Covid, after all I did to avoid you. You win this round.

[kerbiloid]

Interesting, is there any study about correlation between the sterility of surroundings and the severity of symptoms, making people who are mad of sterile cleanliness suffer more than those who aren't.

1. The nonsterile immunity.

2. The habit of ignoring smell disturbances.

Edited February 6, 2023 by kerbiloid

[steve9728]

Alright then, COVID, you finally got me since 2020. Not quite sure when I got infected because I have always been coughing a little bit  - in the worst situation, I probably got our client and my boss infected. 

Spoiler

The reason why I went through the whole of COVID in the UK but without being infected:

On Saturday, the day before, my halal food addiction kicked in and then I went for ramen in beef soup. It was a salty food and then I realized I lost my sense of taste. 

Called in sick, then slept nearly 18 hours at home today... Feels a little better but still coughing and hard to taste anything.

Edited August 7, 2023 by steve9728

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

6 hours ago, steve9728 said:

hard to taste anything

That was surprisingly maddening for me.  I remember being fascinated by the loss of sensation in the early days - but after months it gets old.  Then the phantom smells - where you can't tell if the house is on fire or something else. 

Not being able to smell dog farts tho?  That's a win! 

[steve9728]

7 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Not being able to smell dog farts tho?

My sense of taste and smell came back for a second, thanks

Edited August 8, 2023 by steve9728

[tater]

My wife says she has often had anosmia with other colds, not just the cold caused by SARS-CoV2. Father-in-law said he got anosmia with a flu a long time ago. COVID in 2021 was the first cold I had with anosmia that I actually noticed. Was only total for a few days, then came back over time. Course it's very possible I was actually paying attention, and I may have had it in the past and chalked it up to a stuffy nose.

Turns out paying attention to colds is dumb.

 

Edited August 8, 2023 by tater

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

6 hours ago, tater said:

urns out paying attention to colds is dumb

My experience was distinct.  I've had the generic cold 'can't smell or taste' thing - which, if you will excuse the expression - is a complete horsepuckey comparison to what Covid did to me. 

My covid loss of smell and taste was akin to a true disability.  I literally lost two of the traditional five senses.  

It's surprising what losing something you take for granted does to you 

With taste - it was completely gone.  I had 'mouth feel' heat and cold sensation - but the normal nerve input from having food in the mouth was simply, interestingly and maddeningly absent.  I could tell the difference between the way a piece of chicken felt from the way a pea felt, and know if the bite was too hot or not - but there was zero flavor.

Some sensation of flavor came back within a relatively short time - ten days or two weeks, IIRC. It wasn't a cure, so much as a process. 

Smell was also completely gone, but recovery took a longer time - and given that smell is a core component of taste - food remained unpleasant for a long time.  I recall saying everything reminded me of rotting cucumbers even months after I 'recovered'. Salt came back first, along with the capacin heat from pepper sauce (the heat, not the flavor).   Week to week my brain began to distinguish different flavors. 

Smell?  It took most of a year - and I would not call myself 'cured' in the sense of having returned to pre-covid ability.

I got Covid in early '21 and in late' 22, I recall my kids and wife complaining about the pungent reek from a bunch of stoned Spring Breakers - and I was oblivious.  There simply wasn't any sensation at all that there was anything to smell. 

So to compare what I experienced with any of the previous colds or flu's (I've had various A & B strains) is completely spurious. 

Edited August 8, 2023 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Edit - tone of my response may seem combative... It's not intended to be. 

 

I echo a lot of your past posts on the overreacting that happened during and since - but I did want to address the specific point about Covid loss of smell and taste being distinct from other respiratory illness I've experienced 

[tater]

47 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

With taste - it was completely gone.  I had 'mouth feel' heat and cold sensation - but the normal nerve input from having food in the mouth was simply, interestingly and maddeningly absent.  I could tell the difference between the way a piece of chicken felt from the way a pea felt, and know if the bite was too hot or not - but there was zero flavor.

Some sensation of flavor came back within a relatively short time - ten days or two weeks, IIRC. It wasn't a cure, so much as a process. 

Smell was also completely gone, but recovery took a longer time - and given that smell is a core component of taste - food remained unpleasant for a long time.  I recall saying everything reminded me of rotting cucumbers even months after I 'recovered'. Salt came back first, along with the capacin heat from pepper sauce (the heat, not the flavor).   Week to week my brain began to distinguish different flavors. 

my anosmia experience was very similar. i made an effort to retrain. regular stuff was at ~90% within weeks, but red wine was awful for the better part of a year (hence my switch to bourbon, with flavors jacked to 11 )

51 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

So to compare what I experienced with any of the previous colds or flu's (I've had various A & B strains) is completely spurious. 

My wife and her office likely had it before anyone tested for it very early 2020. She had "bad flu." Cancelled cases, stayed home a few days level. Bad flu is bad—but anything short of hospitalization is no different than any other year.

Spring 2020 was normal care being abandoned out of panic, and I'll wager an unbiased after-action report will show that a huge amount of harm was iatrogenic—it certainly was in NYC. It's important to remember that it for sure was ~everywhere on Earth in mid-2019 and no one noticed (samples taken in Italy, Brazil, etc in summer '19).

 

35 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Edit - tone of my response may seem combative... It's not intended to be. 

No worries, I didn't take it any different than I would with a buddy over a drink

 

[steve9728]

Alright then, back to work!

Have to say the symptoms on me were milder than I expected - I only felt a little tickle in my throat, cough but that could be relieved by talking less, and incredible lethargy: it felt like I'd been knocked off my bed with one punch and then knocked out with another.

