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My Experience Having COVID-19
COVID-19 under the microscope. 3d illustration. Photo by shutterstock.com
In case anyone’s curious about one COVID-19 experience: Two friends, my wife, and I went to London the second week of March on a long-planned vacation. Did the whole tourist thing, but tried to be safe by washing hands, Purelling, etc. We came home on separate flights on March 14. and immediately went into self-quarantine.
All four of us eventually got sick. Our medical friends in the group got tested. After a week, the results came pack COVID-positive. So we got tested – the mouth swab. I had a fever for 12 days (no fun, I can tell you, but it never got too high), felt cruddy, but I work from home and so was able to get most of my work done. Naps every day. Never had the breathing problems, thankfully.
One friend’s experience was much more serious — she has asthma, a pre-existing condition, and was knocked flat on her back for five days. Her husband’s experience was not quite so bad. My wife never had much of a fever, and never felt as bad, but hers seems to be stretching out — she still was tired yesterday, even though we’ve been back three weeks now. Three of us are cured now, and my wife is, almost.
Some logistical problems developed with our tests, so after 10 days (on a “two-day test”) with no results and lots of frustration, the testing place said, “We now have the 15-minute tests, let’s just re-run you.” So we finally tested, positive, yesterday.
I’ve been fever-free, feeling great for four days now, so I’m cured, immune, what have you. Because the situation is moving so fast, there are no exceptions for folks like me in the stay-home rules. I should be able to visit a lonely nursing home, etc., but there’s no provision for that. We want to donate plasma, but the Red Cross, in its caution, may want to wait until we’ve been asymptomatic 14 days. Fair enough.
And then there’s the matter of — how do I prove I’m free of the disease? The 15-minute finger-prick antibody test just shows that I have had the illness and have developed some level of antibodies to it. I might need a separate test (or even two) to demonstrate I’m really no longer a threat, and indeed can even be an asset.
Published in General
did your wife experience shortness of breath because of her asthma? did the illness exacerbate her asthma?
Quest or Lab Corp?
have you seen the kit by Abbott or Cellex?
The advantage of antibody tests is that they not only are less likely to produce false-negative results, but can also be used to detect past infections, meaning that they can be used to determine if a patient without symptoms has previously had Covid-19 and could thus be immune to it. It could also be used to indicate stage of infection and estimate time since exposure. Nevertheless, according to the primer, a limitation to antibody testing is that the body’s immune response to SARS-CoV-2 is slow. IgM antibody response does not peak until about nine days after initial infection, with IgG response peaking a couple of days later, compared with five days for most viruses. As such, antibodies alone may not be appropriate for diagnosing the disease in its acute phase.
https://medcitynews.com/2020/04/fda-oks-cellexs-antibody-based-test-for-covid-19/
I agree… what is the point of testing at the hospital? if a patient has a dry cough, fever and shortness of breath, do we really need to test him or her?
at this point, regarding testing, we should test those who are asymptomatic, either for infection or antibody or both
The majority of the country will not get sick from covid 19.
The faster we can show the majority of the country is negative and/or immune, the faster we can go back to business
Thanks @MISTER BITCOIN. When the doc explained the IgM and IgB, it kinda flew right by me. The next day I got the ORIGINAL results of the swab test back (6 days from symptoms to swab test, 10 days from swab test to antibody test), so as expected, both IgM and IgG were pretty high.
Do you think anybody be making any calculations like “Five (or seven, or …) days after IgG peaks, you should no longer be contagious”?
None of us went to the hospital. I’m guessing you have to go to the hospital to get the hydroxychloroquine regimen? Our friends did not take the antibody test, since their swab test returned in an OK amount of time.
Is there a reason to take the antibody test again, if it was positive? I’m pretty sure it’s the one from Cellex. I’m wondering about getting the swab test (again) now, to prove I’m positive, but only if somebody NEEDS that proof (I’m clearly post-symptomatic by 5+ days, my wife not so clearly), like for the Red Cross’s plasma4covid drive.
My friend’s wife has asthma. She says she did indeed have shortness of breath. She was prescribed prednisone for a week while she fought COVID to help her breathing. Scary.
That’s great! One of my friends got his arm caught in a train door on the Paris metro, and was very surprised that it didn’t stop the train from moving or set off an alarm, as it would on the Underground. I taught them a few French phrases just in case we got separated by accident, and of course the minute I went to order sandwiches in Florence Khan, one of them struck up a conversation with a homeless man and pointed him towards me when he ran out of material. I was tempted to deliberately lose them after that. The first time I went to Paris was during the worst of the gilets jaunes protests, and my parents managed to book me a room in the sketchiest hotel in Montmatre, so it was very much a baptism of fire.
