Sorry to post another thread about the thing but I've a sneaky suspicion I may have had it. Back in March I had a bad sore throat for about 2-3 weeks. It was accompanied with lethargy and muscle aches. No persistent cough as such but I did have a bit of a tickle and felt a bit wheezy. Had a dose of the trots as well. I wrote this off as a likely cold as they tend to got to my chest anyway or a possible chest infection, but I did self isolated as a precaution. On reflection I'm wondering if I have had it? A couple of months on, I'm still a little wheezy and something around the chest still doesn't feel 100% but otherwise I feel fine apart from a migraine a week or so back (which is a fairly regular occurrence). A know a couple on here have been confirmed but theories doing the rounds are that many many more people have had it than have been reported due to mild or no symptoms being presented. Anyone like to share any thoughts or experiences? Anonymous poll
I’m fairly certain my partner had it, coughing and lethargic for much of April. There have been confirmed cases at her work so it wouldn’t surprise me if she had a mild dose. I on the other hand am either incredibly lucky, immune, asymptomatic or the virus is unable to live in the high levels of alcohol present in my body for the last few months.
Based on the government's modelling, tens of thousands of people have had it every week for the last two months. Your symptoms fit so I think it is very possible that you have had it. It's also very likely that many many more have had it and showed no signs of any symptoms. It'll be interesting if any antibody test is ever perfected to see how widespread the infection has already been.
As you know my wife and I had it last week of March and first 2 weeks of April. My wife had hers confirmed due to her senior role in the NHS. We both had similar but not the same symptoms. Started with a bit of a sore throat. Not too bad and quite brief. Then irritating and persistent but not very unpleasant cough and high temperature started. I carried on working from home first 2-3 days. Then temperature got more noticeable and i just couldn't work as I couldn't really concentrate and just wanted to be horisontal all the time. Taking paracemol 4 times a day from waking up to going to bed. I got the worst headaches I've ever had. Was lying there with anything frozen I could find in the freezer wrapped around my head and neck. Really horrible. Took ibruprofen when it was bad but there was some adverse commentary about the impact of Ibruprofen at the time so tried to keep it to a minimum. Wife didn't get the headaches but got the trots. After the first week symptoms got more consistent. Going to bed hoping to wake up feeling better, then waking up feeling more weak and floppy and head full of snot. After about 10 days became conscious that my breathing wasn't the same and on one day had an ambulance out once who told me I was ok From about day 12 started to feel a little bit better each day Fully better after about 2.5/3 weeks. But of course lots of very different symptoms have been recorded. The only true way to know will be the antibody test. My wife should get one this week but of course we know she had it so she will be utterly ****ed off if it shows no antibodies !!! A work colleague's elderly mother in a home tested positive for it ( ie having it then and there not the antibodies test) and had no symptoms at all. So lucky at her age.
Slight diversion, but what’s the rationale for giving your wife the antibody test? Are they wanting to try it on previously confirmed cases to check it definitely works? Or is she just in a cohort of medical people due to receive it regardless?
Going by symptoms alone I don’t think I’ve had it. I had an absolute stinker of a cold from Christmas Eve which lingered for about 10 days and left me with blocked ears and a lingering cough well into February. The blocked ears in particular was a symptom I’d never had before. However, no fever and there’s no evidence Covid was even in the country then, let alone spreading in the community. And I haven’t had as much as a sniffle since.
Yours does sound a little early to be Covid-19 but I don't know if we'll ever be sure when the virus entered the UK. Wasn't there a post mortem done in France on someone who died on 27th December that tested positive? It wouldn't surprise me if there were a few early infections, and even deaths (pneumonia), that weren't picked up because medics were just not looking for it.
It's being made available to all front line NHS staff. She won't be first in line but should get the test later given she manages and is constantly interacting with the front line staff.
Me and the Ex share our dogs, so we see each other regularly to swap them over. She called up one day and said her and her mum had completely lost her sense of taste and smell, this was before this was even mentioned as a symptom. They both had this last for about a week but without any other symptoms (people say you get this with a cold, but with a cold you obviously get the cold as well) A week prior her office had been shut down as they had four confirmed Covid case with one being potentially life threatening. Not long after she told me about losing her taste and smell I had a week of a very slight temperature, slight aches and sore scratchy throat. It’s how I generally always feel before I get a cold or even flu, but it normally only lasts for less than half a day before I get the full on cold or flu. It’s weird it lasted a week and didn’t really get any better or worse. So the timeline all fits and it wouldn’t surprise me. I’ve been tempted to do the £69 Superdrug test, but before long I think it will be more readily available and cheaper.
I think the key consistent features for those who have had symptoms have been the high temperature and the persistent but otherwise hardly concerning cough.
Dont think the person died, but they’d been tested for flu so the french decided to go back and test all negative flu jabs for Covid and one from Dec came back positive. I believe it was suspected he got it from his wife who worked next to a sushi bar.
The cough was bad during the cold but what was left afterwards was a shadow of its former self. As this is a very common feature of every cold I get i just ignored it. I think maybe if the cold had been 6 weeks later I'd think it much more likely it could have been covid.
Think I had it mid Feb. Really bad cough, felt terrible and struggled to breathe like I'd never had. Couldn't go running for a week or two. I work in London and loads of my team were off with similar and somersome ill.
Although my wife and me had flu jabs we both came down with flu like symptoms in early February, me first and my wife a few days later. We were both quite unwell for 3 or 4 days and we had a fairly persistent cough that lingered for several days more. We put it down to flu at the time, but when it becomes widely available we intend to have that test that tells you if you have had C19 or not, as we suspect our illnesses might just have been the dreaded lurgy.
Same thing with my parents and next door neighbours. They’ve all had the flu jab but all came down with flu like symptoms to varying degrees, one of my next door neighbours was bed ridden for over ten days, which would be highly unlikely with flu. The test is widely available now by the way (just search google) but costs about £70. I personally hate being an early adopter for anything out of principle because you pay over the odds so will probably wait.
I had a very heavy head cold around March. I suspect it was nothing but a heavy head cold, as are many of the cases where people feel they 'may have had covid'. I imagine throughout the winter sickness period there would be no reason that the usual circulation of head colds, etc was impacted. As they are very common every year (I'd say I get one every winter for a week or so), I'd suspect a high proportion of cases in which people think they may have had covid but haven't actually come in close contact with known cases and didn't end up with a fever are simply just people who had a head cold.
I am another who had really persistent cough and felt generally awful back in February.... Bad cold maybe Am currently sharing house with my father, pretty sure he had had it with horrendous lasting cough, loss of smell, taste... No temperature though to speak of and has recovered
There must be a lot of men with man flu who are telling people they've had it... "Completed it mate, not that bad but I shat myself four times".
Right at the start of lockdown in March Mrs Willis had a persistent cough so, rather than use our ‘discretion’, we both self-isolated for 2 weeks. I didn’t develop any symptoms and she had nothing further, although the cough lasted for nearly 4 weeks in total. So we have since assumed we haven’t had it, but who knows?
