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> Re-paste from my comments below

Please don't copy/paste HN comments and certainly not in the same thread.

Well-noted, thank you.

Also, would you mind advising why my comment is flagged?

Because it was copied.

I'll take the flag off now.

Well-noted, thank you.

> I currently have coronavirus. I'm a young male in my 20s (don't want to divulge too much info), 6'1", 170 lbs, non-smoker, rarely drink, pretty healthy. Waiting on test results.

Wait... how do you know it's COVID?

I mean, given how prevalent it is right now it certainly could be COVID, but to your own point, a rash isn't a particularly common symptom, in the ~15% range. Fever, chills, cough, night sweats, breathing problems. Could be any of a range of upper respiratory diseases. In any other year I'd say you have bronchitis - there's 3 million cases of that every year in the US too.

Feel better soon!

Stay strong! Just thought I'd share my experience with you:

Couple days of the cold, followed by a fever and increasing difficulty breathing for 3 days. Just getting up from the couch felt like having just run a marathon and having to 'make' my body breathe. Actually having to force the air into my lungs. To the point where I called the hospital and was told there wasn't anything they could do ATM.

Then, one moment I will never forget. I went to sleep with the biggest worries I've ever had about how the next day would look. If there was even a next day. I woke up at 3:00 AM. And I could just breathe normally. All symptoms were just gone. No fever, nothing. The biggest relieve of my life.

Followed by 3 months of weird pains and discomforts. One of which was a stabbing pain that would travel from my lungs down to my side during the course of 4 days. Something that my SO also experienced.

Also, most of the issues I experienced in the months after the whole ordeal where psychological in nature. I could make myself short of breath by just thinking about it and I would have to go lie down. I also experienced chest pains 4 months after. All of that went away when I started to breath differently. I had been taking very short breath right from my upper chest area. This was actually causing me pain. I learned to breath by expanding my abdomen and after forcefully breathing very slowly like that for 2 days, everything went back to normal. So there's a big tip for anybody reading this. I think it's called diaphragmatic breathing, Google it.

Anyway, good luck to you and anybody else that needs it! When all of this is over and we're back at the bars, first round is on me! <3

> Also, most of the issues I experienced in the months after the whole ordeal where psychological in nature.

Interesting proposition not many people bring up. We’ve just had eight months of constant media coverage saying how bad it is, changing everyone’s daily lives, making the awareness of it literally inescapable. That has to play into account for some people.

Right or wrong, justified or exaggerated, there is definitely a psychological component now.

> I had been taking very short breath right from my upper chest area. This was actually causing me pain. I learned to breath by expanding my abdomen and after forcefully breathing very slowly like that for 2 days, everything went back to normal. So there's a big tip for anybody reading this. I think it's called diaphragmatic breathing, Google it.

And the moderate version of the other way is called "shallow breathing" or "chest breathing". From what I understand it's actually really common but not very good for us, because it doesn't really expand the bottom of the lungs, so we're not getting as much breath as we should.

>I currently have coronavirus...Waiting on test results.

So how do you know for certain? Could be a bunch of other (infectious and non-infectious) health issues too.

When one is standing in a herd of horses and one is kicked in the head by a hoof, one reasonably concludes that a horse, not a zebra, kicked someone.

Well... there's a lot of hoofed animals out there.

- 3 million annual cases of bronchitis in the US with practically identical symptoms.

- 45 million annual cases of the flu in the US and yeah, some people get those symptoms too.

- Common cold, pneumonia, whooping cough, strep, mono.

There's a whole host of upper respiratory tract infections [1] that can and frequently do present this way. We've been getting these exact symptoms practically forever.

Given the sensitivity of the topic right now the least we can do is get data before adding to the discourse. It's hard to take panic back. Given you can get a PCR test with same-day results, it would be nice if OP could wait 24 hours to confirm :)

I got super sick back in February, basically the same exact symptoms OP posted, and a cough that lasted 6 weeks. Took an antibody test a few months later. I tested negative.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK532961/

Your priors should be remarkably different now vs. last February. At the end of February the U.S. had 60 active reported COVID cases. Assume a 10:1 underreporting and that's about 600 total cases, then assume about 100 million cold + flu cases at any given time in the winter and there's about 200,000:1 odds that a given respiratory illness was actually COVID.

Now there are 4.1 million active COVID cases in the U.S. Assume a 5:1 underreporting (we're better at testing, but still seeing close to 50% test positivity rates in the Midwest, worse than NYC at the peak) and that's 20 million active cases. Meanwhile flu cases have dropped by ~90% [1], so if we assume that holds true for colds as well, estimate about 10 million active cases of cold & flu in the U.S. A random respiratory illness with no further differentials then has a 2:1 chance of being COVID.

Obviously things like location, differential diagnosis, etc. will change those odds. A random respiratory illness in the Bay Area (where COVID numbers are low and we just had a bunch of wildfires) is most likely to be allergies or smoke inhalation, while if you had a random respiratory illness in NYC in April there was a decent chance it was COVID. Given the OP's differential diagnosis though (rash and shortness of breath are way more common in COVID than bronchitis or flu), it's not unreasonable to conclude he has COVID.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6937a6.htm

What a terrible analogy, given the extremely varied symptoms of covid.