According to my last cup of tea just drank, my sense of taste is back to more than 75% I think. Got an idea of going for some spicy food that I couldn't tolerate before, even though it wouldn't be good for my newly recovered throat lol

The source of the infection was figured out: some kind of social with my high school friends on Friday night - two of them brought their two female colleagues. 6 people in total, tada

Edited August 10, 2023 by steve9728

[tater]

9 minutes ago, steve9728 said:

According to my last cup of tea just drank, my sense of taste is back to more than 75% I think. Got an idea of going for some spicy food that I couldn't tolerate before, even though it wouldn't be good for my newly recovered throat lol

I actually trained myself on Campari (super bitter) when my taste was not at 100%—now I frickin love it (along with all sorts of bitter stuff).

One thing when I had total anosmia that was gross—I ate some prosciutto. All texture, zero taste. Was gross, I spit it out because I didn't want to hate it in the future when my taste came back.

[steve9728]

1 minute ago, tater said:

I actually trained myself on Campari (super bitter) when my taste was not at 100%—now I frickin love it (along with all sorts of bitter stuff).

One thing when I had total anosmia that was gross—I ate some prosciutto. All texture, zero taste. Was gross, I spit it out because I didn't want to hate it in the future when my taste came back.

I just feel like I wasted that bowl of halal beef soup ramen on Saturday. You remind me of the darkest hour in 2020, someone just ate the whole of a lemon directly, and his face didn't change any

"DAMN!"

[tater]

8 minutes ago, steve9728 said:

I just feel like I wasted that bowl of halal beef soup ramen on Saturday. You remind me of the darkest hour in 2020, someone just ate the whole of a lemon directly, and his face didn't change any

"DAMN!"

My wife actually thought she had allergies or something at first since she was supposedly protected—in my experience ~100% of such people were not in fact protected. She was in the OR, working on a large abscess (100s of ml—yuck!), and was happy that unlike every other such surgery she had done, it didn't smell... OH NO. LOL

[steve9728]

1 minute ago, tater said:

OH NO. LOL

You, and another ex-Marine, are the experts on restoring the sense of smell and taste!

[magnemoe]

On 8/8/2023 at 10:43 PM, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

My experience was distinct.  I've had the generic cold 'can't smell or taste' thing - which, if you will excuse the expression - is a complete horsepuckey comparison to what Covid did to me. 

My covid loss of smell and taste was akin to a true disability.  I literally lost two of the traditional five senses.  

It's surprising what losing something you take for granted does to you 

With taste - it was completely gone.  I had 'mouth feel' heat and cold sensation - but the normal nerve input from having food in the mouth was simply, interestingly and maddeningly absent.  I could tell the difference between the way a piece of chicken felt from the way a pea felt, and know if the bite was too hot or not - but there was zero flavor.

Some sensation of flavor came back within a relatively short time - ten days or two weeks, IIRC. It wasn't a cure, so much as a process. 

Smell was also completely gone, but recovery took a longer time - and given that smell is a core component of taste - food remained unpleasant for a long time.  I recall saying everything reminded me of rotting cucumbers even months after I 'recovered'. Salt came back first, along with the capacin heat from pepper sauce (the heat, not the flavor).   Week to week my brain began to distinguish different flavors. 

Smell?  It took most of a year - and I would not call myself 'cured' in the sense of having returned to pre-covid ability.

I got Covid in early '21 and in late' 22, I recall my kids and wife complaining about the pungent reek from a bunch of stoned Spring Breakers - and I was oblivious.  There simply wasn't any sensation at all that there was anything to smell. 

So to compare what I experienced with any of the previous colds or flu's (I've had various A & B strains) is completely spurious. 

Relevant to the lack of smell. I have almost no sense of smell and never had, can smell very strong smells like bleach  but nothing else. 
Can still taste well enough but taste is an hard thing to compare to others I imagine, 
I got covid last Chrissmass it felt like a bit strong influenza and I newer lost my sense of taste

[Superfluous J]

Related the the lack of smell, I have diminished smell now since getting Covid (it was always bad, now it's worse) but I can smell things.

However, I've found one huge benefit: I can cut onions as long as I'd like and I never tear up.

[magnemoe]

53 minutes ago, Superfluous J said:

Related the the lack of smell, I have diminished smell now since getting Covid (it was always bad, now it's worse) but I can smell things.

However, I've found one huge benefit: I can cut onions as long as I'd like and I never tear up.

I still get tears cutting onions even if smell deaf. 

[TheSaint]

20 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Relevant to the lack of smell. I have almost no sense of smell and never had, can smell very strong smells like bleach  but nothing else. 
Can still taste well enough but taste is an hard thing to compare to others I imagine, 
I got covid last Chrissmass it felt like a bit strong influenza and I newer lost my sense of taste

Have you ever been to an ENT (Ear-Nose-Throat) specialist? I had a teacher in high school, she told her story of how when she was growing up she had no sense of smell or taste, and she had no idea. (This is your childhood, compare it to all of the other childhoods you have had.) When she was in her twenties she finally realized that something was off, so she went to see an ENT. He examined her, and it turned out she had polyps that were blocking her nasal passages. One outpatient surgery later and (her words), "My entire life changed."

[Nuke]

i think the most disturbing thing is that i have not had a cold or major virus in over 3 years, not since the bout with rsv i had right before the pandemic started. this is not the way germs are supposed to work. 

[magnemoe]

On 8/12/2023 at 7:46 PM, Nuke said:

i think the most disturbing thing is that i have not had a cold or major virus in over 3 years, not since the bout with rsv i had right before the pandemic started. this is not the way germs are supposed to work. 

Back then the restrictions was lifted all parrents with kindergarten kids was soon back to home office as the kids had years of new viruses and bacteria to get immune to.
Not much an problem for us who work with IT or documents and was used to home office most has to go to workplace.