Where in London did you stay? I’m most familiar with the city, Westminster, and Camden/Islington, but I know a lot of people, particularly Americans, like Chelsea and Kensington. I took them to do most of the tourist-y things on your list (which are all great fun), as well as going to an open debate in Parliament, the Samuel Johnson museum, Beigel Bake in Shoreditch, and Boris Gudonov at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden.
This is what is so confusing at the moment: The progression of the disease is exposure -> infection ->asymptomatic viral shedding -> symptoms (and viral shedding) -> post-symptoms (but continued viral shedding) -> end of symptoms and viral shedding. Working backwards, we know you have to have antibodies to no longer have neither symptoms nor viral shedding. Is there a calculation that demonstrates that with x antibodies per y volume of blood, you are not having viral shedding, or is that demonstrable only in conjunction with a PCR test for the presence of the virus? Can you have the presence of virus without shedding? I am assuming the answer is “no”. In popular terms antibodies “destroy” the virus. But in biochemical terms (as I understand it) antibodies interfere with the chemistry of the virus. But does that interference make the viral DNA unrecognizable in the PCR test? In other words, if you have “dead” virus cells in your body will the PCR test still test positive?
We stayed near Bloomsbury so we could be close to the British Museum. I’d LOVE to be able to watch a live debate in Parliament! Oh, we also watched the 2-part Harry Potter play in the West End.
I didn’t know there was a Samuel Johnson museum there, but it makes sense. On this 5th trip to London, I can definitely say I am neither tired of London nor of life ;-)
I saw the same thing happen on the RER when we were in Paris in 2002. Some guy stuck his hand in the door to try to stop it from closing, got caught, and the train started moving. Fortunately somebody hit the emergency stop before we’d gone more than a few feet.
The conductor was PO’d.
That’s a lovely area, close to the center of the city and Soho. It’s not hard at all, if you do come again. Any day but Tuesday (PMQs, which you have to have tickets for) you wait outside of the green entrance a little (or an hour in summer) before two or four and you will be let into the Commons and sometimes the Lords for as long as you like. No ticket needed. Dr. Johnson’s museum is off of Fleet Street, up a few little interconnecting alley ways, not more than 5 minutes from St. Paul’s. I bought one of my friends a bag from there that had that exact quote on it for his birthday, because it turned out to be an unexpected high point of our trip (I put it on the list simply because I wanted to go, neither of them knew who he was, one of them started making off color jokes about what kind of doctor he was, and when I turned around ten minutes later they were wearing dresses and one of them was standing in a fireplace).
Is immune the same as non-toxic? Do we know that people who have had it cannot communicate it?
But any other disease is not this one. Pandemics are not normal.
Just so long as they don’t ask us if we smoke or if we have guns in our house…and you know they will!
I would be surprised if plans for tracking and selective isolation based on immunity Records and testing were not already in the works by military and strategic planners. I think China just did an accidental bio-warfare test and the rest of the world will likely now look to patch the vulnerabilities that uncovered. We could not survive a series of outbreaks like this with our current toolset.
Immune means I can’t catch it again, for some period. Obviously, no one knows exactly how long this immunity will last, since the disease is so new. Based on similar viruses, they estimate one to three years of immunity. Immunity is based on antibodies, which we can now measure via the brand new 15-minute tests.
“No longer a carrier” or “can no longer infect others” (I think that’s what you mean by “non-toxic”) is slightly different. Having two negative swab tests, with a couple days spacing between, after being tested positive, is probably the best way we have now of proving we are in that status. But right now, you can probably only get all those tests if you’re a medical staffer who needs to demonstrate it’s safe to return to work (like my two friends) seeing patients, or other folks in critical face-to-face positions.
Until they have more testing capacity than they know what to do with, work-from-home computer geeks like me probably can’t/shouldn’t get the follow-on tests – unless that is what will convince the Red Cross I’m safe to donate antibody-rich blood plasma to help victims. We’ll see.
I wish I could answer your question. I’m not a real MD, I just pretend to be one on riochet.com
why does the Red Cross have to be involved? I have little confidence in them
So far, they’re the only ones I’ve gotten a lead on for an organization who would use my antibody-rich blood specifically to help a COVID patient. I’d love to hear of another choice open to me. I’d drive in to Atlanta if I thought it would make enough of a difference in someone’s life.
And that’s sayin’ somethin’!
I don’t trust the Red Cross for charitable stuff any more, but their blood services group is the most professional out there. I haven’t donated to to all of them, but I’ve had a decent sample.
I am the wife in this scenario (of @fridaynightecon already mentioned the possibility of our giving blood or plasma, a possibly life-giving substance for some of the ICU-bound sufferers because it carries anti-bodies. We might also be of use in other critical circumstances such as with law enforcement, help for sick, and other situations where protective gear is not possible or unavailable. Once people have immunity, they can step in and solve some problems.