Covid. It finally happened. Timeline and symptoms for anyone interested.

[Amethyst91]

29 yr old female 5’9 and 120lbs. Current medical conditions fatty/enlarged liver May 2020 and hashimotos thyroid after radioiodine treatment in August 2020.

Exposed December 19th at work. I work retail and the infected co worker just came back from a short leave definitely feeling and looking very sick. I also sanitized and cleaned very religiously as this was the last thing I wanted.

December 20. Wake up with headache and very mild body aches and kind of question if I’m getting sick. Find out that afternoon sick co worker is covid positive. Get rapid test just to see if I’ve already been sick since I have symptoms and it’s negative.

December 21. Still have headache and leg aches mildly congested but nothing major. Get PCR test negative. Take ibuprofen and headache/ body aches stop.

December 22. Notice my nose piercing is getting infected and the sty on my eye from the week before hurts a little more. Start treating nose infection. Get rapid antibodies test and it’s negative for both current and previous infections. Headache returns at night. Never ran a full fever but temp was around 98.8-99.0 for a few days.

December 23. Headaches again but not horrible. Mild chest pain in right area by arm and armpit. Tickle in back of throat with congestion but no cough still. Feel ok other than that. PCR test negative.

December 24. Feel pretty good. Mild congestion still have tickle still no cough. Mild chest/ back pain on left side. Rapid test negative.

December 25. Feel fine just get headache at night.

December 26. Wake up with flu like leg pains and feel a bit rundown. Mild congestion, tickle in throat, no cough, random throat pains but not a sore throat. Mild ear pains on and off with ear pressure.

December 27. Same but leg pains feel more like inflammed joins.

December 28. Same but get mild lightheaded feeling waiting in line for PCR test still negative.

December 29. Same leg pains , mild congestion, now headaches again. PCR test negative.

December 30. Still having leg pains and headaches with congestion and no coughing. Give up on covid testing as family and friends think I’m crazy for thinking I have covid.

December 31. Leg pains ate killing me and so are headaches. Sleep all day to avoid pains.

Jan 1. Legs are on fire and headaches so bad can’t go back to sleep after waking up but don’t want to move. Only burning hit heat pads provide relief. That night anytime I laid down my legs would get prickly and weird painful as if there’s no blood flow. This is awful and makes me get up and walk stretch 5 times before I can fall asleep.

Jan 2. End of 14 day quarantine and have had enough. Still not trying to bring up covid as dad yelled at me for not wanting to pick him up other day for fear of exposing him. Tells me I need therapy. Go to urgent care tell them my symptoms and the recent exposure. Dr does pretty thorough exam of legs and whole body chest and breathing and checks for any swelling. Says I’m in good shape but 100% suspects covid. Says I line up with a lot of mild cases and he’s seen many ppl test negative for two weeks with symptoms. Gives me another antibodies rapid test and it shows strong positive for antibodies indicating I’ve had this for at least a week or so. Other line for current infection is weak indicating I’m hopefully almost over it or only got a small viral load.

Developing chest pain in right area by arm and armpit again. Hurts with pressure and when I exhale. He didn’t say to get an X-ray but really regretting asking for one. Will probably call and ask for one tomorrow.

Moral of the story is believe your body when it’s telling you something is wrong. It can really take 14 days after exposure even with symptoms to test positive. A negative is not really a negative all the time. You can have covid without all the obvious symptoms. If you in anyway suspect you are sick or have covid call your HR and do not go to work. It is so much better to be safe than sorry. This virus is real and if you are not concerned about it does it mean others feel the same way. I’m terrified of this virus and what it can do to me. I know so many other are as well.

Update: yesterday Jan 3.I could not get out of bed. It was not fatigue but my headache was crushing and my legs felt like they were on fire again. I took two ibuprofen that day and it really did nothing. I had some congestion in my chest with some mild chest pains in the left and right sides that came and went.

Jan 4. Woke up feeling much better but still congested not coughing but hacking up some phlegm. Chest pains still mildly there and went to urgent care to get an X-ray because I do honestly get chest infections once a year around this time anyway and I wanted to get it before it was worse if it was there. They said the X-ray was good and gave me an inhaler just in case. I have been feeling so much better but still get some random head pains and mild sore throat. Did have weird episode in care where I got super light headed and a fast heartbeat for about 5 min. Felt pretty ok since then. Just back to my little quarantine until I see my dr Wednesday to decide if I can return to work or not.

