The Damage Corona Virus Can Do To Your Lungs

Coronavirus is an infectious disease that spreads primarily through the droplets of saliva or discharge from the nose of an infected person. It is a respiratory disease that was first identified as pneumonia. Most people affected by the virus experience mild respiratory problems and recover without any specific treatment. However, people with a history of respiratory illness, or any other underlying medical conditions such as cardiovascular or chronic respiratory issues as well as older people are likely to develop a serious case of coronavirus affecting their respiratory system extremely.

Here’s what happens when a virus gets into your body.

Virus Start Growing in Body

After entering your body, the virus comes into contact with mucous membranes that line inside your nose, mouth, and eyes. After entering a healthy cell, the virus multiplies to make new virus parts affecting all nearby cells. This is how the virus starts growing inside your body.

Respiratory Tract

The coronavirus then tries to infect the different parts of your respiratory tract. This begins when the virus travels down to your airways and irritates the lining making it inflamed. In some chronic cases, the virus reaches down into your tiny air sacs known as the alveoli.

The scientists and doctors are still trying to find out the amount of damage the coronavirus does to the infected person’s body and especially the lungs and have concluded that the coronavirus affects our bodies in similar ways to the other two coronavirus diseases, severe acute diseases (SARS) and the Middle East respiratory syndromes (MERS).

ARDS

Although many people with coronavirus have mild or no symptoms at all however, some may develop a potentially fatal condition known as acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). ARDS is a serious inflamed lung condition that causes alarmingly low levels of oxygen in the blood. This is a life-threatening condition and requires immediate and intensive medical care. The usual treatment of ARDS is mechanical ventilation to aid the person to breathe by moving the air in and out of the lungs using a ventilator.

Signs and Symptoms of ARDS

Some sign and symptoms to tell whether a person is suffering from ARDS include:

• Sudden breathlessness
• Rapid breathing
• Dizziness
• Rapid heart rate
• Excessive sweating
• having low oxygen levels in the blood
• Both lungs appearing white and opaque on chest X-rays

The damage ARDS does to your lungs.

The damage ARDS does to your lungs

The people suffering from ARDS damage the walls of their air sacs in their lungs. This is also known as diffuse alveolar damage. The coronavirus damages the wall and the lining cells of the alveolus as well as the capillaries. The damage to capillaries causes them to leak plasma proteins that add to the wall’s thickness.

Eventually, the virus gets the wall and linings of the alveolus to become thicker. As your body tries to fight the condition, your lungs become more inflamed because the thicker the wall gets, the harder it gets to transport the oxygen. This results in breathing difficulties including, feeling shortness of breath. This leads towards severe illness and permanent lung damage and possibly results in the death of the infected person.