Questions :
What are the key considerations for patients who have cardiac disease and have recently recovered from COVID 19? What parameters should be checked and how long is the monitoring required ?

Dr Nishith Chandra’s reply

Patients of preexisting heart disease, recovering from COVID, have to be extra careful. As Covid, infection can precipitate heart failure, by causing myocarditis, or can even induce a heart attack, by causing clotting in one of the heart's arteries. In addition, these patients also have marked fluctuations in their heart rate. Therefore, patients should monitor their heart rate, Blood pressure and SPO2 very closely. If they have marked fluctuation in these parameters, they should immediately contact their cardiologists.
It is also very common for these patients to stop heart medicines, during the COVID episode. They should never stop their heart medicines on their own. We are seeing lots of patients with pre-existing heart disease, who have stopped their medicines, during their COVID illness, and now coming with heart related complications.