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COVID - my experience

The home for all non-political Coronavirus (Covid-19) discussions on The Lemon Fool
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This is the home for all non-political Coronavirus (Covid-19) discussions on The Lemon Fool
Itsallaguess
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COVID - my experience

#447399

Postby Itsallaguess » October 3rd, 2021, 9:02 am

Well, as a father of a son at secondary school, I always thought I'd do well to dodge the bloody thing, and, as the great man said - so it goes....

I'm early 50's, fairly fit, and double jabbed since June with the AstraZeneca vaccine, and my son tested positive about a week after the summer holidays, so he'd not been back in school for too long at that point.

He was around half-way through his 10-day isolation period when I tested positive, with a disappointing little smudge initially showing on my lateral-flow test, which turned into a much firmer line on the next day's test, but was also by then confirmed by the PCR test-result, which I'd booked in straight away following the initial smudge-reveal...

My son bounced through the whole thing with just a short period of tiredness and general 'not quite rightness' for a few days, but quickly recovered and is now back at school and completely fine. He's played competitive football on a couple of occasions since, and there's been no lasting effects as far as we can see.

His school has recently sent out authorisation forms asking parents to give consent for school-age vaccinations, and whilst we'd have happily agreed to that when he'd not already had Covid, we're taking a more cautious approach now and having another think, given that the risk/reward balance is not quite the same where kids have already had it...

I had a bit of a bad throat a day after the initial positive lateral flow test, and then for a couple of days after that I felt a bit worse, with a general sense of it feeling like a moderate 'flu' for those two worst days - just feeling a bit washed out and more tired than I'd consider 'normal' for me. I have fairly regular bed-times normally, but I had one 'early night' three days after my positive result, when I went to bed around an hour earlier than normal, and slept in for a while longer the next day too.

From around day-five onwards, I improved each day, and from around day-8 I would consider myself to have recovered fully, apart from a niggly and annoying little hacking cough that's taking a while longer to dissipate, but even that's getting much better now, in recent days. I didn't experience any issues at all with taste or smell, other than what I'd normally expect to have during a short period of flu-like snottiness, so at least that aspect didn't cause any issues at all for me.

My 10-day isolation period ended yesterday, and for me that was much, much worse to have to endure than the Covid itself. I've worked from home since the start of the pandemic, and my regular stints outside of what's now become a home *and* working environment has just about been the only thing that's kept me sane over the past 18 months, and so the complete removal of that outlet for 10 days was a real struggle for me, and one which I'm over the moon to say is now over.

As a household where both adults have been double-jabbed for some time, we actively chose not to go too mad on in-house 'protocols' when our son tested positive initially, as we more or less saw any internal-process as being inevitable to some degree, but it has been interesting to see my wife, who had the Pfizer jab, completely dodge the problem, and she's continued to test negatively using both lateral flow and fairly regular PCR tests. We're not quite sure how that's happened, and we're beginning to suspect that she may have already had it, but firm conclusions in that area are going to be difficult to ascertain.

So there we go - I'd have preferred not to catch it, but always knew that with a school-age son who's also involved in lots of sport outside of school, that was going to be a big ask. The 10-day isolation period was the most difficult issue for me by a country mile, and the Covid itself felt no worse than a mild flu for a couple of days.

If I've ended up with an improved and broader level of immunity due to both the jabs and the infection, then we'll see if that's of any future benefit I suppose, and whilst a bit of me was a little disappointed to have put the effort in that we did to avoid the issue for so long, at least I was able to do so until the benefit of my two vaccinations had kicked in, which at least seems to have dampened the resulting infection down to something that was entirely manageable in terms of the infection itself, and with the single biggest issue, for me at least, being the enforced 10-day isolation period....

Now, if someone can please just sort out this flippin' weather, then I really would like to get out the house for a long dry walk.....

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

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Re: COVID - my experience

#447404

Postby redsturgeon » October 3rd, 2021, 9:45 am

Interesting anecdote iaag.

Our daughter tested positive about three weeks ago, just after getting her second jab! I'd spent two hours in a car with her the day before so was expecting to get it, despite my double AZ jab.

