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I tested just to humor myself because I had a headache and over 101 fever for less than 8 hours. (And I try to be considerate of other people and not spread germs.) I was mildly concerned of a small chance I might havre gotten a small infection from my procedure for my breast tumor recurrence.
I figured I might have some respiratory crud... Nope. I have Covid…..

I tested before visiting older family members for the holidays as a precaution since I had been in a medical setting for the procedure and had travelled.

Anyway posting just to say do be careful out there. And please be civil. While some people have viewpoints that this is minor for them, this crud is nasty and I would not want to give it to anyone. My main symptoms are aweful head and body aches and feeling like (stop reading now if it’s tmi) losing what little food I have gotten down when even thinking of eating normal food.
Also certain normal food smells aweful.
Hope everyone is staying well.

This is ruining my fun plans for the rest of the weekend.

Any tips or tricks to not dehydrate? I am thinking of instacarting some juice shots and maybe ginger ale?

I think Gatorade can be good, too— it has the electrolytes you need when dehydrated.

Hope you feel better soon, and thank you for thinking of others.

Paxlovid? I had 2 mild cases, and I attribute the mildness to quick recognition that I had Covid and quick use of Pax.

I'm sorry you've got it. I hope you recover quickly.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 6:44 PM, Sunday, January 12th]

Sent you a PM, and I agree this stuff is "nasty." Stress tears our immune system up so much, and it's like people don't ever realize that others may not be as robust to resist their germs. You are so right to take it seriously, and I'll say a little prayer that you bounce back quick without lingering symptoms. I also swear by Dr. NeilMeds' sinus rinse salt packets and a netiPot or squeeze bottle, to which I add 3-4 drops of grapefruit seed extract (found at local health food store; anti-viral and anti-bacterial). Helps the nasal passages fight the good fight!

I'll second Gatorade or Powerade for electrolytes. My 35 year old son ended up with pleurisy due to RSV and we spent New Year's evening in the emergency room. (Pleurisy is an inflammation of the lining around your lung/S and aggravated by breathing).

Our local hospital is at capacity due to respiratory diseases, including COVID, flu and RSV.

Do whatever you need to do, SheHawk. Hope you're recovering well.

Thanks everyone. Glad you made it through safely sisoon. Got your message Superesse thanks!

Leafields I hope your son is solidly on the mend.

Hope you feel better soon!! Thank you for thinking of others. I wish more people would do this not just for civic but all the trap going around.

My h and I are victims of RSV. Ugh, it's been worse than covid! H has been off work for a week, has been to emerg, still can't get a good, deep breath. It's been 2 weeks for me, but I only missed one day of work. We have just been lying around, coughing our heads off. Our abs are so sore from coughing we have to hold our stomachs when we cough. I almost threw my back out coughing one day. It has not been pretty.

Wow, sounds almost like Pertussis, which is also happening now in some areas of the country. SackofSorry, how did they diagnose RSV, by test or by symptoms? That rib pain from coughing spells sounds a lot like what I had in 2005 that led to a fainting episode in which I almost broke my collar bone and neck as I crashed and landed on my face. A month later, the newspaper reported there had been a big outbreak of pertussis in our town. Yep, I knew I got it from the church in that town when a teenager behind me sounded so very sick, coughed repeatedly over my head in a place there was no escaping, yuck. But I never could prove what I had gotten 6 weeks earlier.

Anyway, please take care! I'm just getting over a wicked 3 month bout of respiratory problems I am not sure wasn't Covid. But also there is lots of RSV and Mycoplasma pneumonitis going around, here.

Positive thoughts for healing for everyone SackofSorry and Superesse.

I appreciate everyone who has checked on me and offered suggestions. I have been drinking coconut water and cranberry juice. I had them in the apartment and both taste neutral. And Fiance made me some sort of lemon ginger honey drink thing off of the internet.

The taste/smell issues are weird. Some things like coffee I can’t taste. Other things like pasta sauce taste aweful. Some random things smell terrible. I have not touched chocolate since I got sick. bleh

I had a pulse ox meter and thankfully my O2 sats are up today. And my fever is down. So hopefully I am "on the mend" .

I am sorry that people have been having a rough time with respiratory stuff. I can’t even imagine how aweful that is.

Paxlovid can definitely shorten length and intensity of it. Mucinex q 12 hours, cool mist humidifier, sinus flushes, vapor rub, liquid IV powder over Gatorade or powerade. A little imodium to slow the gut. This version does seem to cause some bad diarrhea.
There are about 5 different respiratory bugs in my community currently and they all suck. The one that doesn't show up on the multi-swab seems to be the worst for long term cough and malaise after.

SackofSorry, did your doc prescribe Benzonatate cough pearls? They can be super helpful. I hoard them.

I wonder if you need prednisone...

Looking over the lists from Tush Superesse etc and planning a "medicine cabinet" stock up

Oh my! No one prepared me for a chest that hurts this bad in the lower part of my rib cage every time I breathe.

Hope everyone heals up soon from whatever version of "the crud"

I'm personally past the worst of whatever we have/had. I'm diagnosing RSV for us based on symptoms. I did take a covid test but the tests were expired and I don't know whether to rely on that (it was negative fwiw). For us, the identifying symptom has been the wheeze on exhale. Noisy, noisy lung sounds that make sleeping almost impossible. When I had it first, I was napping in my chair one day in the family room, h was in the office next door and he said he came out to check on the dog because he thought she was dying but then said it was just me.

Very, very under-serviced by doctors in this area. We've both lost our doctors, and my nurse practitioner was booking into March, so I didn't see anyone. What helped me was Benelyn Cough and Phlegm. It really got me coughing out the phlegm.

