To assume my cough is because I have a cold

[Redsquirrel34]

So since Thursday I've been absolutely full of cold. Streaming nose, felt a bit rough. No temp and no cough until today. I've woken and feel alot better in myself but can feel the phlegm at the back of my throat and it's making me cough! Not horrendously, just a short cough. I've been awake an hour and coughed 3 times. The cold was caught from my nieces, who passed it onto my daughter, then to me. And now my husband and son are all extremely snotty too.
Isn't this the reason why there's no tests? Because technically I have a cough I should get tested but common sense says it's a cold. I just feel it's stupid to attempt to test in these circumstances. If I had a cough out of nowhere or a temp it would be different. Aibu to put the cough down to a cold?

We're in the same boat here. DH and both DD's (under 12) have the sort of cold you decide, with lots of chesty coughing over a couple of days, both are much better today. No high temps at any point. Am quite happy that it's just a cold.

I have a child with severe autism.
He frequently has a cold- spends months in the winter with a runny nose.
He has it right now and has passed it on to other DC and me.
No cough, no fever, just v congested and snotty.

We are all getting better so didn't get tested.
I was worried though, even though I didn't meet the criteria.

Those criteria have already changed so much.
The loss/change of taste and smell was originally anecdotal, now it is one of the three symptoms listed.

Also a symptom of cold- I've often lost my taste and smell when I get severely congested.
It's rather scary.

'with lots of chesty coughing over a couple of days, both are much better today. No high temps at any point. Am quite happy that it's just a cold.'

Wht are you 'happy it's a cold'?! Coughing over 2 days is a new continuous cough. I really hope you self isolated even if you do think you're psychic and just 'know' its a cold.

Lindy2 No, I don't work in a school. I said 2001 was when I started teaching. I haven't been in a classroom for years now. The cough however, reappears each September as the weather turns.

I think that amidst all the covid material produced, a video about what is/isn't a continuous cough would have been really helpful, with examples of people coughing "this person hasn't got a continuous cough assuming they are only coughing like this and less than x times per hour." "This type of cough, unless it's a one off coughing episode (by which we mean...) is the sort of cough we mean. So is this - it isn't frequent but it's severe" etc.

A 'continuous cough', unless they intended to mean almost everyone who coughs at all, is incredibly subjective.

I had a cough that was on/of and I was 80% sure was due to allergies. I phoned up the helpline an explained and they said I should come to do the test anyway. I booked for the next day, turned up, went through, everything was very organised and fast and I got a call 2 days later to say it was negative At the time of booking the test I explained I din't want to take up a test unnecessarily and they said not to worry, there was a shortage way back in March but its fine now, the whole point of the lockdown was to buy time to get this stuff in place.
I am in the Netherlands by the way not the UK.
The reason why I mention it is because in your situation I probably wouldnt get a test given your symptoms and the shortage of tests. However, the shortage of tests isnt because of members of the british public being silly hypochodriacs or not following guidelines or having swabs pushed up their nose because they just love the feeling. Its because the UK government massively fucked up.

Oh yes, and the lady on the helpline appolgised that the testing centre was a bit of a distance fron me... it was a 30 minute cycle ride (or 15 mins by car probably)

My neighbour has what I'd definitely define as a 'continuous cough' at the moment. I heard him cough non stop for a whole 20 minutes without stopping yesterday - when he had chance to draw in breath I don't know as he coughed so much and so often. I went out back to ask if he needed someone to phone for help, it alarmed me that much! His wife was with him so I left them to it. Now he definitely needs a test, but I heard his wife complaining they can't get one and she's very worried about him.

DS2 has had a cold all week and now has a wet, occasional cough as a result. I very much doubt he needs a test, but many workplaces and schools would not allow him through the door until he was tested. Which I can understand entirely.

Our Local Authority guidance is very clear that if you have COLD symptoms, then you can treat it like you do every other year and continue to send your DCs to school so long as they don't have a fever.

Some schools are being perfectly sensible about this as well, and even sent out the Local Authority guidance confirming they intend to follow it as well. Others ... not so much ... and that is creating unnecessary problems.

Children and families should not be told to isolate for 14 days because of a cold. Cold are rampant right now because everyone has gone back to school in small enclosed classrooms with 20-30 students per room minimum instead of 8-15 from the small summer term bubble months, and after 6 months of distancing ... so their immune systems are crap. Teachers' as well.

And if the government thinks to be on the safe side people with colds should be tested, too, then they have to be local and easy to get. Which we all know they're not.

This is a government failure. 100%.

@SkaraBrae

Criteria for the cough is v unclear in my opinion. 'Continuous' is either coughing for over an hour or 3 times per 24 hours- what it one time though? How long do we have to cough to count it as one time?

I know my post sounds dense but I genuinely find it confusing.

I think people are getting too hung up on that tbh...

