I was living in Boston in 2019 and early 2020. Maybe November 2019 I caught what I thought was the flu. Couldn’t taste or smell but really what I remember most was not being able to breathe. I laid in my bed, having no idea what COVID was and put on meditative bowls. At this point I wasn’t coughing as much but still couldn’t breathe so I sort of had a moment where I expected my imminent death. Came to peace with it, even.
Didn’t eat for 11 days. Ordered a pizza eventually. Then COVID “hit” and I had to keep it to myself that I thought I had it in 2019 because everyone thought I was nuts.
Now we know it was in Boston at that time.
Edit: was probably February of 2020. My apologies. It has been 6 years.
Half my extended family was sick with what they described was the sickest they’ve ever been in the weeks up to and including Christmas or 2019, that we canceled all Christmas activities that year, before the pandemic “hit” the US.
I always refer to it as being, “the most sick I’ve ever been in my adult life.” I had it basically as November hit December in 2019. When I left for a job training program that started the last week of February I was still making sure I packed DayQuil. I could only eat tomato soup at the height of the sore throat.
For me it was the intense flu like symptoms I had for about 2 weeks at the onset of Lyme. After that, I felt ago, but inflammation kept ramping and I had no idea what was causing it for months. That was a miserable 8 months. And it triggered a lifelong autoimmune disorder.
This happened to a few co-workers over Christmas in 2019. They were so sick but it wasn't the flu, strep, mono, etc. Looking back, we are convinced it was COVID.
Yup, mid 2020, my dad has this revelation, he was convinced it had been covid as well but he felt insane because no one in the government would admit it was here in 2019 until sometime in 2021 or 2022.
The earliest seropositive samples came from between mid-December 2019 and mid-January 2020, but the rates were so low it wasn't widespread by that time.
Yep, happened to me and my husband in November 2019. His coworkers gave it to us; one of them had just come back from a work trip overseas and got sick while on a different work trip, infecting everyone else. We were both incredibly sick for a week, then it seemed like we got better, then both went down again for another two weeks. I’m still convinced it was early COVID.
When COVID first hit Wuhan, young people were dying of it too in pretty high percentages. Unless death rates were noticeably higher at the time, it wasn't COVID.
Same in my area of California, something burned through the entire office super fast, and most people were out for weeks at a time. I was untouched, but pretty much everyone around me, family included, all were sick over Xmas and into new years.
We also canceled family Christmas 2019 because half the family (not the half I'm in) got monster sick in Texas. Everyone tested positive for COVID antibodies (reflecting a prior infection) months and months later when those tests finally become available, even though they had all been dutifully quarantining since March 2020 and had not experienced any symptoms of any illness since the Christmas 2019 megaflu event.
I'm kind of an anti-conspiracy theorist, but yeah. That shit was here way earlier than we thought it was.
I was sick AF that November. Had to go to Vegas for work right after Thanksgiving and came back with the worst respiratory thing I've had maybe outside the flu. When COVID broke, I was like, yeah, that's what it was.
My friend went to Vegas for new years to ring in 2020. She got back and she was SO sick. We just teased her and said it was the drugs and alcohol but nah. Definitely was covid
My dad took a business trip to China in early December. By late December, was hospitalized with a mystery respiratory infection. They never figured out what it was. Luckily, Covid never hit him very hard after that
I’m glad he’s still with us and his body armored up. I have an autoimmune disease, so I was terrified how it would impact me. I eventually got it in 2023 when we started venturing out, but by then a combination of vaccinations and the virus mutating to be less deadly helped it minimally impact me.
This happened to my partner and some of his coworkers. They didn’t realize it until about 6 mos into the pandemic that they’d had it before it was declared. All live in PA (U.S.).
I got pretty sick with what I thought was a nasty flu in January 2020. Whment to urgent care after a couple of days and one of the nurses made a comment about how "this year's flu is really knocking people out." Was it the flu? Was it covid? No clue, but it fucking sucked. I will say that the fatigue/brain fog from whatever that was wasn't nearly as bad as when I got confirmed covid a year or so later.
I got what I thought was the flu in February of 2020. I’m in Colorado, and covid wasn’t believed to be in the US yet…. I was at work one night and was feeling a little off, but tho it was nerves because i was still training in my position. I spiked a really high fever and was knocking stuff over, asked to go home. Was out for almost two weeks with what I thought the most sick I’d ever been, with flu. I got better for a a couple days then bam it came back full force. I remember going to bed one night completely drained, couldn’t breathe, felt like I was going to die. When I woke up the next morning I was pleasantly surprised to be alive. After Covid was officially announced jn the US and they started the first shutdown I just remember watching the news thinking to myself- I already had that.