Daughter isolated in the house for her 10 days with no symptoms at all for 7 days then loss of smell on day 8. She went back to work on day 11 with no ill effects. Some weeks later her sense of smell is still not quite right.

My son caught C19 back in January in the USA and his sense of smell is also still not fully recovered.

Mrs RS {she double Pfizer jabbed) and I did not catch it.

Mrs RS now triple jabbed, she had flu in one arm and C19 in the other yesterday.

John

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Re: COVID - my experience

#447410

Postby vrdiver » October 3rd, 2021, 10:07 am

Glad to hear that both you and your son have recovered from Covid without any serious health issues. That's a good result, especially as an infection now should help your immune system be much more robust as we head into winter and all the reduced ventilation / increased viral load that that will surely bring.

It's interesting to hear your views on isolation. As a dog owner, if I catch Covid and have to self-isolate, I've always imagined that I would still take the dog for a walk, just adjusting the times and routes to be as isolated as possible (the dog won't care). My sense of civic duty is satisfied that even if I was shedding viral particles at maximum rates (for a still-walking human) I'd be being ultra-polite and stepping aside should I meet anyone, and we'd both be in the fresh air. It has never occurred to me that I would be under self-imposed house arrest.

I have access to open fields and countryside straight from the house, so maybe it's different if you are in a more urban environment? Had I been unable to get out of the house (e.g. living in a city centre) I suspect I'd be night-walking, or watching the dawn before heading back in like a vampire caught out too late!

I wonder what other Lemons have done / would do in the same situation?

VRD

Itsallaguess
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Re: COVID - my experience

#447419

Postby Itsallaguess » October 3rd, 2021, 10:26 am

vrdiver wrote:
As a dog owner, if I catch Covid and have to self-isolate, I've always imagined that I would still take the dog for a walk, just adjusting the times and routes to be as isolated as possible (the dog won't care).

My sense of civic duty is satisfied that even if I was shedding viral particles at maximum rates (for a still-walking human) I'd be being ultra-polite and stepping aside should I meet anyone, and we'd both be in the fresh air.

It has never occurred to me that I would be under self-imposed house arrest


We were lucky in that we had an adult in the house that continued to test negatively throughout the defined period of my own 10-day isolation, and so whilst that time was the single most difficult aspect of the situation for me personally, it never even entered my mind that I'd be able to justify breaking that requirement of the law, and it was always a case of simply getting through it.

With that said, I do fully appreciate that people testing positive in different household circumstances might well find themselves with pressing practical reasons for sometimes taking a different view, and all I can really say in that regard is that, as hard as it was to get through, I can consider myself lucky that I didn't personally have the need to consider doing anything other than fulfilling my isolation requirements...

I should also add that it's really an 11-day isolation period if someone initially tests positive without displaying symptoms, as I did, because the first day of the 10-day period is the first full day following a positive test-result in those particular circumstances -

Your isolation period includes the day your symptoms started (or the day your test was taken if you do not have symptoms), and the next 10 full days

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-stay-at-home-guidance/stay-at-home-guidance-for-households-with-possible-coronavirus-covid-19-infection

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

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Re: COVID - my experience

#447421

Postby Gersemi » October 3rd, 2021, 10:39 am

vrdiver wrote:
I wonder what other Lemons have done / would do in the same situation?

VRD


I stayed at home, but didn't self isolate as both of us in the household had been exposed (pinged by the app). Eventually we both tested positive and stayed at home for the required period. This meant we had to order groceries to be delivered.

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Re: COVID - my experience

#447586

Postby csearle » October 3rd, 2021, 9:03 pm

I'm just glad you guys are all ok. C.

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Re: COVID - my experience

#447594

Postby TAllen » October 3rd, 2021, 10:02 pm

Literally every week for the past few months we've found out about some or other acquaintance having a case in their family. What I noticed is that it never seems to affect the whole household, it usually affects just one or two individuals. The statistical pattern did catch my attention and itsallaguess' anecdote fits.

It may be down to pre-infection, or family members dodging the viral bullet, but quite why a novel virus doesn't sweep the whole household remains perplexing.