Choke on something, clearly not a cough, even if you cough more often for a bit after... need to clear your throat but a bit more than normal, not a cough...

Anything where you’d describe yourself as having a cough normally... that should count, unless you’re a complete hypochondriac who describes anything as a cough - and they’re probably testing anyway.

@mrs2468

Do you have a dry persistent cough? If it’s a wet cough due to mucus etc then it’s cause of the cold not due to Covid

I agree that the OP's sounds like a cold, but I've had Covid and although my cough only lasted about a week I still have a lot of mucus, six months on. It's not dry.

God, I wish covid had some sort of telltale rash as one of the signs! Imagine how much simpler things would be at this time of year.

Then again, you'd probably have millions of people with midge bites, eczema, allergies etc posting 'does this look like a covid rash?' and booking tests to check, so maybe not.

Government has messed up here though, NOT the people who are worried about their symptoms. No one has a swab shoved up their nose for the fun of it.

A 'continuous cough', unless they intended to mean almost everyone who coughs at all, is incredibly subjective.

A continuous cough is meant to mean almost everyone who has a cough. The phrasing is just trying to exclude people who have coughed because of something environmental e.g. dust and then not coughed again. People with established cough for other medical reason like asthma are excluded too.

I am absolutely despairing at all the posters of this thread who consider that they know better than medical professionals and so are going to continue potentially spreading Covid when they are symptomatic.

There are plenty of cases of Covid where people originally thought they had a cold.

@ithinkiveseenthisfilmbefore
Absolutely right it’s government failure

My children aren’t missing anymore education because they’ve got their usual September cold and a bit of a cough.

It’s not our fault the government haven’t got tests sorted, they knew this was coming surely.

@ithinkiveseenthisfilmbefore no one is being told to isolate because of a cold. Cold with a cough or cold with a fever - yep you do need to isolate. Whether it is a dry, raspy, wet, sloppy, tickly, or barking cough.

This thread is why the numbers are going to sky rocket!

It's frustrating but if you have a cough you are supposed to get tested or self isolate for 10 days. You are not supposed to self diagnose.

Same here streaming cold sore throat sore chest and head ache. Cough is intermittent. My bf said I should get a test. Luckily I know its a cold she said yes but you could be a carrier and the sneezing might mean you pass it on.

I had the same symptoms and they've been gone about a week now. Lasted about 4 days. My cough was wet and productive. Didn't test.

The government not having test and trace up and working before opening everything is the reason numbers will go up again.

Given that even in Bolton the test positivity rate is only 10%, so if you self diagnose your cold as just that most of the time you will be right.

How many posters would be up in arms though if a teacher was coughing teaching their kids and said well it's only a cold so you have nothing to worry about....

I had a cold in early August, panicked, got a test (they were actually available back then), tested negative, felt like an idiot - and assume that I are amongst those that Matt Hancock has subsequently accused of wasting tests when they weren't necessary.

Now I have another cold (caught off my daughter) with a slight cough. I don't think it classifies as persistent but would rather err on the side of caution. Of course there are no tests. So what am I going to do? I am quite prone to colds especially when stressed/under pressure and nothing like guiding my family through a global pandemic alongside juggling work to put me under pressure and weaken my immune system. I am sure this will be the first of many colds this winter. I also suspect I had Covid back in March but -guess what - no tests available back then so I never found out.

So going forward now with no tests available am I going to:
*self isolate myself and my family on a monthly basis? By the rate we are going at the moment that would be 2 weeks out of every 4.

• shelve out £500 on a monthly basis for private tests for me and my family?

Is this seriously what the government expects me and others to do? To single-handedly pay this kind of price for their incompetence?

Don't get me wrong if my symptoms were clearer I would absolutely just pay the money. But my symptoms are at best borderline so I will have to risk it - and save the money to pay for private tests when I will need them more than now. But I cannot tell you how angry I am that I am being put in this position.

I'm viewing the 'episode of coughing' as more than 1 cough in quick succession. In me I'd be more concerned about an involuntary cough (unless I'd just inhaled a fly or crumb) than a 'that snot is annoying, deal with it' throat clearing cough. I can't get that level of information from DC so going with a single cough is not an episode of coughing..

It’s such a difficult call to make sometimes. My DD had a fever last weekend with a runny nose and later on a cough. Because of the fever we got her tested and it came back negative. I have now caught the cold off her and have a blocked runny nose, no fever but yesterday I couldn’t smell at all, I can however smell today now that my nose isn’t as blocked and have a mild cough that comes at the end of a cold. I really don’t think it warrants a test but if I called the hotline I probably do tick the boxes. 🤷‍♀️

This thread is very worrying. There are lots of people have tested positive with little more than what they thought were cold symptoms. Not just a blocked nose and sore throat but if you have a cough (not just occasional) or temperature then you have to test or isolate even if you have other cold symptoms.