Mild cases

[Lostinacloud]

I think it’s important for there to be more information and accounts of mild cases of covid because mild cases do exist and all I ever seem to see are the worse case scenarios. So here is my recent experience and please feel free for anyone to add their own experiences of a mild case.

Went to bed one Thursday evening a couple of weeks ago feeling like I was coming down with something but not yet feeling ill.
Woke up on Friday with a mild sore throat and a dry cough. Each coughing episode only consisted of about 2-3 coughs and I had about 2-3 episodes per hour so not as continuous as I expected it to be reading descriptions of the symptoms.
Felt tired but not so tired that I couldn’t get out of bed and still managed to do a few jobs around the house and make some meals for my DC. Luckily in some ways it was right at the start of half term so I was naturally isolated as soon as symptoms started. (The DC broke up on the wednesday).
Over the course of day one I got a strongish headache but this was reduced with paracetamol. No fever or temperature or aches.
Exactly the same symptoms for Saturday and Sunday but no worse.
From Monday (day 4) onwards the headache subsided and I felt much less tired and unwell. Thankfully no breathing problems but from day 4-10 I did feel a bit wheezy after climbing the stairs and like there was a puffy feeling in my chest. My oxygen stayed at normal levels throughout and I never felt like I couldn’t breathe normally. I think some of the heavy chest feeling was muscular due to coughing for a week.
Day 10 the cough stopped and my chest felt completely clear and normal and I would describe myself as feeling 100% recovered and feeling healthy.
I did lose my sense of smell and taste on day 3 and this is what prompted me to go for a test. My smell started to creep back in after about 10 days and my taste took about 14 days to return and is still not quite back to normal.

I have detailed everything I experienced so perhaps it sounds like there were quite a lot of symptoms and it lasted 14 days but honestly I’ve felt worse with a bad wine hangover and I only really felt unwell for about 3 days in total.

I also realise I was lucky with my experience and do not wish to be flippant towards those suffering much worse symptoms or those ending up in hospital. However, as I said at the start, I think it’s important for people to also share their experiences of mild versions to perhaps help some people with their anxiety and to offer a balanced mix of information.

I love this. I think we should talk about the mild cases more. I feel like I'm in a constant panic regarding how bad I will feel when I inevitably catch it.

Pleased you coped well. Hopefully more folk will add to this thread.

I'm high risk and also had it only mildly. The worst not was not being able to lea e the house.

I had a case so mild it hardly registered - headache and aching body for 1 day, went to bed, woke up absolutely fine. I didn't even think to get tested (and this was back in March when I would not have been eligible). I had been in contact with someone who later had confirmed Covid so I'm pretty sure that was it. I had an antibody test in June which is how I know I had it! Either that or I was asymptomatic and that was a menopausal blip.

Thanks for this. I also had it mildly, like you describe, but when I tell people they are really shocked and can't believe it.

I am currently on day 3 of mild COVID.

Some people I work with tested positive over half term (we work in school admin)
1 on 27th, 28th, 29th, 30th - I had had no contact with them for the 48 hours so I was in work on Monday 2nd - approved by dFE

I have had- no cough, no temp.
On Tuesday my mouth felt like it was burned with menthol and my nasal cavity burned. Felt rough like a head cold and a headache. Jokingly said to dh I reckon I've got the rona
Weds- woke up feeling much better! Sprayed perfume on myself- couldn't smell it. Booked a test. In the queue I began to smell my perfume again and felt stupid for wasting everyone's time! Smell come and go all day, could smell some things but not others. No loss of taste

Thursday- bad stomach. Feeling queasy, no appetite. Feel washed out. Not especially tired, just like I'm run ragged. Headache occasionally. Drippy nose but no conjestion. Tiny tickle throat clearing cough.

Woozy, lightheaded spacey feeling constantly. Moments of heart racing (Fitbit recorded it as light exercise?!) occasionally. Moments where I feel like I'm going to curl up in a ball, but generally I'm ok.

Mild earache, stomach ache, muscle ache at times but absolutely nothing serious and I'd certainly have struggled through work this week. Occasional tight dry feeling in throat and chest. Feel like I'm breathing in dry cigarette smoke without the smell or like disco smoke machine, but not all the time. Lots of weird mouth numb feelings and my sinus and nasal cavity feels a bit tender and generally weird.

