On Friday, October 29, Bengaluru-based ENT specialist and author of several books (medicine and non-medicine related) reached out to his fan base on social media with an important message. Dr. Jagdish Chaturvedi, in the 3-minute video, spoke about why so many young and fit people are dying of sudden cardiac arrest and massive heart attacks.
In his video, he offered instances of actors Puneet Rajkumar and Siddharth Shukla saying that their sudden passing may not be a coincidence. Both the actors, in their 40s, lost their lives to a sudden cardiac arrest.
Dr. Chaturvedi's video, currently trending on YouTube with more than 1 lakh views, hinted that subclinical myocarditis could be a possible reason for such an occurrence.
"People who have been exposed to covid-19, whether they had severe symptoms or not, whether you landed up on the ventilator or not, you had symptoms or not; if you were exposed to covid-19, there is a high chance you could have something called subclinical myocarditis," he mentioned in the video.
He went on to describe the condition further in a simplified manner. "A subclinical myocarditis means that there are no (visible) symptoms but your heart is inflamed or irritated... any small stress, any small exertion can trigger it into a severe or sudden cardiac arrest."
Covid-19 infection and the body's immune response is known to cause inflammation, not just in the heart, but other body parts as well causing gastro issues, vasculitis of the skin etc.
Workout post COVID
The doctor furthered his explaination saying that during the pandemic, most people have followed a sedentary lifestyle due to lockdowns being imposed, gyms or other fitness avenues being shut. As soon as such restrictions are lifted, people wish to jump back to their prior fitness routines after a long gap, which isn't the most feasible thing to do, especially if the person has suffered from covid-19 infection or any of its symptoms in the recent past.
The video received a critical response with many people appreciating the doctor's proactiveness in sharing such crucial information through this medium.
A Youtube user who watched the video, responded by backing the doctor's observations.
"Thank you for this very useful info doctor. Yes we should not be straining ourselves with high impact cardio exercises. I've been seeing 40+ men coming to the gym, go straight to the treadmill and start running at 6 kmph," said Dorai MS.
Another user Prashanth MN shared a personal experience: "Very recent incident in Bangalore. My brother-in-law had stroke just after gym workout, and completely lost conscious. The gym trainers were luckily CPR trained. With timely CPR on the spot and till the hospital, and an immediate angioplasty, he survived. He was a healthy, fit and young person. The doctor's could not point out the reason, but the information in this video could explain. Thanks for the information."
