MY POSITIVE COVID-19 TEST RESULT & NUMEROUS NEGATIVE RESULTS BEFORE IT…

So, basically, the only way we truly know if we have contracted Covid-19 is by doing a Rapid Antigen Test but how come you can start with the symptoms and yet not test positive for a few days?

I started feeling really rough 4 evenings ago. The muscle aches and pains seemed to zoom straight into my spine and all my muscles throughout my body. It was so bad that it kept me awake for most of the night and when my other half woke up the following morning I told him I MUST have Covid as I felt so awful.

I took the test which came up negative but I continued throughout the day to show all the usual symptoms of Covid-19. I carried on taking my painkillers which did not even touch the sides of the pain and slowly went downhill all day.

I went to bed early but the discomfort and cough woke me up yet again. I was sure the test the following morning had to be positive but yet again it was showing negative. I told my daughter that it had to be flu if it wasn’t Covid-19 as so many of the symptoms were similar and I just carried on taking my usual medications throughout the day.

By the evening of Day 3 I felt like I had just about everything on the symptom list for Covid-19 but tried to convince myself it had to be flu. I had a Covid-19 booster and Flu jab booked for the following day which I cancelled in case my next test came up positive.

I’d had yet another awful night on Day 3 and I was just beginning to wonder if I was imagining all this so I took another test on Day 4. This time it came up positive.

According to I News – It is believed people are at their most infectious one to two days before the onset of symptoms, and during the two to three days afterwards.

This means that whoever I was with one to two days before my symptoms started could pick up this virus from me as well as during the two to three days after the symptoms have started so the test I did would have made no difference whatsoever to whom I have mixed with over the last 7 days.

I now have to isolate for 5 days even though the most infectious days have well passed the sell-by date.

The NHS website now says that you should –

Try to stay at home and avoid contact with other people if you:

• have any symptoms of COVID-19, and have a high temperature or you do not feel well enough to go to work or do your normal activities
• have tested positive for COVID-19 – this means it’s very likely you have the virus

If you have COVID-19, you can pass on the virus to other people for up to 10 days from when your infection starts. Many people will no longer be infectious to others after 5 days.

You should:

• try to stay at home and avoid contact with other people for 5 days
• avoiding meeting people at higher risk from COVID-19 for 10 days, especially if their immune system means they’re at higher risk of serious illness from COVID-19, even if they’ve had a COVID-19 vaccine

This starts from the day after you did the test.

They also suggest that you follow the same procedure if you are feeling unwell but did not test positive or test negative for Covid-19.

Different websites state different ways to deal with Covid-19 if you test positive. The Imperial College of London noting that ‘While there is no longer a legal requirement to self-isolate if you test positive for COVID-19, many people still want to isolate until they are not infectious.’

The National Heart & Lung Institute writes “Based on our findings, we recommend that people with COVID-19 isolate for five days after symptoms begin, then use lateral flow tests to safely leave isolation.”Dr Seran Hakki National Heart & Lung Institute

Some people say that Rapid antigen tests have lower accuracy than PCR tests, and while they have been (and continue to be) a vital part of the response to the disease, they are prone to mistakes.

I will now have to wait another 28 days before I get my Covid-19 booster.

Source: I News, NHS Imperial Collect of London National Heart & Lung Institute Mirror