Cold Gets Worse. It's Not Covid.

[canyonwalker]

Last night my cold took a turn for the worse. I've had a cough and body aches/tiredness since Friday. Monday night I got sinus congestion, too, and my cough got a lot worse. I took more OTC meds to combat the symptoms but, still, I tossed and turned, unable to sleep, most of the night.

This morning I took a Covid-19 test. I'd been telling myself for a few days that if the symptoms got worse than a mild cold, I'd test. Well, last night was when they got sufficiently worse. Oddly, though, by this morning the symptoms had abated. There's something about colds being worse at night and lighter in the morning. Anyway, I took the test this morning. Negative.

I was actually kind of hoping for a positive test. That at least would put a specific name to what I'm suffering and open up a clear course of action better than, "Take these at best semi-effective OTC cold remedies and let the virus run its course." Plus, "I can't. Covid," shuts down colleagues at work asking if I can't just join these 3 Zoom meetings way better than, "I have a cold" does. 😷

Comments

[some_other_dave]

I wonder if hiking may have exacerbated it...

[canyonwalker]

Enh. It's some kind of respiratory virus. Those run their own course of symptoms. I commonly see these starting with a chest cold for a few days then spreading to a head cold while the chest cold worsens. That's what happened here. The specific symptom that had me reaching for the Covid test was difficulty breathing— due to very tight/hard mucus in the lungs.