Indeed, I know two people that went to the hospital because they thought it was covid, but in both cases it was pulmonary embolism, which has very similar symptoms. I'm not even close to a medical expert, but I wouldn't be surprised that because of less physical movement due to being home more, embolisms are more common.

And if you only use raw disease incidence[0] as your prior, you're approximately just as likely (-ish?) to have pulmonary embolism. This obviously does not include other very important priors, like age, exact symptom list or incidence of SARS-CoV-2 in your area right now.

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3718593/

I spoke to my physician, who performed a differential diagnosis over the phone. I eliminated environmental considerations, and did a quick "patient history" with him and my contacts, which eliminated other possibilities.

The list of diseases which could explain my symptoms is extremely short. The only one which crosses all the boxes is coronavirus.

My test should be coming back today or tomorrow.

And even if it weren't Corona, you still experienced shitty symptoms and realized how much even "mild" Corona can suck.

Two of my friends have it right now and they basically got a really nasty cold, not too bad. Others die.

One experience doesn't invalidate the other.

Good fortune and wealth comes to people who read the whole post before reaching for the reply button.

So what happened to you then?

Yeah, I stopped reading after that. How is this a top post on an HN thread?

So many mysteries in life are self-imposed.

You're so uncurious that you dismissed the entire post as soon as you stumbled upon something that led to a question?

I've had a bad flu (negative COVID test but possibly a false negative) in September, and one morning when I woke up and felt difficulty breathing I ended up riding an ambulance to a hospital. (Ambulances are and doctors doing home visits are widely available and free where I live).

Turns out, it was a psychological thing; something similar to a panic attack, with my lungs completely clear. They gave me anxiety medication and the feeling has gone completely. Not saying that it's necessarily the same with you, but if you experience hyperventilation and feel like you can't breathe, try to relax and breathe slowly and deeply. May be it's not as scary as it seems.

I'll share my experience as well. My wife tested positive after having a slight fever, some body aches, and loss of taste/smell. A few days later I also lost taste / smell but had no other symptoms fortunately. We are both in our late 30's. My children never had any symptoms.

If you have trouble breathing there might be some asthma advice that is useful. Mine got better, but a long time ago a doctor told me to try restricting the outward airflow when you are exhaling. Surprisingly this helped me feel better. You do it by puckering your lips as you exhale instead of just opening your mouth. It's unintuitive, but his explanation was that you increase the pressure in your lungs by creating some pressure in your mouth. No idea about any evidence behind it. Also your breathing problem might not be similar to an asthma attack.

I hope you get better soon.

Do you have a pulse oximeter?

They’re relatively inexpensive and it’s worth picking one up to track O2 levels to know when you should go to the hospital.

Breathing difficulties start in week two and can get really bad in week three - from what I’ve read week 3 is when you starting getting better, or when you start getting worse.

I'm actually shocked that pulse oximeters have not become a standard piece of a home diagnostic kit. Everybody has a thermometer, and everybody should have a pulseox as well.

+1 for these. Cheap and peace of mind.

> avoid touching your face/eyes with your hands

Shameless plug, but since this is a challenge for many people I created a product to help: https://narwallmask.com

Launches tomorrow.

if i see man wearing that, ill jump him

Dirty ;)

Really cool. And really cool to see entrepreneurs making those kinds of projects here on HN. Amazing community to be in.

Thank you! Maybe I'll do a Show HN soon.

I noticed in your video instruction for doffing (removing) the mask, the lady pulls it up over her face.

I wear a 3M 6800 full-face respirator on airplanes, and the instructions I got were to pull from the back and down when doffing, to avoid possibly spreading virus across the face.

Thanks! That's interesting. You can do that with Narwall too and I do see the advantage.

I generally advise wiping the mask down with an alcohol wipe or equivalent prior to doffing (also servess as a reminder to sanitize one's hands before exposing the face). Perhaps I should include a gif of this too.

Would love feedback from you (or other hn'ers) on the preview of the full website which goes live tomorrow, by the way! http://next.narwallmask.com

Already had a few orders come in through HN, will be shipping those out today.

I have a few friends in their late-20s/early-30s who have gotten this.

Only one has had to spend a night in the hospital for low oxygen, but overall, I know of 5 people who have been made absolutely miserable for 2 weeks because of this virus. Seemingly no permanent side effects, but it was an awful slog to get there.

Sorry to hear your experience. There have been similar tales elsewhere. For sleep time breathing, I saw a recommendation that it’s better to sleep on the stomach (rather than on the back) to reduce the weight on the lungs. Please check about that and see if that helps.

Try to find a pulse-oximeter if you can. I've heard it's the main reliable way of telling how serious the breathing issues are in a timely way, or at least workplace was convinced enough to buy one for everybody.

> Unless you have a respirator, there isn't anything you can take to resolve "difficulty breathing".

As a private person you can realistically get an oxygen concentrator. These are simpler and less expensive than ventilators (I am not even sure if an untrained person should operate a ventilator).

