This is not a mild cold!

[Hippopotamousses]

I'm positive for the first time after three vaccinations and I feel awful! Has anyone else avoided it for so long and been properly wiped out?

I have a bad cold, scratchy sore throat, slight cough, massive headache, dizziness and I ache everywhere. But most of all I'm just exhausted. I tested positive immediately on Wednesday and the line is getting stronger and I feel worse each day

I tested positive for the 1st time a week ago and it's only today that i feel slightly more human. The runny nose, sore throat, headaches and joint pain have ended, but i'm still feeling very tired. I am still testing positive, albeit a very feint line.

For me it was a mild cold plus some neurological side effects which were very worrying indeed. They do seem to have passed, but it was frightening.

DH definitely would agree with the feeling wiped out.

@BarnacleB I'm glad you are feeling more human. I'm hoping that day comes for me soon! I can barely watch tv or read. I just find myself zoning out

@gwenneh glad the neurological side effects have passed, that must have been scary. Hope you are feeling better now

Me, have symptoms since yesterday morning, no positive yet but I have never felt as ill in my life.

Same @Tootsey11. It has been 4 days now and I feel awful, feeling worse each day. Tested negative in the morning, positive in the evening

It was. All the GP could do was shrug. No one really knows why these side effects happen, and so far they only seem to be associated with long covid which it's far too soon to know whether I have or not. We had to try a few different medications before we found one that has worked. It's only been about a week since I finished the medication though, so we'll see if the symptoms stay away.

I do have an autoimmune disorder, to be fair, and so that seems to me to be the most likely reason I got the side effects. DH didn't get them, but he's still feeling pretty wiped out and he's been testing negative for two weeks now.

A few colleagues have it and are suffering badly with it at the moment. Very high temperatures and fatigue that’s wiping them out completely. The BA.5 variant which is supposed to be dominant right now is quite nasty by all accounts. Heard of a lot on their third or fourth infection despite vaccinations too through friends and colleagues.

My question is what damage is it doing to us all long term with multiple reinfections?

I had it for the first time back in April and I wouldn't even describe the respiratory symptoms as a mild cold. I have worse symptoms from hayfever on high pollen days. I wouldn't describe those symptoms as even like a cold, just mildly irritating. But my god, the fatigue was something else. I didn't get out of bed for three days. 2 weeks later I went back to my gym and was debating how much to push myself, except when I got there I couldn't even get up the bloody stairs. I'm much better now but still not back to pre covid energy levels.

@gwenneh wishing you all the best, it puts it all into perspective really

@Neverendingdust it is the fever and feeling of being exhausted which is affecting me the most. I'm either sleeping for hours because I'm exhausted, or tossing and turning because I'm burning up. Not to mention the 'cloudy brain'. I normally have an excellent memory but My mind keeps going blank trying to remember simple things

@Fladdermus my chest and breathing has been worse recently because of hayfever too. The exhaustion is something else

Mine lasted 11 days. Started with flu symptoms - aches and pains, then moved to my head - terrible sinus pain and headaches and slightly chesty. Then moved to my stomach - upset stomach and nausea. Still have cramping legs at night. Very odd virus. Hang in there. You will get through it.

I tested positive for the first time on Friday. I had thought I was out of woods having dodged it so far.

Worse than a cold, but I've had worse flus.

High temp, congested head, ears and sinuses, productive painful cough. Sore joints.

But my word, the exhaustion! I'm fine if I am lying down. Then I go to walk out to the garden, or even just sit up, and I am jiggered.

I also have very blurry vision and floaters in my eyes.

Hang in there everyone!

I'm positive for the first time. It came on so quickly. I'd been at work that day feeling fine. Spent 2 full days with the worst headache of my life. My teeth and eyeballs felt like they could explode from the pressure. I just lay in a dark room vomiting occasionally for 48 hours. And then it all subsided and I'm left with a bit of a wheezy, chesty cold. Weird.

Everyone is so different with symptoms and these symptoms change daily.
It is great that people are staying out of hospital with this variant/vaccines but it isn't just a cold.
I think my biggest worry though is long term effects. It is a Multi organ disease and we do not know what damage it does. As an asthmatic who likes to keep fit I worry about lung capacity and long term breathing issued especially.

Day 9 for me and although my symptoms have subsided apart from a bit of coughing, I feel worn out! Like I haven't been to sleep.

