FFS! Dodged the Covid bullet for 3 years and now here we are…

[MintyCedric]

Went to a festival last week/end. Came back feeling a bit ropey as expected and decided to take a test this morning.

Two glorious bright pink lines came up!

I’ve had all the jabs (last one about 10 months ago) and so far it just feels like bad allergies/beginning of a cold with a slightly iffy tum.

DD is at work for the day then decamping elsewhere. I’ve ordered more tests and a grocery delivery. Can do some work from home if I’m feeling up to it which I am atm. Have thermometer and pulse oximeter purchased back in the early days…

…any other advice or ideas what to expect. I hope hunker down, good food (still have my appetite and taste thank God) and lots of fluids will knock it on the head pronto.

Did you think Covid had disappeared magically?

Oh how I wish I could have just "ignored it" - I was really ill for 3 weeks. Took me 3 months to completely recover. Ive never felt so ill in all my life. Far worse than any cold, flu or even being hospitalised with glandular fever.

Hoping you are better soon op.

No covid has not disappeared but why test? we have never tested for colds, for flu, for coughs etc. Surely if you feel ill you just act appropriately!!!!

10% of people who have covid will develop LC
How will you know it’s LC if you’ve never tested?
How will you know you need to be particularly careful because it’s covid and by spreading it, you are putting some people in danger (cancer patients etc etc) in a way a cold doesn’t?
Ona ‘how dangerous is that virus’ scale, covid is at the same level than tuberculosis. Do you think
we shouldn’t test for tuberculosis either?

Covid is just as dangerous as it was before. It’s nit a cold or the flu. No it is not the killer we were told it was. It never was (ask our politicians why they insisted it was). But worldwide, we have an increase in disability. We have an unusual increase in heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, in people who didnt use to suffer from those. We know the more we catch covid, the riskier it is.
It’s not a cold. (And we never caught the flu once a year. It has always been like 2 x every 15 years or do…).

@loulouljh question for you - I have cancer and my immune system is very compromised atm. Covid is very dangerous for me. MUCH more so than a common cold. That's just a fact unfortunately.
I want to work and socialise and live a normal life because I don't want to be locked away forever. Therefore I appreciate my friends and colleagues who test for covid and give me a heads up so I can swerve them if they are positive.
Do you think that's unreasonable ?

We've never known how common asymptomatic flu was, there was never constant mass testing for it. We probably have a +infection once every few years with low/no symptoms.

Remember the guy who brought covid to his ski holiday & then to Britain, because he barely had any symptoms? Some of the kids he exposed were tested, and their other child contacts at school. They had Lots of low symptom/asymptomatic flu.

I've already said upthread that I'm immunosuppressed and inject my immunosuppressant drugs weekly. I test the morning before I inject (just done so actually!) to be as sure as I can that I don't have covid before I inject. My underlying condition makes me more vulnerable to complications from covid so if I do test positive, I know not to take my drugs and also to call for antivirals if I need to (when I've been asymptomatic or very mildly unwell I haven't needed them).

I have had 7 vaccinations but because I'm immunosuppressed, all vaccines don't work as well, be they for flu, covid, pneumonia, etc. There is evidence that they can make symptoms less severe which is why I continue to have every booster - so far, a combination of vaccines and boosters have meant I haven't been unwell enough to need hospital care for any of my 9 infections.

I don't take my medication if I have any symptoms of illness or infection as the results could be the same. There's not a test for flu but if there was, I would take that too. As it is I just have to be very mindful of any symptoms I have and skip my meds if I feel at all under the weather.

Covid is more dangerous than flu for people with my condition so it's brilliant that there is a reliable test for it!

For some people it never stopped being a thing and possibly won't ever.

Sorry but that's just mad. People have colds, flu etc all the time and unwittingly pass it on to others. Obviously if you've got bad symptoms with any kind of illness you stay at home so as not to spread it.

Morning All, OP here!

Not feeling too bad and as I’m now on Day 6 am assuming (touch wood) that I’ve got away with a mild bout.

I started this thread purely to have a bit of a whinge and find out what I might expect having not have Covid before.

It’s purpose wasn’t to debate the pros and cons of vaccinations or testing so can we please stop with the scathing comments and quizzing posters about their reasons for testing.

We all have different circumstances, health factors and people in our lives we may or may not have to be mindful on.

If you’re lucky enough to be able to crack on like Covid has never existed, that’s great, but there’s no need to be disparaging about those of us who, for a variety of reasons, are not in the same boat.

Glad you're not feeling too awful OP! And thanks for your lovely understanding comments 💐

@Shoesonthefloor Covid is not simply a cold or flu though. It can be fatal for some people.

Didn't mean to intrusively quiz, just curious how people make decisions. I tried to ask any questions politely. Thanks to Lana for sharing.

I did wonder if she would love to have equivalent cheap easy tests for lots of other viruses, too, like RSV, flu, 100+ common cold viruses, noro, etc. Would that be helpful or a headache.

My CEV husband has had it twice (had all of his jabs). Both occasions, cold symptoms and very achey limbs for a few days. I had all of the same symptoms for days but consistently tested negative, which was a bit weird.
Hope you feel better soon 😃

Yes that would be very helpful! Especially if they give reliable results even before you're symptomatic. I once injected my meds and came down with flu a couple of days later and that was very nasty. If I'd have been able to get a reliable positive while it was still pre-symptomatic I could've avoided that.

ps: home-tests for infectious diseases is a growth area (huge commercial potential). There are lots for STDs now, I think there will be a constant stream of new home-tests becoming available in coming years, and yeah of course there could be debates kicking off whether "responsible" people should proactively test or if it's too much. Or indeed whether constant exposure to germs actually makes the population more resistant to harm and we end up with unintended bad consequences by suppressing these diseases. Someone said that before good sanitation existed in 1800s (to prevent things like cholera), polio almost never hurt anyone because people got exposed & immunity as little babies, at a point when their immune systems could actually resist polio harms better. So by cleaning up the water and eradicating polio and other sewage diseases, we actually made polio more dangerous. pps: I don't know how to check if that claim is true

It's a really tricky set of decisions, how to manage these bad viruses.

Glad you are on the mend, my third Covid bout recently was horrendous, I was ill for 4 weeks and had long lasting effects.

An old school friend died at the end of last year from Covid, she was mid 40’s. She had a few health issues but wasn’t considered vulnerable. Dead after a few days. It absolutely floored us. It’s made me much more conscious that it’s still a problem-obviously most people are fine and there’s no need to panic but it’s wrong to underestimate it.

I did a test after having a tickle in my throat for a couple of days - came up with a very faint line. Contacted my work & sent a picture, they said to come in as normal since I felt ok. Fair enough but I work at a GP surgery and meet patients, plus one of my colleagues has vulnerable relatives! That was a fun experience, not.