I just tested positive on Wednesday evening. My only problem was a scratchy throat that was a bit more than usual from all the pollen so I figured I would use one of the tests we had around. I got a big bright positive line almost immediately.

The next day I had a moderate sore throat and a stuffy nose. I got a prescription for Plaxovid and today (Friday) I am already feeling better. The sore throat is gone and my nose is almost clear.

I have been taking it easy, and I am only slightly more tired than usual. Hopefully I will continue to get better. Sadly I will be a DNS on the MTB race I had planned this weekend but I feel it is smarter to take it easy for a few more days. I have been doing errands and might go for a mellow bike ride tomorrow but plan to avoid the max efforts.

This about when I got the cough too. Maybe it was a few days earlier. It faded a week or so after that. That is until I started back to training. Now I get the cough, a headache, foggy brain, chest constriction, and pretty extreme fatigue if I ride too long, and/or too hard. I'm six and half weeks out from my first positive test. Called a long covid clinic at my local university today to get in for treatment. Not sure what they can do for me but here's to hoping.

Day 7 for me today. Was sick (fever, headaches, nose congestion) for 5 days. The last two days have been much better. Now only some lingering cough. Haven't tried any exercise yet though (will wait a few more days), although today I did do the lawn mowing (45 minutes pushing the mower around) and felt fine.

From someone that's over two years in and probably never returning to pre-covid health, stop trying to exercise until you are symptom free for an extended period. If you reach that point, be very, very careful as you re-introduce activity back to your life. It can seem to be going well, but meanwhile the negative effects accumulate. When you start to realize that you've overdone it, it's already too late and then you crash back down again. These symptoms after exercise are called post-exertional malaise. It's early for you still, but what you do now can potentially make the difference between recovering fully or becoming a long-hauler w/ ME-CFS types of symptoms. If you can tolerate it, low-level activity such as casual walking, and even small amounts of very easy swimming (think cool down pace or less) are the ticket to having some physical activity in your life. Join some long-hauler groups if you haven't already, and start learning there. You'll get much more out of that in all likelihood than you will from the medical establishment, but hopefully they can check you for things like EBV re-activation. Clean up your diet, focus on restoring gut health -- research leaky gut. Intermittent fasting and periodically inducing autophagy with longer water fasts have been helpful for some. Be kind to your body and treat it gently, because it's not close to being ready to resume your pre-covid lifestyle of exercise -- and probably won't be for quite some time to come.

Thanks for that. If you have any links for recommended long hauler groups I'd appreciate it. I feel like my diet's pretty clean. Alcohol consumption is a beer once or twice a month. I eat lots of vegetables (usually a huge salad for dinners). My weakness is sweets. Can't eat much before feeling them though.

More background on me. I'm 50 (51 next month). I'm a cyclist (just about everything but track), not a triathlete. Won a local 1/2 road race the month before getting covid. Previous double top 10 at Unbound (when it was still DK). Age group podium at 'cross nats. Like others, have (sounds like it'll be had now) some bigger events on the calendar this summer and fall so this is, has been, and will be hard to take. Appreciate the comradery here though.

Good luck to you all! I hope for a speedy recover and relatively quick return to training and racing for you!

Cheers!

Best suggestion is go to groups in FB and search on long covid, you should see quite a few. When you join one, see what you can get in terms of information and links posted. If the signal to noise ratio is bad, then drop that group.

Here are links to a few youtube videos and other links I've run across recently. Honestly, there's so much material out there you could make a full-time job of watching and reading this stuff and making heads and tails of it. Best of luck, I hope you are able to kick the long-haul symptoms and eventually return to an active lifestyle. If not, embrace it and make the most of your situation whatever it is.

Leaky gut and gut health:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hZdwP8rp8U
https://www.healthrising.org/...-stanford-gut-study/
https://www.healthline.com/...ome-what-to-know-now

Long Covid research update:


If you are experiencing POTS symptoms:
http://www.dysautonomiainternational.org/page.php?ID=44

I am just over 3 weeks since positive. At the time I was on antibiotics for dental surgery.
I am back to normal except really don’t have any sprint in me and tempo etc is the most I can do going by my heart rate. I can train but not much more than zone 2-3.

Before I rush out and buy some probiotics, just wondering if you have had, or know of anyone, who has reported positive effects from supplementation ?

Probiotics have helped me some, but daily 16-oz of kombucha and some kefir helped me w/ gut issues and lung inflammation more -- quite a bit at first but eventually things backslid some, which seems to be the case with anything that helps me w/ long covid symptoms. Some say that a prebiotic is just as important to help the probiotics establish in the gut. One person swore by this particular pro-biotic, but I haven't tried it and can't offer my own anecdotal feedback. I take a single probiotic capsule daily about 30 minutes before my first food, and I alternate between a couple different brands. I also tried a whole apple in a smoothie a few times because supposedly the seeds / core / stem have some probiotics (and probably a small amount of cyanide, so don't go crazy downing them).

Thanks for the reply ! I’m going to look into pre and probiotics. Not averse to kombucha either so may give this a try. Kefir is a new one I’ll look into that too. Thanks again

I'll admit my experiments with fermented grape juice hasn't been the most successful over the last couple of weeks. ;-)

After my walk and gentle trainer ride yesterday afternoon, I go a mild dizzy feeling from 8pm through to about noon today. Good news - breathing is fine. Bad - that the low alcohol tolerance and periodic dizziness is not abating yet.

