I just tested positive for Covid, but there’s nothing to worry about at present.
Basically I’ve been isolating at home for over 2 years and just last week went on a trip with a couple of friends. Sadly two of us caught the virus.
Now I’ve had two inoculations and a booster shot. My only symptom is feeling a bit tired.
I live in the UK and have read the NHS guidelines, so I know what to do if things worsen.
So I’m not asking for medical advice - rather more your experiences.
Also how long in general does Covid hang around in my body?
I am fully vaxxed and boosted. I have not contracted COVID to my knowledge all thru the pandemic. I have not been isolating the past year or so, but I have been careful, and so far I was doing fine. My wife and I went on a vacation out of state a few weeks ago, and I evidently brought home an unwanted souvenir. I was feeling really tired the day after we got home, more than I would have expected, so took a home COVID test (my first COVID test, BTW). Positive. My wife: negative. I just felt very tired and with a runny nose, and probably a slight fever that came in waves, for about 3-4 days. I isolated within my house for as long as I felt bad, plus another 5+ days, so as not to risk spreading my germs to others here. I am sure my symptoms were lessened due to being vaxxed, but it still sort-of wiped me out for a few days.
Both mrAru and I ended up positive for covid a few months ago - both of us vaxxed and boosted. We both ended up feeling like a pretty standard run in with a cold - slightly sore throat, sniffles, cough and tired/worn down draggy feeling. Lasted about 2 weeks and then we got better. No worrying symptoms, or post covid syndrome.We figured that being vaxxed and boosted is what made it so light.
My brother just tested positive on Tuesday. He went to a pilot training on Saturday. Started feeling unusually tired on his way home Tuesday and tested. He had a 101 fever Wednesday night but no other symptoms. Woke up with the fever gone but sinus congestion. He’s still stuffed up today, but it just feels like a cold.
He may have gotten covid back in March 2020 and got vaccinated May last year. He’s never been boosted, but he’s pretty healthy.
Same for my wife and I except we had not had our boosters yet. Omicron in January. Symptoms were mostly cold-like but we both had a rather annoying cough. Mild fever, lots of aches and total lack of energy. I’ve been much sicker with the flu. Our symtoms lasted 10 days or so, petering off slowly. I lost my sense of taste for the first 3 or 4 days and then it returned almost immediately – like a switch being thrown. My wife never did lose hers.
Both my kids (13 and 15 at the time) had the OG strand two years ago. They basically had the same symptoms as we did but recovered much quicker.
A reassuring update - it’s been 9 days since I caught Covid and my symptoms (which have never been serious) are improving.)
So my cold has cleared up and I’m just a little tired.
Another test today shows I still have Covid, so I will carry on self-isolating.
There’s plenty of stuff to watch on TV and Disney+ - I look forward to Law + Order Season 21 becoming available here in the UK.
Glad to hear you’re recovering. Yeah, for us the boringness of isolation was the hardest part. We had just gotten Disney+ when our kids got it so I binged The Simpsons.
Is that the protocol in the UK? In the US you don’t need to retest at all (or at least not for 90 days.) The protocol is to isloate for at least 5 full days after first positive test (and fever-free), then wear a mask if you want to go out in public for the next 5 days. If it’s an in-home test you’re taking, they can come back positive for up to about two weeks after an initial positive test.
Is it different out there, then?
ETA: I looked at the guidelines, and I see there was nothing about re-testing, but I totally get being extra cautious.
If you have COVID-19, you can pass on the virus to other people for up to 10 days from when your infection starts. Many people will no longer be infectious to others after 5 days.
You should:
try to stay at home and avoid contact with other people for 5 days
avoiding meeting people at higher risk from COVID-19 for 10 days, especially if their immune system means they’re at higher risk of serious illness from COVID-19, even if they’ve had a COVID-19 vaccine
This starts from the day after you did the test.
Today I’m on day 5 of my first-ever bout of Covid. Now tested negative (there’s no advice on retesting). My sense of taste is returning, and I feel less awful, but the congestion etc is still there. I’ll be out and about tomorrow, but there’s an extremely vulnerable friend I have to avoid for another 5 days.
BTW I’m fully vaxed, 71 years old. My immune system is slightly depressed by the methotrexate I take for rheumatoid arthritis, which may explain why I got it but my wife didn’t.
