My partner was diagnosed with heart failure a month before COVID became ‘recognised’. She went from being healthy to not being able to walk up the stairs without becoming so breathless she couldn’t breath.
I took her to the hospital and they diagnosed her with an enlarged heart and fluid on the lungs which they removed immediately. They gave her a lot of medications which she is currently on today and the breathlessness has improved but not disappeared. She also has a constant cough which has been present since all this began.
My question really is how can heart failure come on so quickly like this? I mean one moment she’s seemingly fine and the next she can’t walk up the stairs! More and more info is becoming clear about ‘long COVID’ and it leaves me continually wondering if she has been mis diagnosed or something. I mean this was before we even knew COVID was a thing so could something be related? What are peoples thoughts on this? It all seems a tad coincidental to me, but it’s just a gut feeling.
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JustAdam
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Surely a covid test would reveal if she had covid or at least a blood test to see if she had antibodies. Has she been vaccinated? People on this forum would only be guessing so really a talk with your GP is the only credible route
Thanks for the response. She has tests every week as she works in care and yes she’s had both jabs. Never had a blood test to look for antibodies though. It’s increasingly difficult to get into the doctors these days but that may be something to try.
I guess something just feels off about the situation and I just wanted to know people’s thoughts. I understand it’s all speculation.
The dizzyingly fast onset of symptoms is a common characteristic of many heart conditions. Consequently your partner's experience would be typical of many on this forum. People living their lives, untroubled by any symptoms or even awareness that they have a heart condition and then, boom, life limiting angina or heart failure or cardiomyopathy, or any of dozens of heart related problems.
If you were to search "out of the blue" on this forum you'd get an awful lot of hits!
Who knows, maybe your partner has had Covid? But based on your account there's no reason not to take these symptoms at face value and attribute them to an absolutely typical heart problem.
Thanks for your response. I was under the impression that things like heart failure would occur over time with noticeable symptoms so thanks for correcting me. I guess thinking this, along with the weird effects of COVID I just couldn’t stop putting the two together. The more I read about ‘long COVID’ the more it kind of makes sense but that’s the fun of self diagnosis ey.
Thanks for your help.
I’m not remotely medically qualified, but my understanding is that it’s very normal to look for answers in a difficult situation. From direct experience, when it comes to medical things, I’ve found that quite often there are no answers, usually because we lack the understanding or diagnostic capabilities to work things out. For all there is a perception we’re medically advanced, the reality is we’re not at all, we’re still effectively in our infancy. Any doctor worth their salt will tell you that what we know is minuscule compared to what we don’t. Could your partner have caught covid and that caused heart failure? The short answer is there’s probably no way to tell at this stage, particularly when the exact timeline and origin remain a bit blurred: there are reputable sources out there saying it may have begun circulating outside of China prior to December 2019. The consensus seems to be that pronounced cardiac problems from covid tend to occur more in those with pre-existing (but potentially previously undiagnosed) cardiac issues, even if that’s ‘just’ artheriosclerosis. Heart failure has been reported in a minority of patients, but from what I’ve read over the months, it seems to occur in people that are significantly unwell with symptoms of covid, not as a stand-alone illness in its own right. My understanding more generally is also that acute heart failure - from any cause - can indeed occur very suddenly, versus chronic heart failure which has a gradual onset of symptoms over weeks and months. In both cases you can get chronic cough and breathlessness as long term symptoms.
My daughter and I both have very complex health issues. When she was born and we learnt she was unwell, my first instinct as a new dad with no experience of chronic illness in the family at all, was to ask why. By which I mean, why has this happened biologically. What’s the science. Over the last 13 years as we’ve kept adding diagnoses to her list, and my own health problems have fully emerged, I’ve learnt that quite often no one can properly answer why, because we just don’t have the understanding yet to explain some things. I’ve also learnt that sometimes having the why, that full understanding, changes absolutely nothing in medical terms. A condition is a condition, it requires the treatment it requires, and being able to pinpoint a particular pathology or trigger only occasionally changes that. If your partner did an antibody test now, she’s had both vaccines, so you would anticipate the results to be positive: there is currently no way to prove whether or not she’s had covid, and even if there was, would that actually change anything? Without wanting to come across as patronising, I think the issue is less about whether they’ve misdiagnosed the heart failure (which I’d guess to be quite unlikely given how good we are at echos and scanning these days), and more about wanting a reason as to why it’s happened. Unfortunately, knowing if it originated with covid is most likely impossible, but even if it wasn’t, I don’t think it would actually change the overall situation.