H called our telephone health system and they told him to go to the E/R based on his previous experience with a pulmonary embolism. He knew that wasn't what he had but was glad to go, and he was seen pretty quickly. He was given abx in case it was bacterial and a rescue inhaler. That was 6 days ago. He's not worse but he's not really better although that Benelyn syrup has been helping him to cough up a lot of phlegm. The doctor from the E/R called today and he's back seeing him today.

And yes, there has been whooping cough in our area as we live in area with a lot of unvaccinated Mennonites/Amish. There were some cases of covid at my mom's retirement home so I probably was exposed there, but like I say, RSV symptoms seem to fit us.

My boss had whooping cough several years ago and it was a real booger. He'd cough so hard that he'd pass out - and did that a couple of times behind the wheel. It took a long time for him to get over it.

When congestion moves into my chest and I start wheezing and coughing my lungs up, I stop trying to treat myself and call the doc for prednisone. I've got bad allergies, so I've been through it enough times to know that I'm not going to get better until I suffer through the 'roids. lol Prednisone usually wipes out all the nastiness in a few days.

I hope everyone feels better soon.

[This message edited by SacredSoul33 at 8:40 PM, Wednesday, January 15th]

This is why I love SI so much, you get help you would never get at the doctors! SackofSorry you just diagnosed the crud I had this late summer early fall, EXACTLY like you described and I've never wheezed in my LIFE (age 73 now). Kids and infants in our area were raging sick with RSV this summer according to the newspaper. Our church is an absolute breeding ground for communicable diseases, as one family with stairstep kiddos likes to sit in the second row from the front, right behind the row reserved for elderly or disabled (that would be me with my arthritis and age.) Every time we hear a child cough I cringe, because for the last 10 years since I started going to this service, this is always how we get sick. Usually my husband gets the sore throat on a TUESDAY (48 hours after getting coughed on behind his head...the kids don't cover their coughs). Then he gives it to me.

My wheeze started while weeding the garden this August, I honestly thought there was a silly sparrow on a tomato pole right behind where I was sitting cross-legged on the ground, bending from the waist to reach into my flower bed....squeeeek. Loud! On EXHALE. Then started recognizing it was ME. Then it got so loud at night I felt like I could NOT sleep, as the constant wheeze when breathing out, was worse when everything is quiet. And nothing ever would come UP when I tried to cough, which has always happened whenever I have had bronchitis (often in my life). I even thought about getting some headphones to play music with for about a month.

But this wheeze went on for months!!! One doctor said it was caused by my heart (after he did diagnose major heart issues I didn't know about). I didn't buy that. Another doctor said it was "who knows what, some virus, maybe Covid."

You've just convinced me I got that crud.

I didn't know what to take for it, and have never used the Albuterol inhaler a doctor once prescribed me. My lung function test last week involved getting 4 puffs of Albuterol through a pipe and running the same test again a couple times, to see if my lungs opened up any better. It did NOTHING to improve the function and I now have either "scarring" or a "partial collapse of a bronchial branch tube down on the left middle lobe, right where I kept telling every doctor I felt like the wheeze was coming from! But nobody seemed to worry. I guess lots of old folks wheeze around here.

One thing that did help me breathe better towards the end of 3 months of this was an herbal tincture called Clear Chest Syrup. It's not cheap for what you get, but it was effective with the sensation your windpipe is going to stay open.

Shehawk, I hope you bounce back soon! I think we ALL need to get out and MOVE after a sickness like this and do some fresh air breathing, it really does help open things back up. After my lung function tests, I coughed something up, long after I'd stopped coughing at all.

Is that okay to do, Tushnurse? But not too soon, right?

[This message edited by Superesse at 11:18 PM, Wednesday, January 15th]

There is something very similar to RSV going around and it doesn't go away easily but also does NOT show up.as anything on the multi nasal.swab.
This is what I have had since xmas... on day7 of abx and using an inhaler steroids and benzonatate along with hot totties,mucinex, vapor cream. The mucous is clear now but plentiful. I'm ready to be well.

I hope all that have the creeping crud feel better soon.

Would you all believe I just clicked on my regular newsfeed and there's an article about a new, novel RSV-similar virus that only was identified in 2001, with all the symptoms we're discussing? Shortness of breath, coughing, congestion, wheezing, stuffy nose, low-grade fever. Spreading in the following areas: China, Iowa, Kansas, MISSOURI!, Nebraska, followed by Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. My area has shown a dip: (meaning we had it first?) Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Rhode Island and VIRGINIA (me). Article says there are no treatments.

Weird how I always have to learn about what hit me from the damn newspaper, a month after I survive it! :o

Eeek I am glad we are not having in-real-life SO meetups right now. I think after reading what you have all been dealing with I would choose the Covid I have been dealing with.

I am paying attention to what you are all taking and getting ready to stock up.

I do find some comfort from standing in front of the humidifier. Drinking a shot medicinally would not be out of the question, but the thought of alcohol is gag-inducing. Coffee is currently an ick food.

Tush Sorry you have been sick. Hope you are well soon!

This Chest Clear Syrup is a mix of herbs in an alcohol base, a small bottle at 4.2 ounces for $23.00.
I was trying 1 to 2 scant plastic teaspoons and I'd tip them back past the front of my tongue (the taste is not the nicest!)

Whooo it was amazing. Ingredients: Elecampane, thyme, licorice root, elderflower root, lobelia, honey, lemon and cane alcohol.

Funny reviewson the taste most people give it, but all say pretty darned effective! I'm adding it to my emergency kit, for sure. Got it at a health food store.