Healthy man nearly dies of post-Covid-19 complication

A recently discharged 38-year-old Covid-19 patient nearly died after coming down with pneumothorax, a complication increasingly being seen among Covid survivors.

As a healthy individual with no comorbidities and also a teetotaler, Sathyakumar Jayaram, an advocate by profession who agreed to reveal his name, told DH that the last thing he expected was to develop post-Covid complications.

He first realised that something was seriously wrong with him seven days after being discharged as a Covid-19 patient. “On the morning of October 17, I began coughing continuously. A sharp, intolerable pain erupted in my chest and I felt my left lung collapse. Soon, I could not stand,” he said, adding that he staggered towards his bed but found that he couldn’t turn onto his side.

His mother who came to check on him was stunned to see that his left chest was swelling up.

Dr Farooq Khan, an ICU consultant at Jain Mahaveer Hospital where Jayaram was eventually admitted, explained that pneumothorax involves a lung weakened by the virus, which punctures, causing inhaled air to flood into the chest cavity, with devastating consequences.

As with most complications, a delay in treatment could lead to mortality, explained Dr Anoop Amarnath of the State’s Critical Care Support Unit (CCSU). The first effects of the condition comprise a tightening of the chest, followed by fluctuating oxygenation levels, and a cardiac event after the air pressure buildup within the chest cavity impacts the heart.

Dr Amarnath explained that instances of secondary pneumothorax are increasingly being seen among Covid-19 patients after the sponginess of the lungs is reduced, turning it rubbery and rigid. “In this event, when air is forced in the lung at higher than normal pressure via a ventilator, it can cause pneumothorax,” he said.

Jayaram concurred that he had been administered non-invasive oxygen at a government hospital where he was a Covid-19 patient with “moderate symptoms” from October 2 to 10.

The red flag

“Pneumothorax is really a red flag about the prognosis of the patient and his or her chances of survival,” Dr Amarnath added.

The development has prompted the medical field to add pneumothorax to the list of potentially fatal conditions that Covid-19 survivors can manifest.

Jayaram said that the experience nearly killed him, when on top of the pneumothorax, he developed lung abscesses triggered by a secondary bacterial infection. “I lived after doctors used an Intracostal Drain Pipe (ICD) to remove the excess air. Heavy medications for the next two weeks plus daily pumping out abscess cleared the infection,” he said.