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'Be afraid of this.' Doctors warn lung damage from COVID-19 may be permanent

Dr. Helmut Albrecht with Prisma Health says, "COVID can destroy the lung."

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Two Midlands doctors say possible long-term lung damage from COVID-19 should be taken seriously. 

Texas doctor Brittany Bankhead-Kendall went viral after tweeting about the comparison of smokers' lung and those from COVID-19 patients, saying COVID patients' lungs are often worse than those who have smoked for years. 

RELATED: Post-COVID lungs worse than the worst smokers' lungs, surgeon says

Credit: DR. BRITTANY BANKHEAD-KENDALL VIA CBS DALLAS
X-rays of a normal lung, a smoker's lung and a COVID patient's lung.

Two Midlands healthcare professionals say, while that's true to an extent, their are some differences. People recovering from COVID-19 may find their breathing isn't back to normal. 

Experts say the lungs are the favorite organs to be hit by COVID. Dr. Helmut Albrecht from Prisma Health says, "COVID can destroy the lung."

Albrecht says, COVID-19 can "directly destroy lung tissue." And while he says while the vast majority of people recover, "Once a lung is fully destroyed and scarred down its very hard to regenerate lung tissue."

Lung tissue, which is formed in our early developmental stages, can be destroyed. "Once it is scared down or replaced with scar, the lung tissue will not recover."

RELATED: VERIFY: Are post COVID-19 lungs worse than long-time smokers' lungs?

Pulmonologist Dr. Mark Mayson says the pneumonia usually effects one lung or part of a lung. "After we start on antibiotics and start killing the bugs, the patients start to turn a corner."

Mayson says, "COVID is a little different animal." He says COVID causes pneumonia in both lungs.

"This is unlike any sort of pneumonia that I have been involved with because it does not get better."

According to Dr. Mayson, on an x-ray, normal lungs are a charcoal-grey color. "When folks get pneumonia, it has a higher density, and that higher density has more of an opaque color or a white color so we'll see these patchy areas within the lungs on both sides."

The patchier the lungs, the sicker the patient.

Credit: Dr. Mark Mayson, Prisma Health

Dr. Albrecht says while you could recover, those that don't take the coronavirus seriously, "May find an amputation, a stroke, a destroyed lung cannot be undone."

"You don't want to try this out to see the light," Dr. Albrecht says. 

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