I am honestly, genuinely surprised at how mild my symptoms are and how far from the 'big 3' they are. There must be thousands of people going round with symptoms all the time and not know. The stomach trouble was the big one for me, plus my ds has it too and apparently it's the one symptom in preschoolers that's usually universally noted even if they have no other symptoms

The majority of cases are mild, and the classification of mild is any case that does not require hospitalisation, including cases of pneumonia at home and presumably including cases with long term symptoms.

I think I have had it once about 6 months ago, I never felt 'ill' at all, my symptoms were much milder than yours, but my sense of smell is not yet recovered. I am worried about the ongoing research into brain changes relating to that, and that even many completely asymptomatic cases have on scanning sustained lung damage. So I don't think we know quite what we are dealing with yet. Apparently most 'long Covid' cases are initially mild.

I agree people need to realise that many many of them will be at least initially asymptomatic or have very mild symptoms. I still hear people saying that they are ok to mix/do abc because they feel fine!

@thenewaveragebear1983 I totally agree that the 'big three' symptoms are making a lot of people think they can't or don't have it when they very possibly might.

Yes, Especially in children.

Also the rashes and generally viral type things we currently recognise as other things - I have a cluster of pox like blisters around my ear and apparently that's a symptom, plus itchy eyes like I'm getting conjunctivitis? All things that in isolation probably mean nothing but I have several of them and clearly they are all related

I had a cluster of pox type spots too on my rib cage. Forgot 🙄

This is such a good idea for a thread. Thank you, and I'm glad you weren't too ill

DH got a positive test result today, he only went for a test cos he had a mild cough and wanted to be safe as he’s a tradesman so goes into houses. He’s felt a bit rough but we were really surprised when it came back positive.

I know loads of people who have had it now and luckily all have been mild so far. My friends DP has it now but he's asymptomatic. He was a bit naughty and got a test after being contacted by test and trace and it came back positive. He still has no symptoms. My best friends SIL has it now as well, coming out the other side of it now and felt like she had a heavy cold.
There's been around 100 cases at the factory by DP works in and nobody has been hospitalised as of yet.

I'm not sure we need to state 'mild cases do exist' as, overwhelmingly, that is what they are.
Like OP, not in any way minimising the severity of those folk that become extremely ill - and I hope a lot of the information gathering and research is trying to work out why some are affected so badly, or even, sadly, in some cases fatally, whilst overwhelmingly, people are less ill than if they have a cold.

The worry is, as a pp said, that people then carry on mixing and going about their day, spreading it to others who then are badly affected.

Back in March DS woke up with a cough. He's NHS but not frontline. Convinced himself and me that he'd caught his colleagues cold. Six days later I had lung pain and one evening of coughing. Temperature was 38 but was back at 37.5 half an hour later. Day 3, mild headache and earache. Day 4, felt like a mild sinus infection, I had an awful smell in my nose, like someone had poured acid up there! Really sore eyes - couldn't move my eyes without pain behind them. Day 5 and 6 the same, but DH had a migraine. Day 7, DH temperature was up and he had flu symptoms. From this point onwards I was looking after him and we were isolating. Day 10, I had awful stomach cramps - this was the worst symptom for me. The pain moved around my stomach, at one point it was like my bladder was spasming. DH was eventually hospitalised and positive for covid. DS's cough lasted for 6 weeks, including night coughing and close to being sick, but we were both mild with our symptoms. He had an antibody test in July, he was negative 🤷 but the colleague he caught his 'cold' off was positive. Like pp, if the schools were open I would have carried on working. Quite concerning now that cold symptoms are being reported by people who are positive.

There's a lot of scare mongering about mild cases though, things like "mild only means you don't get admitted to hospital" which I think had led to this belief that even a mild case has you on your deathbed. People seem amazed that there are actually mild cases.

I have male relative with a number of risk factors - 60s, morbidly obese, heart condition. He developed a very mild cough - he's had worse - which lasted five days. No symptoms. He isolated but was able to look after himself, get out bed, potter around. Fully recovered before the end of the isolation period.