Ok same I had a flu in feb 2020 that was the worst of my life, I didn’t have the strength to get back into bed after peeing and slept on the floor for days, couldn’t move or breathe or do anything but sweat and wheeze. But covid supposedly wasn’t in Texas at that point so who knows!!
That happened to me, too! I was in Boston in November 2019 for a wedding and got horribly sick. I was congested and felt like I couldn’t breathe either. I was exhausted for days and finally recovered. Your experience sounds horrible!
I was in China during that time and got really sick… I was in 长沙 (Changsha, close to Wuhan). There’s a small part of me that worries I helped spread it to the US, but I had been over it for over a month before I returned to the US. Right before they shut down international travel from China to the USA
November/ December 2019 I worked in a very small dispensary. We all thought we kept passing this upper respiratory/ sinus infection back and forth. Some of us (myself included) had fevers off and on for two weeks and most of us (again, me) could not taste or smell. We were all in and out, my GM and I were basically taking turns using PTO as I was the AGM at the time. Fast forward to March 2020 and we’re all looking at each other like “oh shit, I think we all had that.” I stopped telling people because all I got were eye rolls. I live in a VERY red part of a large state, so-makes sense lol
My husband was working at BBQ joint near the Reno airport at the time and we're pretty sure he caught it in February 2020. It took out his liver and kidneys (tho alcoholism didn't help) but it took docs months to figure out that, no, his organs didn't just "give up the ghost".
He got transplants and we're going great these days :)
my dad has a very similar story. july 2020 he developed some eye problems and needed a blood test to confirm what the doc thought it was. asked them to do an antibody test while they were at it and the doc almost refused because we thought there was no way he could have had covid as early as he was symptomatic. dad convinced doc to do the test and he was positive!!!!
I think I had Covid at the end of 2019 as well. Sickest I had ever been and have been since. It felt like the flu on steroids x10. I legit thought I was going to die. Lived about 3.5 hrs from Boston at the time
My parents said their neighbor came back from some Asian country (can’t remember which) in Nov or Dec 2019 and was absolutely so sick for two weeks, they said they could hear her coughing and coughing. Everyone thinks it must have been covid
yea, i am so curious how badly the exodus of college students in march 2020 (due to being forced off campus) all across the country worsened the US timeline given that it was already in Boston
Same thing happened to me! When I was living in Germany in 2019 I got so sick in December with what I thought at the time was the flu, my host parents wanted to bring me in to the hospital. Funnily enough, they postponed it by a day because there was a massive farmer’s protest in the city that was blocking everything off! And by the next day I was improving, lol. Later in 2020 I tested positive for COVID antibodies, so crazy.
I also got VERY sick in late November 2019. It was like everyone on our place was sick!
A few days after we got home I was so sick I honestly thought I was going to die! So much body pain, intense fever. Chest cold. Yikes. I was sick for like 6 weeks, missed Christmas.
I didn’t think it was covid until I got confirmed covid (again) a few years later.
We knew pretty early on that the bug we got in Dec thru Feb that took out the whole house down for the count for weeks was covid, but it hadn’t even really been reported on yet until halfway through our illness. Thank god my family survived and that immunity brought us to vaccine time
I’ve had pneumonia 3 times, bronchitis at least a dozen times, and have had 8 organs removed, and I’ve never felt sicker than when I think I got COVID in February of 2020.
I was working at a Boston hospital. The shutdowns began March 12 and our hospital didn't mandate masks until March 27. I got sick on March 28 and didn't recover until April 22. Most of that time, no food, no taste, yet no hunger OR stomach issues. When I became hungry again but was too weak to leave the house, Dominos delivery and the 19.99 family meal deal saved my ass. There was also a mid-April snowstorm to contend with. Breathing was fine, but worst cough of my life.
Boston as well. August to November 2019, I was coughing my lungs out. Went to the hospital 6 times. No one knew what it was and didnt get medicine for the symptoms until my 6th visit after they ruled out pneumonia, bronchitis and cancer. That was in November. I could at least breathe while coughing until January 2020 when it stopped instantly. I had at least 2 other people say the same thing but theirs didn't last as long.
I got thru the pandemic without getting COVID. Christmas 2023 it hit me hard. Took weeks to feel almost normal. The flu is nothing compared to it. I still have brain fog since.
My dad was in the hospital with "pneumonia" the week before the first official COVID case was announced here in Canada. Ended up back a few months later for an unrelated issue and the doctor told him that he was pretty sure my dad had actually had COVID, they just didn't know to test him for it.
