rona moved in: ilx0rs with the bug report on their progress

Yes, Ed, thanks, that was really well written.

The long term effects of the rona are the things that give me the fear the most.

I wonder (with no knowledge whatsoever) if some of the long tail folk are being affected by repeatedly exposing themselves to the virus as they go back into the workplace with perceived immunity.

i worried abt that just with like, home contamination

got my negative pcr test, maybe someday there will be serological tests and i can also know that i was sick with the rona. (a friend who had also been sick for months got both tests done, both negative! not a cool feeling.)

also got some diagnostic tests back from the doctor's visit. nothing abnormal, so i'm just biding my time as my remaining symptoms decline slowwwwwly.

glad that the symptoms are declining and you are not

i will decline any further encounters with virii should invitations be extended to me in advance of said encounters

j & TH, be well dears

🚨I wrote about COVID-19 long-haulers—the thousands of people who’ve been struggling with *months* of debilitating symptoms. Many have faced disbelief from friends and medical professionals because they don’t fit the typical profile of the disease. 1/ https://t.co/EvIOcwve0x

— Ed Yong (@edyong209) June 4, 2020

how are the ilxors doing? do you feel a godlike invincibility having had it, or are you still feeling rough?

incrementally better. civil unrest kinda threw my regime of mild constitutionals for a loop.

i feel good. my chest sometimes still feels kind of.. donked out. tight and hurty. but it passes. the ringing in the ears is finally going away i think - or maybe i’m just habituated.

gonna go read that thread

I'm pretty much better. Occasionally I'll cough a bit if I've been leaning back against a chair or something for a while, but if I hadn't already been sick I probably wouldn't suspect it was related. Same for hacking up mucous, which is characteristic of whatever allergies I have.

yeah generally my cough/chest congestion is rarely in evidence and could increasingly look like a cold (not so much allergies for me, those are higher up normally)

but the other day i about died coughing after this, guess there's still some hard stuff in there

this is so cathartic pic.twitter.com/tBF2mAoIOA

— iana murray (@ianamurray) June 3, 2020

It's weird, every time I think I'm completely better something happens that I look back on a few weeks later and realise "no, I wasn't better, that was probably another symptom because it's no longer happening when I do X".

Terrifying thread here: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1268250750121017346.html

It's those sort of experiences being reported fairly frequently that are scaring me the most. I'm supposed to be deciding if I send my kid back to school and it seems am impossible decision.

https://nltimes.nl/2020/06/12/shocking-nearly-recovered-covid-19-health-issues-months-later Netherlands Lung Foundation study says 90% of those who had Covid but didn't have to be hospitalised still having effects 3 months later, 60% have breathing symptoms which make walking difficult.

that makes me feel extremely lucky.

Not sure where to post this but wrt testing & results: my in-laws were tested 1 week ago and were told results would be available in 2-3 days... they've followed up 2x and were told to hang tight.

friend who got taken the fuck out in march but never diagnosed had a serious relapse last month and is being told by their doctor it's strep throat now but nobody's certain. this shit lingers.

regarding the taste thing - I just remembered in February, we went to Panera bread and my wife said the sandwich she got was insanely salty, like she just couldn't eat it, and a manager overheard and gave her a new one, and lo and behold that one was way too salty as well (they both tasted fine to me). she was feeling sick at the time but thought it was just a cold. anyway for the next couple of days she just wasn't really able to taste anything. or rather everything just tasted foul. and then it went away. a few days later I was feeling pretty sick and went to the clinic to get a flu test, and wound up being stunned to find out I didn't have it. idk why I am just remembering this now. should we get an antibody test? they're $100 and I don't know how accurate they are

Speaking of, when will ILE start antibody testing?

always thought of ILE as being more antibrain

that's pretty weird frogbs. the only one i've heard of that's reliable is the roche test.

Yeah, and that's like £400 in the UK. Come the fuck on, HMG

I had an antibody test about three weeks ago. Negative, sadly. My insurance covered it fully.

And I got the results the next day? How can this happen in America idk

I imagine two guys in lab coats flipping a coin

some places like the mayo clinic have only just come out with blood tests that promise to measure the degree of immunity rather than just the fact of having antibodies and thus presumably some degree (not determined by the test) of immunity. if knowing that is important to you, it might be preferable to wait for such a test to be available to you.

how's everyone getting on?

Its interesting reading people say theyre having long ongoing issues with exertion exhausting them and such, as it makes me think of the ligering after effect of glandular fever ie: chronic fatigue syndrome.

You’re not the only one to notice that.
https://meassociation.org.uk/2020/04/covid-19-and-post-viral-fatigue-syndrome-by-dr-charles-shepherd-30-april-2020/

I have a colleague who had it about the same time as me and is still having pretty severe fatigue after-effects, and now is also suffering a blood pressure weirdness which has seriously affected her sight in one eye. Another friend is still seeing fever spikes out of nowhere, literally months after she was first affected.

I still get oddness and weirdness, but it's at baseline hypochondria levels now I think, I'm mostly OK. Haven't done any serious exertion for a while though, must change that

i have no symptoms at all, not even the tight chest i felt for so long, BUT the ringing in my ears is apparently permanently parked there now.