Thank you for your detailed response. My gut instinct is that COVID either caused or brought the symptoms of my partners heart failure to light but like you say we will probably never know. I understand that it’s natural to look for answers, whether helpful or not in the long run but I just have this feeling that something is off.
Saying that though, I think it is acute heart failure and not chronic so there’s another reason not to suspect it has anything to do with the virus. I’m not thinking they’ve necessarily misdiagnosed the heart failure but more the reason it occurred. The more I read on long term Covid and heart failure the more compelling evidence I see but with such little knowledge on things it’s just a feeling.
Thank you for your help, I’m beginning to take the symptoms at face value.
Oh yes, things can change that quickly!!! I was healthy, felt great and then just one day out of the blue, I ran upstairs, as normal, got to the top and couldn’t breathe. Within hours I couldn’t even walk to the toilet. Didn’t even have energy to brush my teeth. Heart failure. Just like that!!! What a shock!!!
Hiya, I understand the drive to get to the cause of heart failure. I was diagnosed with heart failure nearly 3 years ago now. It was a diagnosis that came out of the blue, starting with a routine check up for something else. I was 55 at the time, fit and healthy, or so I thought. Hiked, cycled, practiced yoga, vegetarian, non smoker etc..... the cause of my heart failure has never been found. Various theories but no answers. Its frustrating but whatever the cause the effects are the same and I now focus on doing everything within my power to be as well as I can be for as long as possible. It made me focus on what is and isn't important and take decisions about life on that bases, that has been a good thing🙂
I myself struggled with covid early last year before we knew much about it, I decided to struggle on at home and await the outcome. due to already having pre-existing heart issues, i have since been diagnosed with heart failure and AF not sure if covid has anything to do with it, not enough known at the moment, it is very scarry when you get the diagnosis, i have spent so much time in my room as i have lost my balance and other effects fatigue being the worst, however i am trying to remain as positive as i can making little to do lists each day researching treatments and have come across the benefits of CO_Q10 that can be helpful for people in heart failure. I guess what im trying to say is we dont have any answers for the cards were dealt im just trying to help make my symptoms feel a little easier to deal with. I hope you get the answers your looking for. There is lots of support on the forum and lots of good advice. Take care and good luck. Xx
As others have said - the medical profession is not nearly as ‘smart’ as we all imagine it to be. They assess a patient with symptoms and work back to figure how it all started - sometimes easy and sometimes not.As for Covid possibilities I suspect that with China and geopolitics involved we’ll never be told the full story.
When I was diagnosed with heart failure it had come on over a 4-6 week period where I had an occasional coughing fit bringing up fluid.
We were abroad on holiday for the last 10 days of the 4-6 wks when I suddenly started coughing up fluid and my breathing sounded like a frog.
On our return I phoned our surgery to get an appointment and after they asked my symptoms told me to come down immediately. After seeing a doctor who examined me and then told me to phone my husband to take me immediately to A&E while the doctor faxed the info over to them. I was not allowed to drive.
I was in for 5 nights, put on 2 different fluid tablets (and other HF meds) and several litres of fluid was removed from my body over the duration of my stay.
I lost about a stone in fluid.
So yes it can definitely come on very quickly.
Initially the cause of it was blamed on chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer but they eventually decided it was viral infections.
I’m 51 and I’ve had mitral valve prolapse all my life and in 2016 the leak was upgraded to severe, and surgery at some point was inevitable. However I had no symptoms until March 2020 when I think I had Covid but I’ll never know, because testing wasn’t available at that point because I didn’t have a temperature or a cough (although both my daughters had had a bad cough) - I had shortness of breath, a sore throat, a spate of migraines, general flu/achey feeling. My husband was ill with similar symptoms. When all that got better I was left with ongoing fatigue that got worse over the year - this could have been a symptom of long Covid but it’s also a typical symptom of my worsening mitral valve. My husband and daughters did not have any fatigue issues. My cardiologist did a lot of check ups and then referred me for the valve replacement surgery which we had always known was inevitable, and I finally had the operation 5 weeks ago. I spoke to the cardiologist about Covid and while he was very sympathetic and shared my frustration at testing not having been available, he did also say that it doesn’t really make any difference to know whether Covid might have exacerbated my condition or not - my heart was on that path anyway. So the important thing was to treat the condition as it is, and I’m very glad that’s been done. It’s too early post surgery to say whether my energy levels have improved, but I started cardiac rehab yesterday and have an exercise programme to attempt to return to my previous level of fitness. Having said all that, I would love to know the answer to the Covid question and I share your frustration about the uncertainty, but I have accepted now that we’ll just never know. What’s important is the treatment. I hope that helps.
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