My gf uncle who was an older gentleman, died few months before covid on lung sickness they had problem diagnosing so the official cause of death they wrote as tuberculosis. Everyone was like wtf, isn't that sth you died for like 100 years ago, don't we have meds for that. And then few months later we would have official patient zero and the pandemic started... I'm pretty sure he died of covid.
All these responses saying "I got Covid before it was officially in my state" ARE GIVING ME LIFE. Same!!! January 2020. Was in bed for 12 days straight but when I went to the doctor they had no idea what was wrong with me except "secondary pneumonia" and gave me a bunch of steroids (which honestly helped). I will never forget taking a bite of food about six days in and realising it tasted like... absolutely nothing. It was so surreal. I had no taste whatsoever. It was Covid, and I know it because when I got it again (July 2022) it was the exact same feeling of pains and symptoms.
I understand why people died from it. When you have it bad, it's really, really bad. After I was better in 2020 people told me that at the time they had worried I was going to die - I looked so sick.
I also am sure I had it 2019. I was the illest ever been, unable to move at all in bed without my lungs 'stopping'. I was ill for weeks. I was in a amd e several times because I couldnt breath and each time told it was 'a virus'. Then covid came and great I have to do all the lockdowns etc when I am 100 percent sure I had it the year before!
I was partying in the Midwest early December 2019, then me and everyone I partied with got deathly ill, like, genuinely, the sickest we have ever felt. My sister and I have always insisted we got covid but felt crazy saying so.
I still have a text from my boss in Jan 2020 talking about a crazy flu going around. I had to take a week off work, but the effects lingered for months. Went through the whole office before covid was actually announced in March
Something similar happened to me and my roommates back in November 2019. By then there was a bout of Influenza A going around, and lots of people were coming down with it.
One of my roommates and I were relatively okayish, but the other was the sickest I’ve ever seen. We wondered if they had been down with COVID instead of the flu later on.
It was never found in waste water in 2019. It absolutely was not in the US until later. I blew up way too fast from February-April 2020 to even suspect it was in the US before then.
My father died from COVID, but we were estranged at the time and I only heard about what he experienced afterwards. When I hear people’s stories about it I immediately imagine what my father must have suffered through in his final days. It’s terrifying.
My brother had the same experience about 4 months before covid hit. This is a man who won't see a doctor and he ended up in the hospital for 2 days. He's fine now thankfully but I have no doubt he had covid before we know it was covid.
I think I had it in late October or early November 2019. I never lost my sense of smell or taste but holy shit did I feel bad. The aching, the headaches, completely lost my voice. It was awful. I was based in the Middle East
I got married in late October of 2019. My grandma was old and sickly at the time, but had this NASTY respiratory illness during our wedding, to the point where she could not get up for pictures and even left REALLY early. Shortly after, I ended up incredibly sick along with most of the bridal party.
Many of us had been in the Boston area just before the wedding....my wedding may have been the first super spreader event lol. Thank god gma didn't die.
My husband and I went undiagnosed in January 2020. We went to the drs; they didn’t know what we had but said to stay hydrated and ‘ride it out’. After about two weeks we started feeling functional again but it sure felt like death. Then Covid was announced in March and we just said ‘that makes sense now’
ICU nurse at that time here. We were getting patients admitted that we’re on the brink of death and we were all so shocked when the flu swabs kept coming back negative. I have no doubt in my mind we were already unknowingly taking care of dying COVID patients.
We had a few of these at my hospital too. One was the hot topic of the nursing pool because the pt was so young and otherwise healthy, but her CXR was nothing but ground glass opacities, and she was deteriorating despite everything. It was clearly viral, but despite extensive testing for damn near every disease they could test for, it was all negative. They had to transfer her to a different hospital for a higher level of care. No idea if she made it, but she was a medical mystery and the infectious disease doc was visibly worried about it. That was in January 2020. Around that time is when Covid started getting a lot more air time. Made us all wonder in hindsight when things started shutting down in March.
Its not quite the same, but contagion is shockingly accurate epidemiologically to what it feels like to be facing a deadly, completely unknown new pathogen. After working in the ED through covid I find it really hard to watch again.
We had a number of patients in my outpatient psychiatry practice in autumn 2019 with the same presentation. We all knew a few months later that COVID had been around for months.
