It’s almost like I’ve had 3 colds / viruses back to back where I haven’t quite managed to get over the previous one before the next thing comes along.
Don’t forget, the common cold is a Corona virus, and there are four distinct varieties, and being a Covid, they’re just as adept at mutating as the SARS and MERS strains, as shown by the latest version of SARS-Cov 2 running riot around the world, which appears to have picked up some bits from HIV and the common cold, which may account for its ability to spread so much quicker than the Delta version.
I haven’t had a really bad cold-type virus for some years, possibly because I’m no longer working inside a big steel box with a load of virtually sealed interior rooms with a bunch of other humans busy incubating a rich variety of bio-weapons! Which is where I caught the last two doses of something unspeakably vile, as I think I posted earlier.
Sweet baby Jesus, it was truly horrible, I’m convinced that aliens from planet snot had opened a wormhole from one of the deepest parts of one of their snot oceans and were busy trying to empty it into my sinuses! I honestly couldn’t believe that the human head could produce such huge amounts of green goo pretty much continuously. It’s a good thing nobody noticed the number of bog rolls I was pilfering from the loos, I was going through at least one a day. For three sodding months. 🤧👾
Hope I’m not speaking too soon but I think I’m in the all clear now… In the end I had 45 days / over 6 weeks of constantly reoccurring cold symptoms. I’m still producing a lot of the green stuff throughout the day and still have a bit of a cough on and off but I’ve been back on the bike for 3 weeks or so and feeling mostly ok. It’ll be 10 weeks since I started with this thing this week.
Two tests later and I'm reassured it's not COVID, but what an almighty pain in the arse.
All the worse for just not quite being bad enough to call off sick, although I'm mostly working from home so the bar is probably a little higher than usual...
Day 8 - productive cough lacerating my throat with supersonic phlegm, fevers on and off, conjunctivitis requiring me to unglue eyes every morning, even the DOMs from last Tuesday's feeble workout took a week to shift 🙄
Wife and child seem to have got off reasonably lightly, I'm not used to being the sick one!
Well it looks like I've got something awfully similar again, albeit this illness didn't start with a streaming nose.
Only been around others at work and briefly in the Tesco Express down the road in recent weeks, colleague I worked with in van only told me they returned from recent Covid towards end of shift a week before this started. There were other Covid absences at work preceeding me feeling rough.
No energy, aching all over, sleeping loads and full of brain fog. Beter half could feel it on top of her usual daily long Covid symptoms. Been off work a week so far, first absence since the similar bug that started this thread ~8 months ago, still no sign of feeling like I've turned the corner.
LFTs daily have been negative.
Is there a non-Covid bug doing the rounds this summer, that feels like flu?
Yeah, we all had a flu-like thing that didn't return positive on repeated LFTs. I was wiped out for 2 weeks. It could have been covid though although I expected repeated tests would have narrowed the margin of error.
Is there a non-Covid bug doing the rounds this summer, that feels like flu?
Could be, or you've just got another dose of Omicron which, for some reason, isn't showing up on your LFTs.
This winter is going to be interesting as our immune systems encounter various things we haven't experienced for a while.
Me. Tested daily for Covid. Two test types. Negative every time. Dragged on for a couple of weeks. Mrs S didn't catch it though. I behaved as though I had Covid on the basis that, even if it wasn't, there was no need to be passing whatever it was onto someone else.
I had something similar in June. 3 LFTs showed negative. Took me a while to feel better, so I just kept away from people.
Yep, had something that started out as symptoms like hay fever early June. Itchy eyes, sneezing etc. Then went into a full on flu laid me out for a week. Tested negative. Resulted in a chest infection and having antibiotics.
Then again last week while on holiday, raised temperature, chesty cough and runny nose. Again tested negative.
Yep - had the same in our household - all the symptoms of the current COVID variants yet none of us tested positive despite several tests each.
I had what I thought was just a really bad cold a few weeks ago, didn't bother doing a test as "its just a cold", tested positive when I decided to do a test just to prove to my girlfriend that it was just a bad cold!