I was involved in getting a concentrator for my friend who got a very bad case of covid though not bad enough to get into a hospital. The concentrator got his oxygen saturation level from low eighties (dangerous) to low nineties (still below the norm but less dangerous).

> I am not even sure if an untrained person should operate a ventilator

They should most certainly not. If you want to ruin your day, look up how intubation is done.

Sorry to hear about your shortness of breath. It may be alleviated by lying on your front, not your side or back. This key insight helped many hospitals after the initial wave hit.

I don't know if I have coronavirus, but my symptomps are similar to yours, without the night sweats and chills.

I feel good for the most part, but in May I developed a difficulty breathing, and It's still there.

Nothing major, but many days I need to artificially force yawning to feel good. It's like I cannot forget breathing as something automatic. Some days I'm ok, tough.

I am also recovering from Covid, One of the things you need to be aware of your oxygen level, Oximeters are very cheap. Keep track of them if level is below 95 Get Chest X Ray or/and Chest CT Scan done to check lung calcification. If there is significant lung damage then get hospitalized for emergency.

I don't understand why when you say "I have covid" people want the proof that you have it and ask you "did you do the test ?". I personally think I got it twice and never did any test. Just had symptoms I never had before in the 2 waves we had in france, just after meeting persons who also got seek at the same time. This is enough coincidence for me to think I have covid.

I also think that this reasoning may be more accurate that the official not very accurate covid tests.

Doing this reasoning myself also saved me money and the 4h waiting queue to do the test (the last thing I want to do when I have fever).

On the other side, I know people who had symptoms, tested negative (and trusted the test) and still when out to meet (and maybe contaminate) friends or colleagues.

There has been 25 documented cases of COVID reinfection worldwide, so assuming you had it without actually doing tests is likely false. There are many diseases with similar symptoms in the upper respiratory system, and given no more than 25 people on earth have confirmed having it twice, unless you have positive tests Occam’s razor suggests otherwise.

https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/08/covid-19-reinfection-t...

Hope you’re feeling better!

Definitely consult with your physician, but in case you didn’t know — lying prone (on your stomach) can help a lot with this.

(I’m not a doctor, this is just from personal experience, and seems somewhat backed up in practice — standard disclaimer, etc.)

Edit: If you can get a pulse oximeter, it can be useful for making sure your blood oxygen level isn’t dipping into dangerous territory.

But again, can’t emphasize this enough — definitely speak with a medical professional if you can for advice on how to proceed with the symptoms you’re experiencing.

Hang in there, hope you get well soon!

You should go to the hospital asap because having dysnea could be related to pneumonia and should be treated quickly.

I'am not a doctor, but I've had pneomonia early this year.

Call a doctor first and see if it's worth going in. Definitely beats consuming valuable health resources before you know you need them.

> Unless you have a respirator, there isn't anything you can take to resolve "difficulty breathing"

It's too late now, but I suppose what you can do is have a pulse oximeter at hand, so you can see breathing problems coming before you get into trouble. At least, that's what I hear people say.

Thanks for sharing. These accounts are always very interesting to read. Good luck and speedy recovery.

> (35% of us, including my family)

The numbers have gone up, according to the CDC it was 42% in 2018.

Thank you so much for sharing this. Do you have any suspicions over how you got it?

Did you lose taste and smell? Looks like those are the most distinctive symptoms.

I appreciate the story, but I don’t see how this is relevant to Moderna’s vaccine effectiveness. Get well soon.

It's not relevant to Moderna's vaccine, you are correct. However, the discussion in this thread swerved very strongly away from vaccines (and the related thoughts, emotions, and feelings about vaccination) and veered towards coronavirus, its impact on society, and people's behaviors re:covid.

It was only at that point (I think the thread had about 200 comments or so) that I added my 2cents. Ideally, this whole thread should have been ONLY about vaccination.

My mother and grandmother both had it.

My mother worked out on the Peloton every single day, didn't miss one workout, and said that she was fine. She experienced mild symptoms and loss of smell and fevers, but other than that she was fine.

My grandmother was rushed to the hospital because she is in the prime age range and has just about every single previous condition you could imagine for someone pushing 90. She was diagnosed with Covid and Pneumonia, felt like shit for a while, and was release and is now fine.

I am not saying the virus is not real or isn't serious, but at some point we need to stop only looking at number of confirmed cases, and start digging a little deeper before we start spreading all of this rash fear.

This is anecdotal evidence and trying to derive patterns from it is dangerous. We know that COVID-19 is much more dangerous than the typical annual flu and we are at risk of overrunning the icus.

Why is it dangerous to talk about their experience? Was it anecdotal and dangerous for the OP of the thread to post their experience as well?

Their final paragraph goes beyond just sharing an anecdote and into making prescriptive judgements about how society should approach the virus based on those anecdotes in contravention of the medical consensus. I presume that's the issue people have with it.

At this point the disease has been with us for a year, and we do have a lot of evidence. It's not particularly serious for certain demographics, and incredibly dangerous for others - particularly that of your grandparents. I'm happy your grandparents are okay, though I suggest you not over index on anecdota too. God forbid one of them had died, that anecdote wouldn't necessarily tell us the disease is 50% fatal.