My fear of developing ME is long-standing and profound, it probably worries me more than mild rona so I'm definitely going to be more careful after reading that.

A doctor neighbor was saying he suspects Covid might be more of a vascular illness than a respiratory illness, which could partly explain some of the more mysterious symptoms and lingering effects.

I had the most mild of nonetheless very specific symptoms in early March (loss of smell/taste, tired). I got tested for antibodies in early May and it came up negative. I donated blood in June, and this time I tested *positive* for antibodies. My wife then got tested for antibodies and came up negative. (She also got herself tested for active covid yesterday, since she has to go on a car trip with someone; tested negative). As I understand it, having talked with a few doctors either in the family or that are friends, you're more likely to get a false negative than a false positive, but there are so many other variables to juggle as well. For example, the first test I took was at a clinic, and they used the Abbott test. The second test was automatically given to me when I donated blood via the Red Cross; they use the Ortho test. A doctor friend said that the Ortho test is perhaps more reliable than the Abbott test, and regardless, he trusts the standards of the Red Cross. Add it all up and you get a trustworthy organization (Red Cross), with a trustworthy test (Ortho), with very mild but relatively specific symptoms (loss of smell/taste, tired) and relatively trustworthy results (positive) and indications are that I had it. And yet my wife tested negative for antibodies (and had no symptoms), which can mean I had it but somehow didn't give it to her, didn't have it (and got a false positive), both had it (and she got a false negative), and so on.

If I had it I feel pretty lucky. Right now I don't know anyone else personally that has tested positive for either active Covid *or* antibodies. All said and done I'm not sure how much being positive about being positive would change the way I lead my life, anyway. Even if I was carrying antibodies it's not like I can, say, walk into a store mask-free, waving my test results; masks are still mandatory. But I do wish I knew for sure so that I could donate plasma to antibody studies. Then again, when I looked at the Red Cross policies it seems like they are only seeking to test (for research) people who had an active Covid diagnosis, not people who simply tested (possibly) positive for antibodies some time after the (possible) fact.

I don't deal well with grey areas like that - I find the unreliability of test results to be one of the most frustrating things/ roots of my anxiety about this whole damn pandemic.

I don't like it much, either. Tbh I think the only reason my brain is handling it relatively well is that I am also teaching my 15-year old how to drive. After a few hours on the highway thinking to myself that I'm going to die while struggling to exude calm, everything else seems a lot more chill.

We’re going to travel and stay with friends and all of us are on two week lockdown now - back to being as meticulous as we were in March so no stores, no socially distanced drinks, etc. - and are going to get tested as a precaution next week.

I could get an antibody rest at the same time but I wouldn’t trust the results either way so kind of feel like what’s the point? But the more I hear about people’s differing symptoms and experiences the more I think I might have had it in March. I had a high fever and chills/aches for three days then felt good for like a week before getting really sick with a low fever and pneumonia symptoms for three weeks. Was it all the same illness? Separate and unrelated? Either, neither or both covid?

sounds suspicious for sure

this is fascinating:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/17/covid-19-symptoms-falls-into-six-different-groupings-study-finds-coronavirus

i suspect i was in group 2. skipped meals, fever. and interestingly, loss of taste/smell seems to last linger in milder cases.

Cluster 6 for me I think, feeling pretty lucky I was in the non-hospital half

Hmm, I don’t really fit any very well. Cluster 3 plus muscle pain and heavy fatigue but no cough or fever. I’m presuming I did have it because I share a bed with Stet!

Yeah I had the muscle pain and fatigue too. It’s not that exact, is it.

itt survivors call the terrifying "fascinating"

i could read stories like this all day. straight into my veins, please!

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/22/health/covid-antibodies-herd-immunity.html

i just read this thread through cuz i've been mostly off ilx since march for multiple reasons and just wanted to check on y'all. love & health to everyone.

Here's an oddity: I got a super-bad sunburn last week, more like a reaction than an burn: bright red face before evening after an afternoon sitting near the sea in Ayrshire. Safe to say I don't think I've ever had a burn like that in Scotland, and nobody with me burned. It was so odd I can only think it was somehow Rona-aftermath

Tracer that's incredibly reassuring and I haven't even had the rona (or at least I don't believe so).

There’s a follow-up to that which has largely the same message:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/31/opinion/coronavirus-antibodies-immunity.html

Weird, stet.

stet are/were you on antibiotics? I know that can happen w/ sun exposure

I came off a three-week course of antibiotics for Lyme two weeks ago. It seemed to zap my sleepiness inside of a week...but symptoms that when I look back now seem to predate the Lyme—muscle and joint pain, shortness of breath after only very light exercise—have been worsening by the day. Every day a new pain, plantar fasciitis in both feet, knees, elbows, lower back. My body hurts all over and last week I had to quit playing tennis after just ten minutes because I couldn't catch my breath.

I've had a whole blood workup, Covid test, and this morning a stress test w/ EKG on treadmill. Everything normal. I'm increasingly wondering if I had Covid back in February or March and this is the fallout—scarred lung tissue and joint pain.

I want the antibody test but it's being discouraged at every turn, which is frustrating. I saw the article upthread...is anyone in here having lingering lung/joint stuff like this?