COVID infection increases risk for dangerous heart problems, study finds
In the year after contracting COVID-19, patients are at an increased risk for developing 20 cardiac problems, a new study found.
Those problems include stroke, heart attack, myocarditis and irregular heart rhythms, according to the study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Study authors estimate COVID infections have led to 3 million cases of heart disease in the U.S.
Even younger, healthier people were at risk, as were those who were not hospitalized for COVID, according to the study.
After a COVID infection last year, Dr. Evelina Grayver became a patient in her own heart program at Northwell Health in New York. Grayver, a marathon runner, couldn't even make it up a flight of stairs.
"I literally felt like I just ran a marathon, that my heart was just racing," she told CBS News. "I decided to no longer play my own doctor and actually seek medical help."
Grayver had long-haul COVID and was diagnosed with myocarditis, or inflammation of the heart muscle. Her heart was failing to pump normally.
"It was very scary," she said. "We know the risk of the myocarditis of sudden cardiac death. My first night was the scary one. I kept on thinking to myself, 'Please, please let me just wake up in the morning.'"
She worries that cardiac problems will increase for patients who have been exposed and infected with COVID.
"We are literally just beginning to scratch the surface of it all," she said.