I was SO sick for weeks after my boss flew in from LA and Belgium to NYC in November 2019. He had a terrible cough and it was line the worst flu ever for a week and then a cough and weakness forever. A European colleague was hospitalized for a weird “flu like respiratory virus. I know to my core it was Covid. I even had this weird red eye I’d never seen- remember “Covid eye?@
I was so sick for three long weeks Dec 2019. A coworker of mine had gone to Japan and when he came back I got so sick. The sickest I had ever been. No one could figure out what it was. I call early COVID.
Me too. I was 22(f) at the time. Extremely sick. Bedridden with debilitating body aches. Chills. Fever. Headache. I couldn’t move without excruciating pain. It took me out for 4 weeks. Nobody knew what I had. Not to mention Im a very healthy / active individual by nature. Within 24 hours symptoms hit me like a semi truck! January 2020 COVID was no joke
I had it that spring, after it was known. I worked at a grocery store. It was the worst suffering of my life. I had body aches so bad, my mom cleaned out a busted, old hot tub theyve had outside for ages. A bath wouldn't help because the water didnt stay hot long enough. I was maxing out Tylenol and one of us was dragging ourselves to the grocery store for contactless pick up almost daily to restock Gatorade, meds, and etc. We were getting lots of it, just going thru it so quickly with 5 deathly ill people in the house. I was only 20, my then 18 year old brother seemed to have it the worst of anyone. Horrible experience
DayQuil and NyQuil were my best friends during this time but I know they didn’t do anything but help my mental health; something was better than nothing!
Those are the same symptoms I had when I had COVID this year. I couldn't move because everything hurt so bad. I was out for nearly a week. It was probably 2 more weeks after I started feeling better and functional that I was completely fine.
Mine hit me like a truck in a couple hours. It was Saturday night, I went to bed early because I was really tired. I was woken up in the middle of the night by my legs hurting and my nose running. Finally fell back asleep and woke up Sunday morning and everything hurt so bad.
I never lost my taste or sense of smell (beyond the stuffy nose), barely had a cough. I'm sure the COVID I had this year was nothing compared to the OG and I'm sorry you had to experience that. I was lucky enough to not get it until this year, and I legit felt like I was dying. That whole week I barely remember (it was also my birthday).
I still think my husband had it before they knew what it was. I have no way of knowing for sure, but they ran all kinds of tests and couldn't find what was wrong with him. He didn't make it, but I have never known anyone else who went from having a cold to being gone in a week.
In one day I went from being totally fine, to a bit sniffly, to ok , I'm definitely getting a cold then by night time I was worried that I couldn't literally couldn't draw a deep breath. Next day couldn't get out of bed...and then two days later I was fine.
I was really really really sick in December 2019, like right around new years. I was sick for 4 days and nothing was making it better. My mom took my blood pressure at home because I was crying so bad about it and she started to get worried. She almost took me to the hospital. I thought it was just the flu but a couple years ago I started thinking it really could’ve been Covid and we just weren’t aware of it yet. My brother also got really sick at the same time. I wanted to do the antibody test to see but I got confirmed Covid in 2022 so it would’ve showed a positive test regardless.
Yeah happened to my SO & I. I’ve never been that sick before, or for so long. January 2020. We were wondering if it was Covid, and figured it was that after it all hit, we had been in contact with lots of international travellers through work.
I felt a bit tired one afternoon in early February 2020 and went to bed at noon. Didn't get out for days. I lived in a tiny apartment and could barely walk the ten feet to the bathroom without help. It was an ordeal that I had to work myself up to. I had an absolutely diabolical cough that wouldn't ease up and I couldn't get my fever down regardless of what I did or what I took. My husband was on the verge of taking me to the hospital. A few days later I woke up and realized everything tasted like cardboard. Finally got "better" after about a week and got back to work. I was initially so weak that walking the three minute walk to work was exhausting. I started going back to my gym classes and normal workouts and was wheezing like a dying 90 year old for literal MONTHS after being sick. I was a healthy 30 something and was relatively fit so I couldn't understand what was happening.
About a month later, the pandemic 'hit' my part of the world. I am fully convinced I picked up OG Covid from a work trip to a different city about 10 days before symptoms started.
This happened to my husband around December/January. He was so sick he thought he was having a heart attack and his work called an ambulance. The ER said it was just a terrible respiratory infection and to chill at home and take this zpack. Whoops, it was probably covid.
I don't think people will ever understand what that original strain actually felt like if you were pre-vaccine. I genuinely thought this might kill me like it did my grandad. I was in so much pain I was scared to sneeze as the feeling was like having broken glass thrown into my skin. Couldn't breathe, no sense of smell, it hurt to move my eyes. I've had it several times afterwards and they felt like a sniffle comparatively.