[Millie09]

Hello amethyst, Well well .. what a very informative and interesting read,

This now worries me as I have the same symtoms, on and off now all week ,last night yet again my headache was bad, I get chills and a lot of muscle pain, but I get that anyway due to my osteoarthritis etc.. I have had to increase my pregabalin as my restless legs have been bad,

Also stuffy nose ,prickly throat ,slight constant cough,

Obviously I have given it no thought to covid as I'm still sort of able to do my daily routine.. but this has made me think now ,so thank you so much for your indepth diary.

I hope you feel better sooon

Linda x

[Amethyst91 in reply to Millie09]

Yes honestly with all my weird conditions if my co worker hadn’t come up positive and I started having these symptoms I would not have thought covid. No one thought I had it and kept telling me it sounded like an autoimmune flare up and after all my negatives and no obvious covid symptoms I was thinking the same. I just had this bad feeling since I saw my coworker because we all share the same bathroom and to be honest I know we are all guilty of taking the mask off to breathe for a bit in the bathroom. My thought is she probably went in there to cough and adjust herself and I probably walked in not long after she left. As I said I’ve been so very careful but it all adds up. Also headaches were a huge suspicion because I don’t suffer from headaches often. I thought my experience might help some because when I was searching most ppl seem to get a positive right away it gave pretty obvious symptoms which apparently doesn’t always happen.

[Millie09 in reply to Amethyst91]

My god , it's quite scary isn't it , You don't really associate these symptoms with covid ,

I don't work due to chronic illness and pain etc, I do however keep my distance, wear a mask etc if I'm out and carry hand gel ,that being said with this new strain of covid it's obviously more infectious.

I am going to see how I feel in a few days time, I'm not going out anywhere, I do feel very very tired though I must say , more so than I usually am .

Thank you so much for your post.

Please take care 🙂

[Amethyst91 in reply to Millie09]

I have not been hit with the big fatigue yet but I hear from ppl that’s one of the next big things. I’d say if your already mostly home then you can probably just ride out 14 days and see how you do. I am a bit crazy as I feel I need to know everything going on in my body to keep it going so I needed to know for sure but honestly didn’t plan on testing again until the 6th , I just couldn’t handle my legs and the weird lack of blood flow feeling. Stay safe and definitely pay attention to the small things that don’t feel right.

[Millie09 in reply to Amethyst91]

Oh so fatigue is another symptom then, I definitely don't feel right, I was telling my sister only on Monday but she said I must have caught a chill, but a chill that's still pk going It's a good thing to want to know what's going on with your body amethyst, if you didn't you would not have pursued your inner feeling to find out what you knew all along

Thank you for your kind words

Stay safe 🙏.. Linda

[Yarkis]

Is it weird that I enjoyed reading that? You're quite good at writing. Either way, hope you're feeling better :).

[Amethyst91 in reply to Yarkis]

Thanks I feel like I make a million typos cuz I go too fast lol. Today I might be showing minor signs of pneumonia or just something building up but still really not that bad and still not coughing but getting done chest pains. I guess I like to post my experiences here for other that have health anxiety like me and like to be informed with personal experience over dr google lol. If I didn’t find a group on Reddit about ppls minor experiences I might have still pushed off going to urgent thinking it was just a flare up and put everyone at work at risk again since tomorrow we return from our 14 day quarantine.

[Yarkis in reply to Amethyst91]

Do you still have your sense of taste and smell? I think that's a good sign of severity. Studies point to the virus inhibiting communication between the specific organic sensors and the brain. As opposed to the sensors itself. Scary to think a virus so contagious could affect a person's nervous system so completely.

[Amethyst91 in reply to Yarkis]

Honestly yes and this is one thing that makes me wonder and why I kept believing everyone when they said I didn’t have it. Almost everyone I know lost smell and or taste but I have not. I am curious as to what you mean by it could indicate severity of the disease ? I’ve kinda seen that around but more so just ppl saying that sentence without explanation. It makes me wonder if that means mine could get worse or it’s just that I didn’t get hit that bad especially since I don’t have really any bad respiratory issues.

[Yarkis in reply to Amethyst91]

Well there really isn't much literature on it but the virus is thought to affect multiple systems in the body. The fact that you are so long into it and never lost you sense of smell is a good thing. I'd assume it is because your immune system stopped or weakened it before it could pass the blood-brain barrier. People that do lose their sense of smell can have life time long complications.

