COVID-19 Has Brought Many Troubling New Medical Problems
COVID infection peaks have basically passed across the country; fever patients have dropped off a cliff, but difficult, complicated and severe cases are growing. Many patients missed the best treatment window; once viral load rises, treating them with any Chinese or Western method is laborious.Honestly, I do not now face the pressure of critical-ICU patients—when patients reach intubation stage, modern people rarely seek TCM. But the difficult cases rejected or shunted around by hospitals are clearly far more numerous than before.I feel that after COVID, doctors worldwide will clearly find practicing medicine far harder than before. First, wave after wave has left doctors chronically fatigued; medical strikes in many countries come from that overload. Second, COVID has clearly changed human disease patterns—after its spread, many diseases are much harder to treat than before.Earlier, consultation volume was huge—over a thousand per day at peak—but I found it easier then, because over 90% of patients got immediate results. Objectively we did not cure them; over 90% of Omicron patients self-resolve. Our treatments or drugs merely eased suffering and shortened the course.The remaining 10% are the truly tricky ones, and hospitals everywhere are overflowing. Some county hospitals have six or seven times their usual inpatients; they are frantically expanding, filling corridors and waiting halls, still unable to meet demand; patients queue for beds, and IVIG is everywhere short. Some patients in great pain, after a hospital stay that did not help, go home and look for TCM.Some of these patients flow to us, and many symptoms I have never seen. For example, yesterday a hypertensive patient told me his blood pressure had always been high, but after COVID it suddenly dropped below normal for over ten days, then suddenly spiked high. The erratic pressure leaves him dreadfully dizzy—dizzy whether high or low. He suffers, and doctors feel the pressure too, because such patients can have a stroke at any moment. We have rarely seen such patients before; treating them is a wholly new task.Many more patients had normal blood pressure before COVID but now have sudden high blood pressure after infection—also a high-risk stroke signal. In fact, my village has so far had no COVID death from respiratory failure; the four COVID deaths were all stroke and sudden cardiac death.Wuhan Xiehe Hospital screened blood counts and coagulation panels in COVID patients and found many abnormal counts with very low platelets—also a high-risk sign, meaning bleeding can occur at any time. Many childhood leukemia patients at Wuhan Children Hospital are much sicker after COVID and far harder to treat.Or take tumor patients who at first seem mildly ill, then after a week or two develop numb limbs while other signs are unremarkable. Such patients were rare before; how do we treat them? The virus surely injured the nervous system to cause the numbness, but what relieves it?One of my tumor patients is like this: before infection he had cancer pain, which after COVID vanished inexplicably, but his legs went numb. With no other option I tried Chaihu Guizhi Tang as a stopgap; the leg numbness eased temporarily. How long it lasts and whether it solves the problem, I do not know—I am still watching.Some unvaccinated tumor patients had mild or even asymptomatic infection, and I at first assumed they would be fine. Instead they suddenly died in the second or third week after infection, without warning. One was still hospitalized when he died; the other was at home, on no medication. Not long before, these patients had cheerfully said they had no symptoms, mocking vaccinated people for being worse off. Those with underlying disease must monitor their vital signs.Ophthalmologists report blurred vision and double vision after infection; ENT doctors report more ear disease—more cases of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, dizziness and tinnitus. These are tricky now; routine treatments fail. One of my patients with double vision had a brain CT, which found a cerebral vascular tumor pressing on the optic nerve.Patients also report hematuria the day after infection; some who thought they were recovered now find urination aching—a signal of kidney damage.The elderly have it especially hard: they develop all kinds of odd symptoms again and again, and are now psychologically frail. Hospitals decide admission by chest CT alone: only those with serious pneumonia are admitted; those without lung inflammation are turned away because hospitals are full. But international data show Omicron-triggered pneumonia deaths are actually few; most die of cardiovascular disease.Many patients do not die immediately after infection; the WHO counts deaths within 28 days as COVID deaths. But US data show that within a year after infection, COVID patients have a 63% higher risk of cardiovascular events and stroke; many die after day 28 from chronic damage caused by COVID.No matter your specialty, after COVID you will find your patients harder to treat. They have new painful symptoms; blood pressure, blood sugar and other markers are harder to control. Their immunity and strength are clearly down; they catch colds and fatigue easily, making it harder to recover as before. Rehab measures we used to recommend—encouraging exercise—will not work as before, because patients lack the strength they had pre-COVID.Unless we quit medicine entirely, we must face this new reality, devise new ways to solve new problems, and be more careful than before. For example, orthopedists may soon need to check blood pressure before bone-setting; if a patient blood pressure is high after infection and they do not realize it, a bone-setting procedure could easily cause a medical accident.Personally I feel far more tired than before: heavier workload, many new problems, trickier patients, no proven regimens to borrow from, and higher treatment risk. So treating any patient now is nerve-wracking; I fear they may die at any moment. After writing a prescription I repeatedly wonder whether there are hidden problems or life danger; sometimes in the middle of the night I message a patient family to warn them about certain signs.Many doctors will henceforth feel as if walking on thin ice. For a day or two I wondered if my memory was failing or I had brain fog, because my mind sometimes went blank; but the real cause was overwork. My writing speed is unchanged and my level has not dropped; I still recall masses of data firmly. So there is no brain fog or memory loss; the patient problems are just too complex and I am physically and mentally exhausted.Next I will publish some complex cases, dissecting the condition and treatment in detail for reference. Now I only dare cautiously explore new ways to relieve suffering within my familiar field; I do not dare touch many diseases I know little about—I hope readers understand. I repeatedly stress that patients with underlying disease must see the right specialist, because I know firsthand: the tricky post-COVID problems are hard to solve without specialist help.I also warn readers: lately many people claim their formula treated tens of thousands of COVID patients with a 100% cure rate. That is sheer bravado from ignorance; it takes half a brain of water to say such foolishness. Steer clear of such people; when ill, seek proper specialists, not glib talkers. Life is not a joke; do not entrust it to anyone irresponsible.