How can I be testing negative!

[ThisMustBeMyDream]

Covid in the house. DS positive thurs evening (he was neg in the morning!!), DP pos yesterday morning. Me and DP have exactly the same symptoms, I feel dreadful. Yet I'm negative. Pcr and lfts. Makes no sense!
This happened the last (first) time we got covid too. DP tested pos, I started with symptoms the next day, virtually identical again. I was negative until 20 days after his pos test (back when we isolated for 14 days). I was then asymptomatic when I did get a positive! I only tested on that day because I'd just received my first box of lft's (nhs staff).
I find it so strange. Why the bloody hell am I negative when me and DP have identical symptoms. It means I now have to take younger DS who is negative, but well, to school, which feels wrong!

with original wild covid I thought (scientific study) transmission was still only about ~20% within households. Even if Omicron is "much" more transmissible, I imagine 50% of house-sharers still don't get it.

&/or you had infection before but so mildly you never knew it, and are still highly resistant to new infection.

ps: and other germs are available & can infect you at same time.

We are experiencing exactly the same in our house! Totally feel your frustration with it.

Both sons positive last week with loads of symptoms. DH and I have both developed coughs, sore throats, headaches, identical symptoms.. He tested negative on PCR on Saturday, mine was inconclusive, and my follow up was inconclusive again yesterday! Still showing negative on LFTs although mine looks like it's got a very faint line now. Off for another PCR each today.

Totally don't get it!! Really hope you feel better soon x

We have had the same thing my 10 year old ds has had identical symptoms to me, I'm positive and he repeatedly negative on lat flow and on the PCR. Kept him home all week because I was so convinced he had it!

I went out and got a new box of LFT's as I just knew they weren't right. Lo and behold, it was positive. 3 hours between tests.
Frustrating to say the least!

I just did another one from a different box too and clear positive after about 5 seconds! I'm glad I'm not the only one frustrated by all this!

Wishing you and your family well x

My daughter tested positive after complaining of a sore throat 9 days ago. I felt the start of a sore throat the following Monday evening and then very much full of 'cold ' sore throat, sneezing from Wednesday. I tested every day but got a negative. Two days ago (saturday eve), I was coughing and thought I might as well test again, and suddenly got a very quick positive despite having been negative that morning. I now have just sneezing, and cough with constant breathlessness. I feel like an overinflated balloon that hasn't got room to take in big breaths - that feeling you get when you've eaten so much you feel like you can't breathe. I'm talking as if I'm on a long distance run, few words then run out of breath. I was incredibly tired last week, like I coudln't keep my eyes open similar to how I felt after the first vaccine. Now I'm tired a lot but its from the coughing, heavy breathing I think.
Am just surprised that it took me six days to test positive. My daugher is already clear and back at school.

Same here. My son tested positive on lateral flow on Thursday, sore throat, back ache, generally feeling rough. By Saturday I was feeling exhausted and a bit off, sore throat and raging headache, by Sunday I could barely leave my bed, feeling so wobbly with ringing ears but lateral flows all negative. Been for a 2nd pcr this morning, I feel the chances of me being positive are quite high but not even the faintest line on the lateral flow.

I am wondering if I should get a pcr but I don't have the listed symptoms. Ds15 positive last Tuesday, ds17 positive Saturday. Me and DH along with DD6 all negative. I have had a headache for days that I can't shift but all lft are negative. So weird.

I was shattered last Thursday and took a lateral flow. A very faint line came up. Then I had three negative LFT’s and a negative pcr. But had a sore throat all weekend, and now an upset tummy. Weird.

Following with interest.
My class has been rife with it the last couple of weeks, consistently 4 pupils out (5 and the bubble would need to close) with positive siblings in other classes and positive parents. It's impossible to distance effectively and I've just assumed I'd get it.
Now I'm sick, with wicked cold symptoms and a sore throat, yet keep testing negative. Bizarre. I was literally holding a little girl on Wednesday who felt so unwell before being collected by her parent (to be brought home to her positive sibling and other parent) and who tested positive later that day.

Weird. I wonder if omicron is harder to test for?