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Re: COVID - my experience

#447596

Postby moorfield » October 3rd, 2021, 10:13 pm

I've had a very heavy cold all week no loss of taste/smell so I did two lateral flow tests to check - both not covid not even a smudge. However it completely floored me, head feeling like a Frenchman living in it etc., hot baths and early nights also. I think the first cold I've caught for at least two years.

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Re: COVID - my experience

#447600

Postby 1nvest » October 3rd, 2021, 10:54 pm

Dad (me, 60+) and two Covid lockdown returned home sons (mid 20's) saw the youngest unvaccinated contract Covid shortly after nightclubs reopened back in mid/late July. A week or so of him being 'off' and another week or two of a dry cough. Neither my eldest whose double Pfizer'd or myself (double Oxford/Azn) contracted it, despite zero separation/cleanliness practices.

89 year old mother contracted Covid whilst in hospital around a week after having had her first Pfizer jab back in January, with near zero symptoms (contracted it in hospital after 3 days following a fall/hip op). Back then was a fearful time, expecting perhaps two weeks of feeling poorly, then starting to recover only to see a dramatic negative change ... type anticipated outcome, so after the first two weeks was a period of dread that fortunately came to nothing. For the first 3 or 4 days after testing positive she remained on the same hip op ward, so likely passing it on in a similar manner to how she likely contracted it, and for the remainder 10 of 14 total 'isolation' days she was moved to a care/isolation home before being released to her own home.

Generally lockdowns/isolation were by far the hardest parts. Otherwise in the absence of being aware of Covid we'd have just dismissed it as 'another cold'.

My 25 year old in having had Covid isn't signing up to being vaccinated. Similarly if I had kids at school that had had it I wouldn't take the risk of the vaccinations. One of his 25 year old mates was hospitalised and near died with cardiac issues associated to being caused by vaccination. Would feel awful to insist on vaccination after they'd had Covid with no/little issues and then saw them die or see substantial change to lifestyle from being vaccinated.

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Re: COVID - my experience

#447608

Postby Newroad » October 3rd, 2021, 11:26 pm

Hi All.

My experience (pre-vaccine) documented here: https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=98&t=27033&view=next

Regards, Newroad

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Re: COVID - my experience

#447619

Postby absolutezero » October 4th, 2021, 12:14 am

Itsallaguess wrote:His school has recently sent out authorisation forms asking parents to give consent for school-age vaccinations, and whilst we'd have happily agreed to that when he'd not already had Covid, we're taking a more cautious approach now and having another think, given that the risk/reward balance is not quite the same where kids have already had it...




An interesting experience.
I note your comments about not wanting your son to have the jab now he has naturally formed antibodies, but if you are offered a 3rd jab yourself, will you have it?

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Re: COVID - my experience

#447661

Postby gryffron » October 4th, 2021, 10:15 am

Glad to hear you all got through it ok IAAG

moorfield wrote:I've had a very heavy cold all week no loss of taste/smell so I did two lateral flow tests to check - both not covid not even a smudge. However it completely floored me, head feeling like a Frenchman living in it etc., hot baths and early nights also. I think the first cold I've caught for at least two years.

I can see this being quite a big problem for the country at large.

Because we've been isolating, distancing, mask wearing for so long, we've all been pretty much protected from normal colds and flu too. I expect as we get out and about more there could be fairly serious bouts of everyday infection awaiting a public whose general immunity has dropped.

Gryff

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Re: COVID - my experience

#447675

Postby servodude » October 4th, 2021, 10:45 am

gryffron wrote:Glad to hear you all got through it ok IAAG

moorfield wrote:I've had a very heavy cold all week no loss of taste/smell so I did two lateral flow tests to check - both not covid not even a smudge. However it completely floored me, head feeling like a Frenchman living in it etc., hot baths and early nights also. I think the first cold I've caught for at least two years.

I can see this being quite a big problem for the country at large.

Because we've been isolating, distancing, mask wearing for so long, we've all been pretty much protected from normal colds and flu too. I expect as we get out and about more there could be fairly serious bouts of everyday infection awaiting a public whose general immunity has dropped.