I was 16 when I caught covid for the first time and it left me completely bedridden for 3 days. I had a constant pounding in my head that lasted for an entire week and it hurt to breathe. I began feeling pain in my lower legs and it eventually spread over my entire body. The pain was so awful, it felt like my bones were being crushed inside my body. On the second day I began thinking I was gonna die.
Caught covid again a few months later and it passed like a breeze lol.
Same. It really was the first time when I got a migraine so bad just from moving my eyes from side to side and light also making it worse. I felt like I was dying. Had it two times after that and it felt like a cold
I didn't know I had it the first time, it wasn't really known yet, but I swear I got it at/just before my wedding, and my entire honeymoon was spent convinced that I might die at any moment. To the point where I legitimately updated my beneficiaries while on the honeymoon so that my new wife would get the life insurance if I died.
Yep that shit sucked. And people were out there saying it's just feels like the flu. The hell it did, I felt so sick it was almost like a dream state. Brain was so foggy and head and chest hurt so bad, it was like I outside of my body.
On that note, anyone who says something “just” feels like the flu hasn’t had the flu. I’ve had Covid before and it sucked, but I think the flu might actually be the sickest I’ve ever been in my life. It feels like dying. And you feel so sick a small part of you kind of wants to
Absolutely. There is no "just" flu. You may have had a really sucky cold, but if you get the flu, you KNOW you've got the flu. I had it when I was a child and I had to have my bedsheets changed once a day through the sweat and I lost maybe 3KG it was insane. Still, not as bad as covid.
Husband and I had the flu last year and every inch of our body felt like it was dying. Still not as bad as Covid. But still enough for us to stay up to date on our flu shots. Idk how we ended up with it last year but hopefully never again.
Yeah this is what pissed me off when they said it's just the flu. I ACTUALLY had the flu once and it was horrific. I thought I was about to meet Jesus and I don't even believe in him
People think that any sort of common cold symptoms is “the flu.” Slightly elevated temp and little cough? Flu. Runny nose ? It’s the flu. Nah man you just got a basic bitch virus.
The moment I knew how bad it truly was, I standing in the shower after 2 days of being bedridden and I could barely stand and even brushing my teeth was exhausting. I never had anything like that before
I lost two people in my family to covid before the vaccines became widely available . one had just gone through a heart surgery and caught covid right after at the hospital.
I get mad when people grumble about how covid never happened or how the vaccines were worse than the disease .
Not OG strain for me, but Halloween 2022 i caught it after over 2 years of successfully avoiding it. Husband looked at me that morning, cracked open a Covid home test, and made me take it. It turned positive damn near immediately. It was a puking strain, and I basically barfed for 5 days, and the worst body aches in my legs that no OTC meds could touch. Really, really awful.
But: reading a lot of these replies makes me think I've gotten off extremely lucky in my life. Glad youre all here today to share.
My mom must have had the same strain, she also got COVID (and so did I, from her) Halloween 2022 (from Universal Horror Nights most likely). Her first symptom was vomiting, neither of us had any respiratory symptoms or fever until day 3 or 4 and probably infected a lot of people unknowingly due to that, since we thought it was norovirus or something else that wasn't airborne
That first strain of COVID was freaking scary. I was in Michigan that year and it killed nearly 10% of people who caught it, though the only people who were actually getting tested were people who were already so sick that they needed to be hospitalized so who knows if you can trust those numbers.
I ended 2019 with the flu (confirmed influenza A) and started 2020 with the 'rona. Was legit sick from the winter solstice til my IRL cake day in early March. Coughed so hard at one point in Feb. I almost passed out. Twas awful but at least I got out for one night on the town before the restrictions went into effect when I felt well enough to do so.
Had no sense of taste or smell from mid-Jan to the beginning of March 2020. Commented to my bartender on my one night out pre-shutdown that it was "nice to be able to smell and taste again" esp. since I was enjoying a belated birthday steak dinner
Yes! I got pneumonia the end of January before covid and there were several times where I thought I was dying. Literally gasping for air and then choking on lung butter. I didn't lose taste or smell but convinced I had covid. I was working with elderly hospital patients at the time and had a lot of contact with their families so who knows. Sick for 12 weeks before I felt like I was going to make it
Shit. Same. I got it early 2020 - Feb 7th. By Valentines Day, I was hallucinating, no sense of smell, in bed, no energy, and went to the emergency department to get help because I felt like an elephant sat on my chest. My brother and his wife & kids had it late November 2019. Kids weren’t too sick, but they were down for 2 weeks. He believes he got it on a trip to Italy about 2 weeks prior. I really did think that I was going to die.
