick with infectious diseases lately,”Vasily Kupreichik describes one case from the practice of American doctors.

The patient had low oxygen saturation, radiography showed bilateral polysegmental pneumonia. The man said that six months ago he switched to vaping in order to give up regular cigarettes.

In the second case, a 42-year-old man with no medical history complained of a severe cough for two weeks, fever, chills and sweating. He also had a severely lowered oxygen saturation (85%), which increased with oxygen inhalation; CT scan showed a "ground glass" lesion of the lungs. This patient also switched from regular cigarettes to electronic cigarettes in the last year.

In the third case, a 21-year-old young man suffering from bronchial asthma complained of the same "covid" symptoms and reported that he had been smoking vape in recent months at least once an hour. CT also showed ground-glass damage to the lungs.

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During the survey, infectious reasons for such changes were completely excluded. According to Kupreichik, the symptoms were caused by lung damage caused by electronic cigarette smoking, or vaping product use-associated lung injury (EVALI). This condition is very similar to the course of a new coronavirus infection, which must be kept in mind by clinicians, especially during a pandemic.

“The typical features of EVALI are highly non-specific. These include fever, chills, headache. Respiratory symptoms usually include cough, shortness of breath, chest pain. There may be gastrointestinal manifestations: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain. In this case, fever will occur in 29% of cases, tachycardia in 64%, tachypnea in 43%,”the doctor writes.

Vasily Kupreichik noted that there are no clear treatment protocols for EVALI treatment yet. However, these lung changes have been found to respond well to steroids, empiric antibiotic therapy, oxygen support, and symptomatic therapy.

"There would be more anticoagulants to add and get one-to-one treatment for COVID-19," he said.