Experiences of Teh Plague

[Wowbagger]

Another positive test this morning with a somewhat bolder line. Jan tested negative. It was a different batch of tests, scrounged from a neighbour, so possibly more recent and therefore more sensitive. (Bland assumptions are us)

Does anyone know the extent to which the designers of the tests are trying to make them keep up with the latest variants? I recognise that they will always be playing catchup, but it makes sense to adapt them to the latest possible.

[andrewc]

GWS Wow.

[Jurek]

GWS Wow.

Ditto.
I hope neither of you experience that which I did in August.

[ian]

Another positive test this morning with a somewhat bolder line. Jan tested negative. It was a different batch of tests, scrounged from a neighbour, so possibly more recent and therefore more sensitive. (Bland assumptions are us)

Does anyone know the extent to which the designers of the tests are trying to make them keep up with the latest variants? I recognise that they will always be playing catchup, but it makes sense to adapt them to the latest possible.

Generally, they don't need to, most tests use one of the nucleocapsid proteins as an antigen and these haven't drifted much. That said, remember LFTs aren't that sensitive to start out with and effectively will decline with age.

[rafletcher]

I tested positive just now with the faintest line I've ever seen.

You really should check the size of image you're posting 

[Wowbagger]

Post-covid blues...

My right sinuses are causing me some pain and (do not click below if you are averse to icky imagery)

(click to show/hide)

are producing the occasional dollop of utterly disgusting grey snot.

[Morat]

Just having another encounter with the sicknes
Felt a bit off on Monday but still went spinning. Felt pretty rubbish on Tuesday morning and tested positive straight away with two very solid red lines. Proceeded straight to bed for 4 days of painful fever, headache and general feeling of being crushed under a huge weight. Just for extra fun, it seemed to make my balls hurt this time round. Nice little twist.
Now it's Saturday and I'm out of bed, but still knackerd and haven't left the house. Still testing positive.
Bah, it sucks. I sorted the dishwasher this morning, it felt like a major achievement.

Wife and Son had similar experiences. Amazingly our Ukrainian visitors seem mostly unaffected. Mother is positive but out of bed and moving around quite happily after 24hrs. Daughter completely oblivious. It's not like we can separate much with 5 people in a 4 bed house. Good for them! Ukrainian chicken soup was very welcome too....

[Wowbagger]

I didn't cough last night, which was a massive relief.

But this evening I have started coughing again, a lot. I also sneezed a lot earlier.

I'm really pissed off with this. I've been ill for pretty much the whole of November.

We are doing covid tests again.

[Wowbagger]

Tests negative.

[BrianI]

I've just tested negative.
So I'm assuming it's just Mammalian Man Flu.
But since Friday I've been spending most of the day in bed.
Feeling very fatigued, slight cough, fuzzy head not much of an appetite.

At least I don't need to worry about phoning in sick as I'm not working at the moment.

[PeterM]

I'm in the midst of my first confirmed bout of Covid. A couple of days of a vaguely scratchy throat, which I put down to pollution levels; a day that felt like a head cold, with occasional coughing; a day of deterioration (nose like a tap, sneezing, paroxysmal coughing, shiveriness, aches, bone-deep weariness, not much sleep); a repeat, with bonus loss of smell; finally a day more or less without sneezing, coughing, and the other symptoms, though my rib cage hurts like hell. If this is what Covid is like when you're vaxxed to the max, I'm glad I missed out on the full-fat experience.

How long is the anosmia likely to last?

[hellymedic]

I've no idea about the anosmia, possibly because there's a spectrum from no anosmia (me: I could smell a mango was 'off' when I was at my worst.) to three months (Partner's brother, a wine merchant) to permanent.
I suspect mild Covid means short anosmia but there is no telling.
Get well soon!

[Kim]

The anosmia thing worries me.  I've always had a rather acute sense of smell (which is Type 2 fun growing up in a family of smokers), and I reckon I'd struggle to adjust if I lost it.  I could really do without more weight loss.

I believe andygates OTP is still afflicted many months after the infection.

[PeterM]

I believe andygates OTP is still afflicted many months after the infection.

It's not much fun even after a few days. I can taste the ghost of citrus fruit and tomatoes, but even dark roast coffee doesn't register at all. At least it shows that I really do drink because I like the taste...

[hellymedic]

I think some folk with anosmia have had some success 'retraining' their olfaction, as it recovers.

Citrus flavours are mostly TASTED by the tongue, which means they partly escape the horrors of anosmia. (Tongue detects sweet, sour, bitter & salt - an orange has all but salt.)

(I suspect pepper 'heat' and 'fizz' need common 'pain' sensation on the tongue - I've had these fail at one point, due to my MS; - could eat chillies with impunity, but this has now resolved.)

I think some foods 'fizz' a bit on the tongue but we don't really think about this.

Coffee needs decent olfaction.

[SteveC]

Beer was the weirdest for me.
All I could taste was 'bitter'. No flavour at all.
This happened on day three. I was not well at all overnight on Friday (MrsC having tested positive on the Thursday). Saturday and Sunday afternoons I crashed on the bed for a couple of hours, which is most unlike me.
During Sunday tea I commented on how nice my pork chop tasted (first ones we'd had from a local farm).
Later on Sunday I had a beer and...nothing but the bitterness. Lasted for nearly a fortnight, then came back gradually. Tuna fish was the first thing I noticed and coffee was not far behind.

[Kim]

Related, I've often found that a stronger-than-usual aversion to the smell of vinegar is an early symptom of viral infection.  To the point where a sniff of ketchup can serve as a useful lurgy-or-just-tired diagnostic test.

[campagman]

I was talking to a friend last night whose sense of smell has not returned since covid.

