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Over the last two months, I've come down with a couple of nasty respiratory-type bugs, which according to at home testing at least, were not COVID. I've noticed reading through a couple of threads here, that at least a few others have experienced something similar. I had no fever, although others may have. My main symptoms were horrific sore throat, some nasal congestion, and awful lung tightness/congestion/gunk. I have asthma, so that may have exacerbated the lung issues to an extent as well. Just curious if others have experienced anything similar. I am vaxed and heavily masked/social distanced the past two years, up until March of this year, when the junk seemed to hit.
I've recently been suffering from respiratory illness. It had been so many years since the last one I had forgotten how miserable it can be.
Lots of nasal congestion and coughing. Sometimes the coughing can turn into spasms of uncontrollable coughing. I've heard it's "going around" in our community, along with more Covid than anytime in the past. I am triple vaxxed for Covid.
This has been a real bummer for me. Perhaps my defenses were compromised by hernia surgery a month ago, I don't know. So much for my previous theory that respiratory bugs would never trouble me again.
Yes, after getting Omicron in January and February, hubs bought home a nasty upper respiratory virus in March. Symptoms were the same as yours plus dragging around with no energy. I also have asthma and it made things worse. Hubs made a Dr apt and I went along. After vitals, his Dr came out to the parking lot, and after some questions, diagnosed him with a viral infection. She called in some scripts.
I tried earlier to make my own Dr apt, but they canceled due to the high volume of sick people. After learning from hubs Dr what we had, he drove me to the supplement store and I bought some stuff. Although we took different things, we both had the upper respiratory for almost a month.
I think the reason we got sick so soon after Omicron, was because our immune systems were down. The Omicron was rough, it dragged on and on. Anyway, I try to take sambucol daily, it seems to help.
It depends on how curious you are or how sick you are on trying to determine what is going on. Most conditions come and go and nobody really cares what it is as we overcome most common ailments. There is added concern since COVID came about because of the communicability issues regards COVID and their concern in transmitting that virus.
These things can be an impetus to a new construct on dealing with such upper respiratory infections. In hospitals now the challenge is to determine whether the agent responsible is COVID or some other infectious agent, especially in a setting of more severe illness requiring a hospital visit. A multiplex panel of COVID, Influenza A, Influenza B, and RSV is routinely being used. Those are the most common winter culprits.
Labcorp, a private laboratory ie for profit has available that same panel for people concerned and want to get tested as an outpatient with that panel. It does not require a doctor's order implying you will pay for the full cost of the panel. It received FSA approval as it is an at-home collection of the person swabbing themselves and then sending the swabs in or the containers back to them for testing. It would obviously take longer since the specimen will have to be delivered to the place where testing is done.
Also, there are respiratory panels that can be much more expansive and can test for many more added pathogens like parainfluenza A and B and adenovirus, and many more.
Before one gets caught up on the diagnostic trail though one needs to keep in context what can be achieved and what is really going to make an impact on outcomes. When it comes to viral infections there a very few antivirals so if one were to come up with a virus that one doesn't have any antiviral drug for then one can't do much.
There's also the diagnostic danger of interpretation when dealing with expanded panels. For example the study of pediatric cases involving hepatitis. They noted adenovirus positive blood PCR in some cases but don't know yet if that is the culprit or simply because they tested for too many things and the virus was simply incidental rather than causative.
In any case, one still needs to view tests in a clinical context relating one's symptoms to the most probable cause and seeing if it makes sense. That's where a good doctor comes in. You can try things on your own which can add information as to what works or what makes your symptoms worse. Try using air filters to see if it is an allergy and that way you can provide information to your doctor. Eating late or acid reflux is a possible cause. You are implying that it might be two separate occurrences of infection over two months when it might be simply the same cause over that same time period. That makes a big difference.
It depends on how curious you are or how sick you are on trying to determine what is going on. Most conditions come and go and nobody really cares what it is as we overcome most common ailments. There is added concern since COVID came about because of the communicability issues regards COVID and their concern in transmitting that virus.
These things can be an impetus to a new construct on dealing with such upper respiratory infections. In hospitals now the challenge is to determine whether the agent responsible is COVID or some other infectious agent, especially in a setting of more severe illness requiring a hospital visit. A multiplex panel of COVID, Influenza A, Influenza B, and RSV is routinely being used. Those are the most common winter culprits.
Labcorp, a private laboratory ie for profit has available that same panel for people concerned and want to get tested as an outpatient with that panel. It does not require a doctor's order implying you will pay for the full cost of the panel. It received FSA approval as it is an at-home collection of the person swabbing themselves and then sending the swabs in or the containers back to them for testing. It would obviously take longer since the specimen will have to be delivered to the place where testing is done.
Also, there are respiratory panels that can be much more expansive and can test for many more added pathogens like parainfluenza A and B and adenovirus, and many more.
Before one gets caught up on the diagnostic trail though one needs to keep in context what can be achieved and what is really going to make an impact on outcomes. When it comes to viral infections there a very few antivirals so if one were to come up with a virus that one doesn't have any antiviral drug for then one can't do much.
There's also the diagnostic danger of interpretation when dealing with expanded panels. For example the study of pediatric cases involving hepatitis. They noted adenovirus positive blood PCR in some cases but don't know yet if that is the culprit or simply because they tested for too many things and the virus was simply incidental rather than causative.
In any case, one still needs to view tests in a clinical context relating one's symptoms to the most probable cause and seeing if it makes sense. That's where a good doctor comes in. You can try things on your own which can add information as to what works or what makes your symptoms worse. Try using air filters to see if it is an allergy and that way you can provide information to your doctor. Eating late or acid reflux is a possible cause. You are implying that it might be two separate occurrences of infection over two months when it might be simply the same cause over that same time period. That makes a big difference.
Thanks for all of this information. I did experience a few days of acid reflux before the latest issues. The first bout I had about a month ago was worse....with the sore throat and coughing up lots of phlegm. This time seems more like allergy induced asthma...maybe. More constant throat clearing and just being more tired than usual. Tree pollen levels have been high and I've been out doing a lot of gardening and yard work, but it seems like it should have cleared by now. I was just really curious to see if other people were dealing with respiratory stuff this spring after maybe letting their guard down for the first time in two years. The weird thing to me, is that, as far as I know, I have not gotten Covid, although it is supposed to be extremely contagious, yet I've managed to come down with other stuff.
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