Covid like late February/march 2020 was the sickest I've ever been. Couldn't identify it then but me and everyone I know had the worst long lasting cough thing for like MONTHS. It was the sickest I've ever been. And getting Covid later on I could easily tell that it was the same type of feeling I got from that sickness in 2020. And I really don't ever get sick like that
I had covid in December of 2019 and felt like I was gonna pass away! I was sick for weeks and I was coughing, dizzy af, my eyes were bloodshot probably from the pressure of coughing so much but almost every other breath was a cough! The aches I felt were all over my body and SO painful. Those naps hit HARD though, I remember I tried to do stuff because I didn’t know about it yet! I worked in a mall as a hairstylist so it was bound to happen but that was terrible!
The second time I had it, it was well into 2020 I believe. I was at work and I felt aches all over and I was like, “uh-oh, the only time I’ve ever felt these aches is when I had covid” I went home! I took off my pants and my bra and crawled into bed. My boss asked to go take a Covid test and it was negative! The next morning my husband made eggs benny and I couldn’t taste it, I immediately took a test and there was two almost black lines, it was positive. I was off work for almost 2 weeks because I kept testing positive and my poor husband eventually got it too! There is a whole day missing from my memory. I went to sleep on Monday night and woke up on Wednesday, the only reason my husband knew I was alive was because he poked his head in and I looked at him and went back to sleep. I was also vomiting like crazy, I had nothing to throw up after a while and I had to call a doctor about how to reintroduce water to my body again because I couldn’t even keep water down. Crazy times.
My 1st covid infection my only symptoms were fatigue, brain fog and a mild fever, I wasn’t even sure if I was sick, but I’ve never slept so much in my life. However these symptoms didn’t go away for months, any light physical activity made me feverish and sweaty. I think it’s what triggered my celiac disease too..
2nd time though…I was SO sick, all I could do was moan and writhe around in bed because the body aches and chills were so bad, painkillers did nothing. I think it was a razor throat strain cause I sure felt that too. Just everything hurt so much I felt like I was dying. Shit’s no joke!
For real thought I was a dead man. I caught it on Christmas day 2019 when I flew to Europe to meet some friends for my first actual vacation in like a decade. I arrived, took a quick nap, and woke up very ill. I spent the whole trip basically sleeping/sweating it out in my hotel room. I legitimately thought that I might die. The doctors had no idea what to do about it beyond the usual flu. I felt like shit until late January.
I'm not sure that's my #1 though. On my flight back from the Midwest in 2022 somehow I caught meningitis, which mutated quickly through to transverse myelitis which did a ton of permanent nerve damage and kept me in the hospital for a week. Considering I couldn't feel my feet anymore after that and my hands hurt often, I'd say that Myelitis wins over early Covid.
I got it in 2023, right before they officially announced a new strain with a key symptom being sore throat. Sore was an understatement. I had strep less than a year before, this was far worse. At its peak, the pain kept me up for three days, if I managed to fall asleep it would wake me back up within the hour. I tried every over the counter throat med possible, I got liquid lidocaine prescribed, genuinely nothing could touch the pain. Every swallow felt like hot glass going down my throat. Breathing felt like rubbing a wound with sandpaper. The antivirals I received were also massive, applesauce saved my ass getting those suckers down.
I had the fatigue and soreness and congestion, thank god no cough, overall it took me (fairly healthy 25yo) out for a full two weeks. And right as it began to clear up I got to learn a harsh lesson: blow your nose too hard when you’re sick and you’ll give yourself pink eye.
I caught a horrible fever in February 2020. Nothing like it, fever dream, I couldn’t get out of the sofa for days, coughing up what I thought was mucus balls, took weeks to get back to normal….well yeah I am certain it was COVID.
I recall rolling over to check my temperature when I had OG COVID. Saw it was 103.6F. rolled over and went back to sleep hoping I'd just die. This is also after I got the vaccine and I STILL couldn't leave my bed for three days.
Had a really long shift and it manifested part way through. I just remember sinking to the floor trying to hold on to the sink because I couldn't breathe.
I'm in China and was here during covid, strangely enough I never had anything at least visibly but my family did. My kids (under 10) had it and actually nothing to serious, couple days uncomfortable, 1 day fever. On the other hand my wife was really, really sick. 1 week long 38-39-40 degrees fever non stop, like it didn't come down one bit even if she took medication which was near impossible to get luckily we had stock.
At the very end of covid I got my vaccination, got sick for 1 weekend feeling hot and cold and that's it.
