Among all the manifestations and complications of COVID-19, yet another puzzling question is emerging — is the virus triggering cases of diabetes?
Like many doctors around the world, Dr. Mihail Zilbermint began noticing something strange midway in the pandemic.
More and more people seemed to be suddenly developing diabetes.
Zilbermint is an endocrinologist and an associate professor with John Hopkins School of Medicine in Maryland. The sudden change was surprising, he said, and worrying.
A diagnosis of diabetes was also a shock to John Kunkel, who lives in Arkansas, and had just recovered from a serious case of COVID-19 when he discovered his pancreas had stopped making enough insulin, forcing him into daily blood sugar testing, and metformin to manage his diabetes.
Kunkel tested positive for COVID-19 at the end of June 2020.
He texted his doctor immediately after realizing that he had lost his sense of taste. By the time he arrived at the doctor’s office, he already had a fever of 101 degrees.
“By 7:30 that night I was in the emergency room with 103.5 fever,” he said. “So I went from really losing my taste at 11 o’clock, being in the hospital at night with a very high fever.”
His fever was worryingly high for almost two weeks straight. He was in the emergency room five times.
In July, things took a turn for the worse during his recovery.
“I’ll never forget the day,” he said. “It was July 30 when I had bloodwork done.”
When his results came back, it was clear there was a problem with his blood sugar.
Image Credit: Getty
Post by Amanda Scott, NA CEO. Follow her on twitter @tantriclens
Thanks to Heinz V. Hoenen. Follow him on twitter: @HeinzVHoenen
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