I feel lousy (and I'm pretty sure it's not Rona)

[AllGold]

I got tested Friday afternoon and got the negative results Saturday afternoon.

I felt fine until Saturday night except I've had a cough for a few days. Now I've added a fever. I knew it was a fever because I'm freezing my ass off under the same conditions as always. A temperature check confirmed it.

It's weird to get sick when I wear a mask 100% of the time outside of the house or car.

I suspect it is the beginning of either bronchitis or pneumonia. I've had some problems with reflux lately and all too often I'm aspirating some of it. I think with my bronchi and lungs getting beat up from the acid, that some opportunistic bacteria has taken over. A few years ago I had pneumonia and in retrospect I think that is also what happened then.

[RgrF]

Do you have a finger tip oxymeter available?

[AllGold]

No, I don't.

[RgrF]

I'd get one ASAP - it can give you a 1-3 day jump if something serious is heading your way. I've been distributing them to family members since last March.

PS: I'm not a doctor or in the medical community -just a shlob with age and underlying conditions, passing along what I've picked up during the last year

[markmedic]

Cough and fever is probably covid-19. Any visitors without a mask? Anyone else visit that you don't see 100% of the time. Was your test a rapid test or a PCR test? The timing of the test is critical. Everyone is different when they shed virus for the test. A test when you feel fine is one of the tricksy parts. Treat it like covid and take your omeprazole for heartburn. Did you get any vaccine yet?

Quarantine yourself.
Get a pulse ox.


Good luck

[DP]

Cough and fever is probably covid-19

Not necessarily! Yes, treat it as such, but there are a lot of diseases with these symptoms. Let's not jump to automatic conclusions...

[Speedy]

You have a respiratory infection. Quarantine! Sort of unusual, as you state, because you mask. Maybe someone in your household has not been masking as consistently as you have been.

[Forrest]

Looks like the price of a pulse oximeter on Amazon is around $19 and they are in stock. I paid twice that about 9 months ago. Cheap peace of mind in my opinion. Just use it while you are walking around, not sleeping in bed - because blood needs to be actively flowing to your fingers.

[sekker]

Plenty of non-COVID infectious disease still in the world. Take care of yourself, COVID PCR tests are very sensitive and tend to be false positives than false negatives.

[mrbigstuff]

I had a fever and a wicked sinus headache and pressure as well as the usual reflux stuff back a couple of weeks ago. Got tested about a week later and it was negative. Sinus doc thought it was another type of virus.