[PeterM]

The sense of smell is mostly back. I appear to have got off lightly

[JellyLegs]

It looks very possible that one of our Xmas dinner guests brought us an extra present.  I went down with a scratchy sore throat on Thursday evening, quickly followed by all the symptoms of a heavy cold.  I thought nothing of it until I lost my sense of taste and smell on Monday night.  Tested this morning and very very positive for plague even though I feel much better today.  Mrs JL has been feeling “iffy, nothing more”.  She has also tested positive.  Up until today, she was one of the few people who had never had Covid, testing negative throughout all its previous visitations to our household.

[Regulator]

It looks very possible that one of our Xmas dinner guests brought us an extra present.  I went down with a scratchy sore throat on Thursday evening, quickly followed by all the symptoms of a heavy cold.  I thought nothing of it until I lost my sense of taste and smell on Monday night.  Tested this morning and very very positive for plague even though I feel much better today.  Mrs JL has been feeling “iffy, nothing more”.  She has also tested positive.  Up until today, she was one of the few people who had never had Covid, testing negative throughout all its previous visitations to our household.

I'd be interested to know how you get on.  About half the people I know who've had Covid before and again recently have said it's they worst they've had - and the other half have suggested it was mild.  It really does seem to be quite personal how it affects individuals. 

Hospitals around here are asking people to mask though, do to the large increase in number of people with Covid.

[JellyLegs]

It looks very possible that one of our Xmas dinner guests brought us an extra present.  I went down with a scratchy sore throat on Thursday evening, quickly followed by all the symptoms of a heavy cold.  I thought nothing of it until I lost my sense of taste and smell on Monday night.  Tested this morning and very very positive for plague even though I feel much better today.  Mrs JL has been feeling “iffy, nothing more”.  She has also tested positive.  Up until today, she was one of the few people who had never had Covid, testing negative throughout all its previous visitations to our household.

t.

I'd be interested to know how you get on.  About half the people I know who've had Covid before and again recently have said it's they worst they've had - and the other half have suggested it was mild.  It really does seem to be quite personal how it affects individuals. 

Hospitals around here are asking people to mask though, do to the large increase in number of people with Covid.

So far, I would be in both camps.  It’s my second confirmed bout of Covid, the first being in May 2022.  This one seems worse than the my memory of the first but still nothing like my one experience of the flu which knocked me sideways for two weeks.  I spent my New Year (Friday to Monday) pretty much welded to the sofa with a bunged head, background headache, sore throat, a bit of joint ache and a phlegmy cough from high up in my respiratory tract which are the standard set of symptoms for me for at least one cold per winter.  By Tuesday I was beginning to feel a bit better and today I just have the remnants of the cough and a bit of snot. My sense of smell and taste are also not quite right but they both seem less dulled than they were on Monday evening.  Hopefully the improvement will continue, I intend to take it easy for the next couple of weeks just in case.  My main observation would be how quickly the full set of symptoms developed.  Slightly scratchy sore throat at 7pm but otherwise felt absolutely fine.  By 11pm I had the full on headache, bunged head and joint aches and by 8am was coughing too.

Mrs JL, the Covid virgin up until I shared the love with her, seems to be doing better than me.  She reports a slightly bunged head and slightly sore throat but nothing more.

There is definitely a lot of Covid about at the moment. and I suspect a number of friends and colleagues who have “just had a nasty cold, not Covid” in the last six weeks are saying that because they didn’t test and so don’t know any different.

[Regulator]

It looks very possible that one of our Xmas dinner guests brought us an extra present.  I went down with a scratchy sore throat on Thursday evening, quickly followed by all the symptoms of a heavy cold.  I thought nothing of it until I lost my sense of taste and smell on Monday night.  Tested this morning and very very positive for plague even though I feel much better today.  Mrs JL has been feeling “iffy, nothing more”.  She has also tested positive.  Up until today, she was one of the few people who had never had Covid, testing negative throughout all its previous visitations to our household.

t.

I'd be interested to know how you get on.  About half the people I know who've had Covid before and again recently have said it's they worst they've had - and the other half have suggested it was mild.  It really does seem to be quite personal how it affects individuals. 

Hospitals around here are asking people to mask though, do to the large increase in number of people with Covid.

So far, I would be in both camps.  It’s my second confirmed bout of Covid, the first being in May 2022.  This one seems worse than the my memory of the first but still nothing like my one experience of the flu which knocked me sideways for two weeks.  I spent my New Year (Friday to Monday) pretty much welded to the sofa with a bunged head, background headache, sore throat, a bit of joint ache and a phlegmy cough from high up in my respiratory tract which are the standard set of symptoms for me for at least one cold per winter.  By Tuesday I was beginning to feel a bit better and today I just have the remnants of the cough and a bit of snot. My sense of smell and taste are also not quite right but they both seem less dulled than they were on Monday evening.  Hopefully the improvement will continue, I intend to take it easy for the next couple of weeks just in case.  My main observation would be how quickly the full set of symptoms developed.  Slightly scratchy sore throat at 7pm but otherwise felt absolutely fine.  By 11pm I had the full on headache, bunged head and joint aches and by 8am was coughing too.

Mrs JL, the Covid virgin up until I shared the love with her, seems to be doing better than me.  She reports a slightly bunged head and slightly sore throat but nothing more.

There is definitely a lot of Covid about at the moment. and I suspect a number of friends and colleagues who have “just had a nasty cold, not Covid” in the last six weeks are saying that because they didn’t test and so don’t know any different.

Many people have never really had 'flu - they've just had a bad cold.  When you've really had the 'flu you know it, don't you...

[mrcharly-YHT]

Cold vs Flu
Main difference, IME, is that with the Flu your joints really really hurt, plus fever, plus incredible weakness.

[FifeingEejit]

I think the 50 quid note analogy for flu vs cold remains the best

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