Gryff


Yup. Totally expect a "man flu" pandemic due to everyone's immune system being out of practice... but at least that shouldn't be killing folk! ;)
-sd

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Re: COVID - my experience

#447705

Postby Hallucigenia » October 4th, 2021, 12:32 pm

1nvest wrote:My 25 year old in having had Covid isn't signing up to being vaccinated. Similarly if I had kids at school that had had it I wouldn't take the risk of the vaccinations. One of his 25 year old mates was hospitalised and near died with cardiac issues associated to being caused by vaccination. Would feel awful to insist on vaccination after they'd had Covid with no/little issues and then saw them die or see substantial change to lifestyle from being vaccinated.


I'll take anecdote with a pinch of salt as we don't know the full story - did they have preconditions which mean they could have had a fatal cardiac issue from infection with Covid, which is known for attacking the vascular system? Personally I prefer data, the more the better, so let's look at what happened to all 169,412 12-17yos who were diagnosed with Covid-19 in England.

https://www.rsm.ac.uk/media/5475435/vac ... _final.pdf

At high future case incidence of 1000/100,000 population/week over 16 weeks, vaccination could avert 4,430 hospital admissions and 36 deaths over 16 weeks. At the low incidence of 50/100,000/week, vaccination could avert 70 hospital admissions and 2 deaths over 16 weeks. The
benefit of vaccination in terms of hospitalisations in adolescents outweighs risks unless case rates are sustainably very low (below 30/100,000 teenagers/week). Benefit of vaccination exists at any case rate for the outcomes of death and long COVID, since neither have been associated with vaccination to date.


And yes, young people die from Covid - it's rare, but it still happens, to take some examples :
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... et-vaccine
https://www.today.com/health/family-dev ... id-t204863
https://metro.co.uk/2021/01/19/boy-18-h ... -13929847/
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 29705.html

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Re: COVID - my experience

#447833

Postby AWOL » October 4th, 2021, 6:37 pm

gryffron wrote:Glad to hear you all got through it ok IAAG

moorfield wrote:I've had a very heavy cold all week no loss of taste/smell so I did two lateral flow tests to check - both not covid not even a smudge. However it completely floored me, head feeling like a Frenchman living in it etc., hot baths and early nights also. I think the first cold I've caught for at least two years.

I can see this being quite a big problem for the country at large.

Because we've been isolating, distancing, mask wearing for so long, we've all been pretty much protected from normal colds and flu too. I expect as we get out and about more there could be fairly serious bouts of everyday infection awaiting a public whose general immunity has dropped.

Gryff


I think this we are all going to get hit hard as we have been isolating argument is likely to have been vastly overstated (although relative measures will look bad).

The reason being that during a winter season it is true we have antibody protection from the things we have suffered from that season greatly reducing our chances of getting the same type of infection again but this protection disappears before the next winter however what does protect us is our cellular immune response. So a flu infection make give you 6 months of antibody protection but the cell-mediated response lasts years. There was a study showing SARS patients still had great T cell responses when tested 17 years after infection!

Therefore while many of us may lack antibodies we will not lack Th (helper) and Tk (killer/cytotoxic) cells.

So can I quantify my expectation, probably not, however there is a lot more fear than reason in most discussions of the season and this means that the anecdotal narrative will be dominated by the bad cases while the mild cold cases will feel they have been the exception.

It's a long time since I sat in my immunology classes so please forgive the details I have forgotten but the broad argument is sound.

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Re: COVID - my experience

#448123

Postby Bouleversee » October 5th, 2021, 5:13 pm

My daughter had a terrible cold a few weeks ago, really knocked her out. She thought she was over it when she visited me and we were mostly out in the garden but I duly caught it equally badly. I don't think I have ever sneezed so many times a day. She now has all the symptoms again, just as badly, so is it the same virus, do you suppose, or are there several nasty ones circulating?

I was saddened and surprised to read that a chap in his early fifties who was double jabbed and had no underlying health issues picked up Covid while visiting the US and died rather quickly. A 15 yr old girl in good health died quickly from Covid (I think she had myocarditis) a few days before she was due to have her first jab. I've just had my booster but I do have an underlying illness so don't feel entirely safe but on the whole, I think it is better to get vaccinated than not.


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