[nutrimar]

From the things I have heard, this PCR test is about as useful as a £3 note! Elon Musk had 4 done in one day, with the results 2+ & 2-! An Austrian MP tested a glass of coke, which produced a positive result. And the President of Tanzania tested several things, including a papaya fruit and a goat which also had covid, apparently. Moral is, trust what your body is telling you. At least you were persistent in keeping on getting tested.

Hope you feel better soon.

[Amethyst91]

Yes , definitely trust your body. If you feel off and ppl are trying to convince you otherwise don’t listen to them. Not one person thought I could have possibly had except my co worker I got it from when I talked to her about because she knows how random it can feel. But I will admit I was really relying on those PCRs because I definitely thought they would pick it up after a solid week but I guess not. But anyway even if you get a mild case of this it is not fun and I definitely don’t want it again or have anyone have to go through it. The unknown about it is a whole other thing too that I can’t stop thinking about.

[Bootandall]

Hi Amethyst 👋, I found your posts extremely interesting! 🙂 It is so scary knowing that others get it much worse.🥺😨

I had similar symptoms in the past few weeks, bad headache, chills briefly one day, mild earache the next, persistent sore throat. I wish l had taken careful notes like you did. The alarming thing is the pain you describe in chest under armpit. I had that too, thought l was crazy.😦

Did you have swollen lymph glands? My lymph gland under my jaw is still really swollen on one side.😬

I tried to see my GP (which requires a covid test beforehand) but she said it has a 40% chance of false negative and refused to see me. I don't know what kind of test it was, it was a nasal swab up the nose. I am really surprised, l guess l never understood what mild covid symptoms were, guess my doctor knew. 😂 Still wondering if it's possible to know for sure.

[Amethyst91 in reply to Bootandall]

For me I went to urgent care because my dr was on vacation. If you have symptoms a lot of them will see you in your care and give you a test there if your insurance covers it. I also live in the US so I’m not sure if where your from Ford this as well. The dr looked at my nose , ears , and throat and said I was very red and inflamed but I haven’t noticed a swollen lymph yet. My throat pains are weird, I would never call them a sore throat as it never felt like one but I would get random 2 min long pains in random parts of my throat and I still get them on and off. I have had two cousins my age get this as well and non of our symptoms are like the others so this things is just so crazy. My first cousin to get it lost her smell/ taste , bad sore throat, headaches, body aches, sensitive skin, really put out for a couple days and pretty much got better in a week. My second cousin to get it had the bad diarrhea, mild fever , and felt a little run down for couple weeks and still has a mild fever but ok otherwise. I’m going on week three now and yesterday my headache and leg pains were so bad I rarely left my bed. Today I feel congested and mild headache but running around cleaning my apartment. I had no idea how unreliable the tests were until all this happened to me which makes me believe if you have had symptoms for more than a week I would do the blood test over the nasal swab. Almost all mine were nasal until 14 days in I got the blood one. I actually had gotten a nasal swab on Saturday at a different urgent care that was only doing covid testing and I’m still waiting results curious as to what it will say.

[Bootandall in reply to Amethyst91]

I'm curious now too. 🙂 I forgot to mention my main complaint for months was dizziness, like vertigo. Well anyway, good luck!

[Amethyst91 in reply to Bootandall]

I don’t know if that’s what I have experienced but three times now out of no where I have gotten supper light headed like I’m gonna pass out with a very high heartbeat and it all goes away after like 5 min. It even happened in my car today almost like an anxiety attack but I’m not thinking about anything bad or stressful at the times.

[Yarkis in reply to Amethyst91]

I've been getting that myself. A driver of mine at work gave me a propel fitness water. Felt alright after I downed that. I think it was an electrolyte imbalance. Drinking water like a fish but have been severely limiting my sodium. At least I hope it's that's what's going on.

[Amethyst91 in reply to Yarkis]

I’ll admit on those days I have had limited water intake when that happens. Today I was in my care at urgent care waiting for an X-ray and it took 3 hrs and I only had one water with me those three hours. I also take linzess for my IBS so water is something I need all the time.

[Bootandall in reply to Amethyst91]

This was mostly when l was exercising or going to bed, every time l changed position the room would spin. That has thankfully lessened.I also had cracking headaches l never had before, thought maybe l was dehydrated too.

And same prickly pains in arm and hand, like it had fallen asleep. Honestly, I thought l was becoming obsessed with these minor symptoms and just tried to shake it off. Never lost sense of smell.

