Except, of course, there is NO FUCKING TESTING so I can't really be *sure*! Here's how a 'mild' case wss, i.e. I did not have to seek medical attention but it's been a month and my lungs still feel terrible.(1)
January 15: I have influenza and it sucks, though less than in a bad vaccine match year, when I always end up at Urgent Care wheezing and choking. (I still can't breathe and have to go get steroids.)
March 8: Dr. S says to me "I have something in my lungs." Man-flu, I think. He is coughing. We have three small children and work at a college.
March 11-20: I get Dr. S's whatever. I spend the next ten afternoons in bed, too tired to be vertical for more than half a day. For the first few days, I'm too nauseous to eat. I have a dry cough, extreme fatigue, and some difficulty breathing. (2) On Day 5 I completely lose my sense of smell. I contemplate going to the doctor around day 6, because it hurts to breathe and I'm getting so short of breath it's triggering the panic reflex, but I know steroids aren't recommended for this, so what are they going to do? By Day 10 it only hurts a little to breathe, and has turned into a better cough (ugh).
March 25: My sense of smell finally comes back.
March 30: I am still very tired. I can work in the yard, but afterwards it hurts to breathe again.
April 10: I finally feel kind of normal but my lungs still aren't right.
The kids most certainly got it too; the littlest one had a cough but I have no idea if it was a cold or covid. The bigger kids were completely asymptomatic.
Could it have been influenza? Possible but unlikely, especially looking at ILI surveillance (FluView) for the time. So now we're probably all immune (don't listen to the bullshit news articles about antibody titre unless you know how antibodies work!) and, in a functioning country, could know this and help other people.
Vote blue.
(1) This is how I normally feel after influenza too - I have mild asthma- so it's not a new scary thing. It is, however, extremely irritating.
(2) At this time my state was only testing people sick enough to be hospitalized. My town of ~4000 was given ten (10) tests.
I'm glad you're okay!
ReplyDeleteI was very lucky! Now I don't have to worry about getting sick and can just be bored instead...
DeleteVote Blue!
ReplyDelete(Also glad you're ok, and also wish we could get people who aren't at risk of spreading back out there.)
I'm so glad you're ok! (Also yes, vote blue!)
ReplyDeleteI'm also wondering if I had covid in mid-March. Similar symptoms (loss of taste/smell, exhaustion, breathing troubles) and no tests here.
ReplyDeleteWhat's your read on immunity after you've been infected? Lots of strange/panic-inducing headlines on the topic, but I'm no expert.
I think mostly the headlines are making me nuts! People are having, generally, a positive IgA and IgG response to infection. It generally (for, like, most stuff ever) peaks after a few weeks and then declines unless rechallenged. (see here for a general overview: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/memory-b-cell) but truly, this is normal. Some people will have lower or higher titers. Some people will have an insufficient response and not develop immunity (which also happens with vaccines). Until I see a well-documented study showing time courses of antibody response, in large patient populations with *documented and tested* onset of infection, I'm going to keep believing this works like every other virus.
DeleteThe thing that seems to alarm people the most is the "tests negative then positive" and 2 things: the test being done is qualitative, not quantitative; and it's easy to get false negatives and easy to believe people shed viruses infectively for a time and then non-infectively for longer; look up the median shedding times for common viruses, which are up to 6 weeks in some cases!
P.S. I hope you're okay and statistically.... you probably DID have it!
Deleteyeah, we're having a big outbreak here, so I think I probably did. better now! I actually ended up getting steroids which cleared up the endlessly lingering lung issues (dr said that guidance on steroids for likely covid is changing)
DeleteThanks for the thoughts on immunity. your perspective makes more sense than the panicked headlines!
Readily available tests would make this all so much easier. I've had a cough for almost five weeks now. (Early on, I had other symptoms but it's only the cough that has lingered.) Since I work on a college campus in the state with the leading number of cases, there is certainly some chance that I have COVID 19 already. I've been self-quarantining for five weeks, but I'd love to know for certain I've had it because that would be really valuable information. Our country's lack of preparedness is so frustrating.
ReplyDeleteYou probably did have it! (You're also probably not contagious but also don't want to infect your parents, daughter, community members....)
DeleteThere's a serological study finally starting at NIH but they're only enrolling 10,000, which is basically noise. It's so frustrating.
I had the crud in early March too (nausea, fatigue, dry cough, chest pain), and had international travel in the two weeks before. I... still find it incredibly unlikely that I had it, but who knows. Wouldn’t it be nice if my whole family had it and now we are immune? A girl can hope.
ReplyDelete