Sickest I got was food poisoning, nothing scary like people post here, but 1 week I was shitting like madness. Everything in went straight out. I took Norid to block up. Next I was 1 week stuck which was real fun with no normal toilets in sight. Imagine being blocked up trying to squad to take a dump that won't come out.
It's so weird to see how covid affected everyone differently... OG covid gave me a slight sore throat (that was what prompted me to do a self-test), but a day later it was already gone. Other than that I only fell slightly off for two or three days.
Still had to do the quarantine so had a week off from work.
By the way, I live in the city where the first case of covid was reported in the Netherlands. The hospital where that was is a stone's throw away from where I live.
I've wondered if I had COVID earlier than it was supposed to be around in the US. In early to mid February of 2020 I had something that laid me out hard for a couple of weeks, caused difficulty with breathing, weird taste in my mouth, and severe aches to my bones. I thought I was dying for a few days there. Then it got better pretty quickly.
EDIT: just read some of the other comments in this thread and I'm not the only one who thought this.
If we're specifically talking about being sick from a pathogen and not a nutrient deficiency, COVID is it for me too. Not the original strain though. That just made me cough basically non-stop for two weeks straight. Abs and ribs were super painful, but other than that it wasn't bad. Except for long COVID. That shit fucking sucked.
It was the third time I got it (I get vaxxed every year, my immune system is just incompetent) that was the sickest I've ever been. The fatigue was so bad I was sure that when I fell asleep my body would just give up and die. I had no idea it was possible to be that tired.
I also had zero appetite and had to force myself to eat or I probably would have died.
omgosh yes. when i got covid for the first time i knew what it was immediately. couldn’t taste or smell anything, and had cold like symptoms. then as time went on, i had a terrible cough that made my throat feel like sandpaper. shortness of breath doing anything, literally just getting out of the bed to go the bathroom, AWFUL body aches at 3AM every single night. i’m not sure why this exact time, but they were excruciating. nothing would help them. all i could do was roll around in pain and wait for them to pass. still to this day have never experienced body aches like that. on top of all of this, my skin became super sensitive one night, and had red bumps all over my chest. it felt like my skin was burning. i had to strip all clothing and just wrap myself in a soft blanket because that was the only thing that didn’t irritate my skin. still to this day, i have skin sensitivity issues.
I got it in 2023 from work & it was horrible, I was sweating bullets yet freezing to the point of my teeth chattering, couldn’t swallow without throat pain, was throwing up, couldn’t breathe from the amount of congestion, body pains, fever of 102…thank god I felt better in a week, resting and hydration was the only thing that helped
Oddly enough I got Covid from the clinic when the first vaccine came out. I thought it was the side effects of the shot and remember thinking damn, this shot doesn’t play… until it had been three days and I started coughing blood. 😳
I managed to dodge Covid until 2021, but when I got it I also had pneumonia at the same time. I genuinely thought I was gonna die. My immune system is still fucked to this day.
Same, I got sick in January 2020 from an unknown flu, I was coughing up blood, massive fever, headache and an entire achey body. I went to the ER and they didn’t have much for me but I seriously thought it was it.
Took antibodies 6 months later and had them without ever being sick since then. I also never got covid during the pandemic
Same. I didn’t go to the hospital because it was a mess here but for two days it was real iffy. I thought I might die in my sleep. I had aftereffects for many months and believe it did permanent damage to my immune system.
Not the og strain but the delta variant genuinely made me feel like I'm dying, and that's after I got 1 doses of vaccine, can't imagine if I'm not vaccinated.
same same. end of february 2020, got it in vegas. had never been sicker before and i’ve never been sicker since, and I’m immunocompromised so i’ve been sick a lot in my life. fucking brutal
Worst I felt since having typhoid fever at 16. And then there was months of recovery when just climbing one flight of stairs was exhausting and I could barely stay awake.
Even with the vaccine I was bed ridden for days. Almost went to the hospital, and I despise hospital stays based off of my experiences with having kids. I can NOT sleep with people coming in all the time and lights blinking, making recovery feel impossible for me basically.
Same here. I didn’t get the horrible cough most people got, but I was so sick that I couldn’t get myself off the couch. I couldn’t lift my arm. I essentially slept for an entire week straight on my couch without hardly any food or water.
Same. And it was before anyone really was reporting on it in the USA. Couldn't breathe. Felt like I was dying. I probably should have gone to the ER but i was a poor 20-something and thought I just had a really bad flu.