I came down with Omnicron on New Years Day, right at the peak. Like others, fatigue was the strongest symptom, though i did lose my sense of smell for maybe 3 days. But mostly as long as I stayed on the couch and didn’t try to do anything, I was fine. Maybe 5 days under the weather. Vaxxed and boosted, of course.
The fatigue was like flu, but the progression wasn’t. Flu hits like a brick: this got worse more gradually. With flu, once your fever breaks you are weak as a baby, but you are unmistakably getting better. COVID seemed more like waves to me: I had a day in the middle where I thought I was on the mend, but then it was right back on the couch.
Hubs has had OC, Delta and is now suffering from Omnicron. Besides past exposures, he has had two jabs, but isn’t boosted. Yet.
We don’t have a high risk lifestyle, grocery shopping and the occasional meal out is the extent of his socializing but Omnicron is a sneaky bastard.
Extreme fatigue seems to be the common theme for him. At a generous guess, he has been awake for 5 hours total since around 8pm 6/21/22. He’s still running a fever and has a nasty sounding cough, but its mostly the fatigue that’s kicking his ass.
This has happened every single time hubs got it. He’d manage to shower and dress, check his email and proclaim himself recovered. Within a few hours he’d be back on the recliner for the next week.
An inability to stay awake is an emergency warning sign for COVID. I know your husband has largely brought this on himself, but you should get him looked at ASAP.
Thank you for your concern, but I probably didn’t clearly explain. He doesn’t have an inability to stay awake, he’s just really, really tired. I don’t have any problems waking him up when I think it’s time for him to eat or drink something and he is fully conscious when he’s awake, no confusion or anything alarming like that.
And this is opposite my experience. I got Covid on Sunday – hit fast. Morning feeling fine except for a tummy ache – by 2 p.m., I couldn’t work and had to find a hotel as I didn’t feel safe driving home. 102 Fever. Took some night-time cold medicine – woke up 5 hours later, and felt a lot better. Next day I was at 80%. Today, I’m pretty much at 95%. I may have also caught B4/5, which may present differently. Or it’s simply I’m a different individual. One of my kids has it now, and is just showing normal cold-like symptoms. Wife was coughing through yesterday, tested positive on her PCR (after a neg rapid), and today seems to be pretty much herself. But it sucked for those few hours on Sunday. I can’t remember a time I’ve been incapacitated by anything so badly I couldn’t finish a job. All I wanted to do at 2 p.m. Sunday was find the nearest bed to crash in.
I woke up with covid symptoms this morning - head and chest congestion, that weird feeling you get when you’re coming down with a cold. Tested positive.
I’m not quite sure how I got it. Last week, I was pretty much in isolation. My son is attending a summer program and he had to have a negative PCR test to go, so we were being VERY careful. I worked from home. We did one run to Target and wore KN95 masks. That’s it. Yesterday, we travelled - flew to Houston, TX and basically spent the day there getting him set up in his dorm room and did a run to the grocery store. Then I flew home. We both wore well-fitted N95 masks the entire time. And this morning I woke up with symptoms.
Is it possible that I got it while travelling? It seems like there wasn’t enough time between that and showing symptoms. The only other possibility was getting it at Target. So far, everyone else in my family is negative and symptom free. I have my fingers crossed that my son who I took to TX is going to stay negative. They will rapid test him today and again next week. I am isolating in my bedroom at home. I’ll have to stay home from work for two weeks (standard protocol).
Between me coming down with symptoms and my wife and one of my children testing positive, there was a lag of four days. I think they say 2-14 days, but 4-5 seems to be about where most people fall, so I’d look in that range to see if there’s anywhere you may have caught it. I think figuring it out exactly is a bit impossible, as the damned thing is everywhere, and likely everyone has been exposed to it at some point. My in-laws who are basically shut-ins living in a gated retirement community, but with non-zero public exposure (they have to go to doctors) caught it in the winter. Me, who has been around hundreds of unmasked people almost every weekend since May of last year only just caught it last weekend. My youngest daughter is living with three COVID positive individuals, and has thus far tested negative. It’s a crapshoot and while you can decreases your odds, it seems to be impossible to completely avoid.