I'm mostly back to normal now, but breathing is sometimes strange, hopefully that'll eventually get better.
“Sleeping loads”
Where do I sign up
Had a weird throat infection thing the other week. Woke up on Sunday morning feeling very hungover (no drinking, but did a 400km audax Sat, and finished at 3am Sun, so not unexpected) with really painful sore throat (ulcer-like pain, but nothing visible). LFT negative.
Felt really out of it Monday - not unexpected after the audax but still sore throat and headache, but no other cold symptoms. Negative LFT.
Didn't really feel much better til Thursday or Friday. Heatwave Mon/Tue didn't help, but still think there was more to it than that. Bit weird.
Aren't LFTs a bit void once you've been vaccinated or previously infected?
The viral load is too low to show up.
They're not that accurate at the best of times.
Aren’t LFTs a bit void once you’ve been vaccinated or previously infected?
I wondered that. But surely if it's making you feel ill, there must be some viral load - or is it just the body's reaction?
They’re not that accurate at the best of times
Probably that TBH.
LFT positive = you almost certainly have covid (99.97% chance according to https://ukhsa.blog.gov.uk/2022/01/11/5-things-you-need-to-know-about-recent-changes-to-testing/)
LFT negative = you may or may not have covid (false negative rate is dependent on how the test is done and whether asymptomatic, e.g. https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj-2021-066871)
(I am not a statistician 😉
yeah, sample quality is central to a LFT - no offence, all of you 😉, and yes, other viruses are available !
Can confirm though that recent COVID (last week, I'm ASSUMING BA4 or 5) does show on LFTs but I do use the combo throat and mid-turbinate back o'the nose version
Another throat bug here, just about through it now on day five. Horrid spiky swollen throat, fatigue, dizzy, sharp muscle pains, alternating chills and fever to start. Snotty and sinus pain too. LFTs from two batches negative, but have isolated anyway. I'm getting back to work today, house renovation/decorating but swerving any heavy work for another few days at least.
Aren’t LFTs a bit void once you’ve been vaccinated or previously infected?
The viral load is too low to show up.
They’re not that accurate at the best of times.
I did have thoughts on similar lines, as I initially had a very mild Covid infection days before lockdown one, before I tried to jump back into training and then discovered massive physical fatigue plus moving daily very sore patches under my ribcage. I had rough reactions to each Covid vaccination jab last year (but not my first ever flu jab), which gave me flu-like symptoms with massive fatigue for ~2 weeks each time very similar to what I have now and had last October.
I've yet to ever give a positive test on an LFT, possibly not helped by a gagging reflex that makes throat swabs (including by a nurse) impossible. I've had a few presumably colds and a couple of flu-like bugs since the pandemic. I've tested negative each time, but I do wonder if any of them were Covid and my body gave an immune response that made me feel rough, but kept the viral load low enough not to trigger positives and respiratory difficulties.
My better half did a nasal LFT and two throat/nose LFTs early last week, all negative, given what she has been going through with a relapse that brought on long covid in Nov '20 and has kept her off work since Xmas '20... It was hard enough work getting her to those three tests, even though I thought she should have done a couple more towards last weekend at least.
Interesting to see there's a number of forum members that have gone through similar in recent times, feeling rough but no positive test result.
It's a bit of a shame... was hoping that everything we went through during lockdown would've pretty much put an end to traditional colds and flu
If only they could dedicate the same resources to developing suitable vaccines
Welp, just cutting the grass has left me a tired sweaty mess, going to put my feet up again.
Has anyone had a spinny-head kind of feeling ?
Yep, nearly fell down the stairs last night.
Also in the feeling rough but 'no positive' test camp, been feeling super fatigued since Friday and got a slight sinuses headache and tickly throat.
Gutted though as will have to miss the lads Mtb/camping trip to the Peaks tomorrow, also got a three day bikepacking trip planned in nine days time, which hopefully I'll feel better for.