@YouWereGr8InLittleMenstruators, similar story here. I have been off for a week with what started last Sunday as fever, runny nose and sore throat, then morphed by Friday into no fever but constant dry cough, sneezing and runny nose. 3 days after I started feeling ill, the toddler I spend the day with and ate lunch with (maskless) on Friday tested positive, as did another teacher in the class. Yet I have negative LFTs from days 3, 5, 6 and 7. I'm so frustrated because for it to be another bug seems so unlikely.

Ate lunch with the toddler the Friday PREVIOUS to the first symptoms, obviously...

[quote everythingbackbutyou]@YouWereGr8InLittleMenstruators, similar story here. I have been off for a week with what started last Sunday as fever, runny nose and sore throat, then morphed by Friday into no fever but constant dry cough, sneezing and runny nose. 3 days after I started feeling ill, the toddler I spend the day with and ate lunch with (maskless) on Friday tested positive, as did another teacher in the class. Yet I have negative LFTs from days 3, 5, 6 and 7. I'm so frustrated because for it to be another bug seems so unlikely.[/quote]
You need a PCR test if you've not already had one. You have symptoms.
If you're not infectious, it may not show on LFT. But you may be positive on PCR (though if it's been over a week, may not show on PCR now either).

@CrocodilesCry, I'd love to. I'm not in the UK and where I live, PCRs are getting much harder to come by unless you are particularly vulnerable or work in health care settings. They have started throwing LFTs at us instead. If you test negative on one LFT, they make a big fuss if you ask for another, even though LFTs are notorious for false negatives.

All the old seasonal illnesses are still around and many of those made people feel like absolutely terrible, and from the very beginning of all of this, it was quite common for households to have some get it while others didn't, and also from the very beginning, most cases were asymptomatic or very mild cases...

So what you are experiencing makes perfect sense in the context of the whole pandemic.

Is it worth going to a testing centre where someone else swabs you? Many people dislike the swabbing so instinctively don’t do it as thoroughly as they should, which can be the difference between a positive and a negative if you have a low viral load.

@ThisMustBeMyDream

I went out and got a new box of LFT's as I just knew they weren't right. Lo and behold, it was positive. 3 hours between tests. Frustrating to say the least!

So despite having symptoms and being convinced you had covid you still decided to go out to a pharmacy? Baffling.

@Spilltheteaplease legally I had no reason to isolate. No cough, no temp, no loss of taste or smell. I'm triple vaccinated. I also had another child to take to school. And had I been at work, and not on annual leave this week, I'd have still been required to go, no matter what I thought.
Whether I thought I did or not, I wasn't going against any guidance or law.
Without getting them, I'd still have been taking my other child to school today. This way we can now all stay at home with schools agreement as no one can take my one negative child in.
But thanks for your helpful input!

My pcr is negative, exactly the same symptoms as my son who is still testing strongly positive on day 5.

[quote ThisMustBeMyDream]@Spilltheteaplease legally I had no reason to isolate. No cough, no temp, no loss of taste or smell. I'm triple vaccinated. I also had another child to take to school. And had I been at work, and not on annual leave this week, I'd have still been required to go, no matter what I thought.
Whether I thought I did or not, I wasn't going against any guidance or law.
Without getting them, I'd still have been taking my other child to school today. This way we can now all stay at home with schools agreement as no one can take my one negative child in.
But thanks for your helpful input! [/quote]
You're welcome.

It's not really about what's legally right though is it, it's about not spreading the infection to other people.

Also, you should really be getting a PCR if you have symptoms.

If you'd have read properly, you would have noted that my PCR's were negative. But don't let fact get in the way of your patronising...

@Spilltheteaplease it's about the lft and pcr tests being unreliable and it's not the fault of the OP. This is why it spreads so quickly, my sister knew she had it but never tested positive on a lft and tested negative on 3 pcr tests but positive on a 4th.

@ThisMustBeMyDream

If you'd have read properly, you would have noted that my PCR's were negative. But don't let fact get in the way of your patronising...

But you didn't trust the result so I think you should have got another and still isolated. You obviously don't agree but I maintain that going out and potentially infecting other people was shitty.