Weird. Mostly wondering now how much it matters if l got an antibody test. Is it better to have antibodies or the vaccine, or both? I'm in the US too, Orange County, NC. There were 76 people with the virus in the ICU last night l think.

[Amethyst91 in reply to Bootandall]

Yea I honestly thought I was becoming a little obsessed with the symptoms too which is why I tried to downplay the exposure at the urgent care cuz at that point covid was off my mind and I thought my body was freaking out over one of my conditions. I’m honestly not very excited about the first round of vaccines, I’m not a medical expert and I don’t know much about the science but it seems scary to trust something created this soon under the intense pressure that it’s been under. I also don’t think antibodies are great either as some ppl lose them quickly and this thing has mutated so much idk if your protected against a new mutation l. This is all so unknown it sucks.

[kyia]

Thank you for giving us such an insight into Covid - but so sorry you're having to go through all this. When I get ANY symptoms, like a random ache or anything else, I do find myself wondering if it could be Covid. There are so many symptoms it's hard to keep track! Hope you feel better soon x

[Amethyst91 in reply to kyia]

Thank you. Yes as I just commented on others that my two cousins of the same age got covid before me me non of us had similar symptoms really besides maybe the headaches.

[Bluegirl52]

My husband and I both tested positive for Covid on the 13th of November. It was almost a fluke that we even found out. I am in heart failure and have cirrhosis from right sided heart failure. Also have pulmonary hypertension from my heart failure. So lots of comorbidities. Anyway I had to go to the ER for a nosebleed that wouldn’t stop (from my Coumadin). My husband had lost his sense of taste and smell for two days prior to this visit snd just happened to mention it to the dr. The dr immediately had him get tested for Covid and tested me also. We had no fevers or fatigue or pain. Looking back to the prior week, I had some diarrhea and a constant headache ( which I never get). A few days after the positive test, I too lost my sense of taste and smell. Besides a little fatigue, we never had fevers or the other big respiratory symptoms. We were definitely blessed especially since I’m 68 and my husband is 70.

[Amethyst91 in reply to Bluegirl52]

I’m so glad you guys got it mild especially with everything else going on. That’s the crazy scary part about this. It’s just so random we really don’t know what to expect. Hope you guys are still doing well.

[Bluegirl52 in reply to Amethyst91]

We are doing good. Hoping our antibodies from Covid last until we can get the vaccine. What I learned is that the list of symptoms is long and all they talk about are fevers and respiratory problems. Everyone should read about the different symptoms. The dr told us that 50% of the people with Covid don’t even know they have or have had it.

[Amethyst91 in reply to Bluegirl52]

I believe it. My boyfriend is in complete denial telling me I just have a cold. I have never had so many headaches from a cold especially ones that meds won’t fix and my leg pains have never been so all over the place and painful. The real one for me that makes me believe covid was the night that they hurt so bad and every time I laid down they would get prickly and cold painful like I was getting poor blood flow to them along with my left hand getting random prickly feeling as well. I wish ppl understood the more underrated symptoms better.

[Brightstar15]

Thank you for this thought I was going crazy had about the same symptoms has you had two negative test even though my son was positive has he is frontline worker and lives with us. I knew I was more at risk of catching it with liver cirrhosis. Had a test done on 16 of December same time as son and mine negative still very poorly by Christmas Eve could hardly breath sweating like crazy ears hurt throat loss of smell headache.

So my daughter in law a nurse booked me another test negative again. Phoned my GP been on a weeks course of antibiotics and I still feel poorly but not has bad.

My family like yours thought I wanted COViD because I wanted testing again but new there was something wrong and you know own body this was not a cold or flu. Anyway still none the wiser. Thank you for posting because I actually thought I was being paranoid myself. Anna

[Amethyst91 in reply to Brightstar15]

I have done some reading about viral load maybe playing a part in things. I know at work I sanitized like crazy so I wonder if with the mask and constant sanitizing if maybe I for a smaller viral load and that’s why my symptoms haven’t been the super common ones along with not showing up well on the tests. Maybe since your son is a front line worker and you being aware of your condition. The safety measures you took might have given you less exposure resulting in a more minor hard to detect case.

[Hidden]

Good to hear you are feeling better.

[Amethyst91]

So far since Monday I’ve been doing well. Still have weird feeling in my legs that makes me paranoid about blood clots but I think it will be ok.