re: Local ER doc (South LA) here to answer your COVID-19 questions

I can tell you that OLOL will be possibly out of PPE on friday. Paralytics were low this past weekend but currently good. about to run out of fentanyl. Most of all the ICU pts I have seen are obese individuals from 40-70.

UMC is using bipap more which is working

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Most of all the ICU pts I have seen are obese individuals from 40-70.

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If you are under 70 in our system and you aren’t obese you are a huge outlier

Black male also the majority

I got this one doc. Start losing weight now

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Assuming not morbidly obese and no underlying, undiagnosed hypertension or sleep apnea?
Zero. Carry on. Stay away from elderly.

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Legit question- what about diagnosed hypertension treated with ACE inhibitor? Clinically overweight but not obese.

(no message)

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The media is butchering this, so committing the next hour or so as a public service.
We are all in this together, so hopefully I can help clear some things up if you have questions or uncertainties about anything. The more we all know, the better off we and our loved ones will be.

Rules:
1. Will answer as many questions as possible over the next hour, and will let you know the evidence or lack there of. I will say I don't know if I don't know.
2. Will not answer questions that may violate privacy/HIPPA, unless deemed necessary for public safety as a PSA, as allowed by recently updated standards.
3. Information given here is not to be considered medical advice. I am not your doctor.
4. Any other front-line healthcare providers please declare yourselves and join in.

What's up?

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Are there any tale tale signs that a person may be positive before being tested? There are so many conflicting reports. Several people claim it’s nothing more than a moderate cold. Some folks claim it’s like having a jackhammer strapped to your head with a splitting headache. Some folks have claimed it’s like having a python wrapped around your throat and chest making it hard to breath.

There are so many conflicting “real life stories” many of us don’t know what to believe.

I’m not asking for a diagnosis per se, however I was sick as a dog from Dec 27 through the first week of feb.

When I first felti it coming on, I slept from 6pm Friday afternoon until 6pm Saturday afternoon, only waking to go to the bathroom.

Figured it was sinuses.

It got worse over the following weeks. I felt I had phlegm in my lungs, but no amount of coughing would produce anything. And I’d like to stress the cough was bad, deep, and many times I couldn’t stop it. Had you not known me, you’d think I’d just smoked 5 packs of cigarettes every 20 minutes.

Toward the end I was weasing when I’d lay on my back, and felt as though there was fluid in my lungs.

At the very end I felt ok, but still felt there was gunk coasting the inside of my lungs.

This is where it got concerning:

Woke up coughing aggressively in the middle of the night. Something had broken loose as if a scab had been ripped off the back of my lungs all the way nearly to my throat.

I was choking and couldn’t breathe.

I crawled to the bathroom, and coughed up mucus blood mixture for I don’t know how long.

I was too tired and felt too bad to be scared. Went back to bed.

When I woke up it was as if whatever was in my lungs had cleared 80%. Still coughed a bit that day but was productive cough. The blood mixture lightened and was gone by he end of the day.

Within the next 2 days I was dang near 100%, and could actually breathe. Have been fine ever since.

Now, yes, I went to the dr 2 weeks prior and they had given me a Z Pack, but at the time I was somehow feeling ok, though the serious stuff I just posted didn’t start until 3 days after visiting the DR.

Could this have been just the flu? Or possible corona? Went to the dr mid Jan, so there were no tests, and they didn’t test for flu bc everything seemed just fine.

Just curious of your opinion.

Thanks for your time.

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ETA: I’m a pharmacist and we cannot get any hydroxychloroquine in stock. Did all the stock that was donated to the state go only to hospitals for inpatient treatment? Also, are doctors only giving azithromycin to prophylactically treat pneumonia because it sure as hell has zero antiviral properties.

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Idiots who prescribed it for healthy outpatients. Now RA patients going without it. Sad.
It does fit an atypical pneumonia pattern on CXR so azithro makes since but I agree its lazy.

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Phantom17

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Bruh