I'm supposed to be working from home but I just can't face it. Im shattered!

Same. This is far from a cold. I'm vaccinated too.

I think the difficulty OP is that symptoms differ so widely for different people.

To some it is a mild cold, (me) in fact not even cold symptoms, just lethargy/headache/aches . Child number 1 mild cold, child number 2, a bit worse cold with a temperature for 48 hours but better after 1 week. Husband (who is classed as extremely vulnerable and was advised not to even go out in the first lockdown) barely any symptoms, a bit of a cough, over it all in about 6 days.

Meanwhile my parents - mum who is pretty healthy and vaxed up to eyeballs, quite poorly and in bed, but still what I would call mild as she didn't end up in hospital. Dad, classed as vulnerable as just finished cancer treatment, completely asymptomatic.

IRL I know 2 people who have been really unwell and ended up in hospital (both young and now thankfully recovered) but I know loads of people who have had a mild illness at home and recovered fully.

I've love to know the determining factors for symptoms/level of illness.

I've had no vaccinations and have tested positive today for the second time. Symptoms started 4 days ago but have been testing negative until today. Like last time, it's like a very mild cold. Main symptom is congestion. Last time I was pregnant and was still full of energy so it was hard to stay at home!, this time I have a 5 month old to look after, so I'm glad I'm not suffering!
It is interesting how different it is in everyone, especially when comparing vaccination status.

Op you're so right, it can be brutal. I tested positive with it Thursday and yesterday was taken into hospital with severe dehydration from 36 hours of non stop sickness and infection around my pancreas which showed in my bloods. The doctor said they are seeing so many different side effects and not to be blase about it at all, if I'd left it the dehydration would have turned dangerous, as it was I kept blacking out and couldn't even sit up on my own. The treatment has worked wonders but I still feel utterly flattened, it's a horrible thing and I'm so sorry for everyone here who has had it like this. It's also horrible having to justify it - people don't want to hear it can be bad, they want to believe it's just a little sniffle and won't believe you when you say how bad it is, as evidenced on some threads here 😢

Hope you feel much better soon OP.

I’m a week in and still feel horrendous. I’m out of bed now but can’t do a lot. I got up on Saturday morning and made a cup of tea, I needed a 3hour nap after that.

My eyes don’t feel right, they almost feel swollen which I know sounds daft, but there we go. I can’t stop coughing, still off my food and am as dizzy as hell because my ears are blocked. I can’t remember the last time I felt this unwell, tbh.

DH gave it to me. He had one day of a headache, one day of a cold symptoms and fatigue and a a sore throat for a few days but was able to do his normal tasks.

Four days in and on the mend but the sickest I’ve been in a decade. Expect to be back at my PC to WFH tomorrow if the trend continues. Also triple vaccinated. DH was also pretty sick although I’ve seen him worse with ‘flu. He too is infinitely better five days in. Hang in there everyone!

I've found it properly weird. I've tested consistently negative but I can actually trace it back to an actual Patient Zero that I spent a weekend indoors in close contact with. I started getting the headache and the sore throat on the Sunday night - negative test. This will be third time I've had it and there is one very specific thing that's happened each time, I have a scar on my cornea from the first infection and it's incredibly painful, like having grit in your eye for two-three days.
Snotty nose and mild fatigue, more like a can't-be-arsed feeling than anything else, still testing consistently negative despite the fact that people are dropping like flies around me!
Colleague that I spent time with on Friday has tested positive last night and I'm starting to feel like Typhoid Mary....

I feel quite embarrassed at how blasé I have been about it. Like many on this thread I have avoided covid until now (am triple vaxxed) and thought my immune system/vaccinations must be doing all the right things/maybe I had already had it and been asymptomatic/would be able to shake it off easily as I am fit and healthy.

Tested positive on Saturday, am on my third day of symptoms and getting worse each day. The leg cramps are unreal (I have been taking magnesium supplements for ages and they don’t seem to be helping here), chills and shivers, cracking headaches, sinuses burning/aching, bucketloads of snot and it’s now settling in my chest. Started getting stomach cramps too. If I get up to move around the house it feels as though I’m wading through treacle. Definitely not just “a cold”. The thought of doing anything more than slumping on the sofa makes me feel ill.

Other friends who have recently had it had very different symptoms though - one had a fever for a few days but nothing else, the other had a runny nose/extreme fatigue for a week. So strange how differently it presents in different people for no apparent reason.