Here’s what happens to your lungs when you get COVID

MADISON, Wisconsin – Shortness of breath and difficulty breathing are common symptoms in patients who contract COVID-19. UW Health’s head of chest imaging, Jeffrey Kanne, said many people don’t see the long-term damage the virus can have on the lungs.

“The normal lung is mostly filled with air, so it will be black on our CT scans,” Kanne said. “Patients with COVID will have white or gray areas in their lungs, very severe scarred lungs all due to COVID. Smokers have a variety of different injuries, primarily emphysema, and this happens over many, many years of smoking.

Kanne said scars from COVID disappeared in most patients after a few months. However, a number of patients suffer long term damage.

“When you have scar or inflammatory tissue in your lungs, it keeps oxygen from entering your blood and carbon dioxide from coming out and that’s why some patients with severe COVID need or need extra oxygen. mechanical ventilation.

Kanne said when someone contracts COVID, the lungs become small and stiff, which is why many suffer from shortness of breath. With smoking, the lungs expand and there is destruction in the lungs, including large holes. Kanne said that for smokers, the damage this causes to the lungs occurs over many years. With COVID, the damage happens much faster.

For patients who are both smokers and tested positive for COVID, Kanne said, “What lungs they have left that is really good is where most of the disease would be concentrated so they have less reserve. , therefore they are more likely to be ill, require hospitalization or even mechanical ventilation. “

For those with asthma, Kanne said it was not clear whether COVID could trigger an asthma attack, but that it could certainly make an attack worse.

“If you already have underlying lung disease and then add another insult, both can make breathing even more difficult.” he said.

Kanne said what we see in COVID lung scans is similar to the damage he sees from patients who contract the flu.

“The lung can only respond to an insult in so many ways,” he said. “COVID has a much higher rate of this pattern than we see with the flu.”

In the most severe cases of COVID, the patient could be on oxygen for life or require a lung transplant.

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