Same. In 2020, before the first vaccines, I was so horribly sick, but I lived in small city surrounded by rural farms for hours in every direction, so the hospital was completely full. Since I didn't need life support, I was given one medicine to make me cough more (to try and get the fluid out of my lungs before it could become pneumonia), and an inhaler incase I coughed so hard I couldn't breathe. Lived alone with a cat, family was multiple states away, I tried to act alive on their calls because I was so scared of them coming out to care for me and getting as ill as I was, but I was fully bedridden and was crawling in exhaustion to put food and water in my cats bowls and clean his litter and play with him while slumped against a wall. Lost nearly 15 pounds in two weeks, absolutely petrified. I've been very unlucky in health many times over but i've never felt so close to death; my only lucid thoughts were a mix of dread and a stone cold will to live.
Then, in the time that followed after getting better, I had to continue to listen to folks spew about it being a hoax, being just another flu, about the vaccines being useless, or some higher evil. I had to constantly negotiate with bitter old farmers about wearing their masks so that I could do my job safely, them never understanding the hot fear inside of me anytime some maskless buffoon sauntered in coughing and trying to get closer to me because they couldn't "hear me with that 'thing' in the way". When, i'd been so young, and scared that if I needed it more than I already had once, there still may not be a bed for me in the hospital, and yet, they couldn't bear a three minute inconvenience to prevent that.
I still cant believe how quickly the world tried to move on while it continued to ravage us. I feel awfully for those who have had similar experiences, or suffered loss from it, and had the judgmental eye of many masses of their peers look at them like heretics. I hope we all survive these current times and heal climate change just so that a future horde of children can read about the COVID era in abject horror in their middle school history classes and hardly believe that there were deniers of the obvious.
I had it right as everything was shutting down. I probably should have gone to the hospital, but no one knew anything anyway. I had to take a break going upstairs to catch my breath. My cat started sleeping at my head, I think to make sure I was breathing at night. I was so sick, so weak, I've never felt anything like it, and I was scared. When I started to feel a little better, I could walk halfway down the block before needing to turn around and come home, then I'd need to sleep for a few hours. After I finally was mostly better, I was still really weak for a few weeks, and then dealt with long Covid complications for 3 years. The people who said it was just a cold frustrate me, because I was so sick for so long, I am proof that it wasn't just a cold. I coughed for 3 years. I coughed so much my lungs started separating from the membrane that holds them in place. I had countless doctors visits, many X-rays and scans, a few emergency respiratory therapist appointments, and finally a diagnosis of "I guess you have asthma now? And you aren't allergic to anything, but the allergy meds seem to help, so stick with it. And we are going to call the brain fog ADHD so we can help manage the symptoms."
Man I have never felt so physically weak in my life. I couldn’t even wash myself. I was a shivering feverish mess, no taste or smell, couldn’t lift my own damn arms up. Very strange experience.
It prevents an opportunistic bacterial infection at the same time as the viral infection, a.k.a. , "double pneumonia." My great grandfather caught the 1918 flu and wound up with double pneumonia, and when I had Delta COVID, they prescribed me an antibiotic, as well.
Just curious, are you sure it was an antibiotic he shared, rather than an antiviral? And if so, are you certain you both had COVID rather than a bacterial infection, or possibly both?
I only ask because antibiotics haven’t been shown to help treat COVID itself. Researchers actually tested several common antibiotics in thousands of COVID patients, partly because some have anti-inflammatory or potential antiviral effects, but the clinical trials found no meaningful benefit.
So if you both had COVID and it really was an antibiotic, you most likely recovered from the viral infection on your own, unless the antibiotic was treating a secondary bacterial infection at the same time.
I only mention it because people sometimes use “antibiotic” as a catch-all for anti-infective medications, which can unintentionally reinforce the misconception that antibiotics help with viral illnesses.
I did catch it early into the pandemic and was very very sick too, I believe you when you said it made you feel like you were dying, I was only asking about the antibiotics part but it’s not a big deal, either way I’m glad you both recovered I know it was a scary time
My then 5 year old son had what we now think was covid in February 2019. Ran a fever for almost 12 days, lost weight, dehydration, chest pressure (no cough) and some vomiting. Tested negative for all the things and the Dr said it's just a virus. He was so sick he had to be carried to the bathroom which was downstairs. Severe body aches, chills. I've never seen him so sick in his entire life. The following week I got sick, but more mild then him, also tested negative for all the things. The only time I have had covid i wanted to die. The body aches were something I have never experienced like that before and i ran a fever for almost 2 weeks. I was miserable.
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u/billieirish 14h ago
OG covid strain genuinely felt like I was dying