Also sleeping crazy long. 11 hours a night on weekends when I don't set the alarm, 9-10 hours on weekday compared to my default 7 hours.

Tested positive 7 days after initial test.

Two weeks after testing positive (first time) I've now tested negative with a home rapid test.

I was really tired for the first 5 days but not really sick other than a mild cough.

2 weeks since my positive test. It's been 10 days since I noticed any symptoms I might call an "illness". But the fatigue remains. I spent the last week doing nothing but easy walks.

I am going to try to ride easy on my trainer later today and see how that goes.

I am far from 100% though. I feel so sluggish and exhausted from the simplest of tasks.

2 weeks since my positive test. It's been 10 days since I noticed any symptoms I might call an "illness"//

I think you answered and counterdicted your original statement here all in one post..


I feel so sluggish and exhausted from the simplest of tasks.

This could be the biggest symptom of long covid, best to pay careful attention to it. Heed your bodies advice, what's the hurry??

Well flu season is rampant here in NZ and I think I got it plus a secondary infection. Been prescribed antibiotics and just started a course. Got sick weekend before last and spent all of last week at home but trying keep on top of some work. Been coughing up and blowing green snot and mucus since last Wednesday and last few days went back into office but woke up feeling shattered both days. Currently thinking I might take another sick day tomorrow if I still feel shattered. Was really blocked up and felt worse than I did after covid diagnosis.

Insulin requirements have also increased for me as a type 1 diabetic particularly once green stuff started.

No way am I ready get back to exercise .

Over the ditch here in west aus, while we have been through mask mandates and now on to the let it rip phase, we have hardly any colds or flu’s or anything. We have been fortunate in that regard.
I have been told after around 3 months you can get covid, even the same strain, again. Not sure how true that is, but as a fellow diabetic, I’m def hitting up that plax-watchyacallit drug should I test positive twice.
I have seen pro riders like gaviria have had it 3x.

Ha, I needed to check 3 times that wasn't one of my posts - seemed so similar until we got to insulin vs asthma at the bottom.

That non covid but that's going around here is awful, and so many of us catching that in the week after covid Iso finishes - I suspect in part down to low immunity in general and then with covid fatigue we're a wide open goal. Initially seemed to all stem from Wellington, but now seems pretty well established here in the BOP and also my JAFA colleagues.

Good news is that day to day life for me isn't too bad at 3 weeks post test, although HR on my 30min very easy spin was about 25bpm elevated today, RHR still +15 and simply walking is also about +20/30 above my baseline. So I'm just doing easy 30 to 45 mins of things as I feel like. And sleeping lots of sleeping.

I wasn’t sick once during lockdowns apart from first in 2020 when I had contact with sick client prior to lockdown. Within 1 to 2 weeks of my daughter going back to daycare I’ve gotten sick though. Latest flu thing I seemed to get off her too. Here in Auckland heaps of flu etc. doctors are flat out and pharmacy ran out of antibiotics on the day I first collected them

A pharmacy without antibiotics is like a pub without beer. You’ll be stuffed if they out of insulin too !

Oh I hear you. What I was trying to say was that I felt in no way "sick". No fever, aches or anything. Despite now being negative for 10 days now, what I feel is this lingering fatigue I can't get to go away.

I would love to be able to participate in my races this summer (racing is clearly not happening), but even that right now seems like a stretch. So here I sit, resting, because I can't do much else

This is about where I am--6.5 weeks from symptom onset. While I had acute symptoms I cut my training load by 75%, tried to do only z1/z2 stuff for very short periods. It seemed to work OK. Now I just have these persistent heart rate/fatigue issues. If I do even the mildest activity, my HR is elevated 10-15 bpm for the rest of the day and heart rate variability is greatly reduced (i.e. heart is "pounding"--I suspect blood pressure is elevated). Basically an "I ran a marathon" type of stress reaction to swimming 1000 yards in the pool at warm-up pace. It's actually *worse* than it was a couple of weeks ago, I think.

Having read through these posts and gone through my data I'm wondering if I should take a complete break from training for a week and then try and see if it's better, and if not break again. It just can't be good for the body to be feeling that much stress.

Dr.'s office says this is not yet "long COVID". The demarcation for that is 90 days from symptom onset, they say.

I am a 48 y.o. triathlete, 'cross racer and lifetime runner training 10-15 hours per week (before). Santa Cruz 70.3 was my goal race this year--I have a feeling it won't be happening...

So I'm now at 3 weeks post +ve. And today was the first time my HR on my east 30min zwift was back to normalish levels. And when I say normalish, I mean normal given my now untrained state, and not to the level they were before I took a month off.

Still have a bit of a cough. And totally randomly had 90 mins of left nostril spontaneously returning to hosepipe snotting on Thursday night. Not had dizziness for a week which is pleasing. Will try swim squad tomorrow morning and see how far I get (it's a 90min session and I've no intent to do the full thing). Perhaps an hour if feeling good.

Still not done anything that is 'intensive' and advice from my coach, physio and a GP friend is that's the gold standard recommendation. Where my physio tried doing intense stuff before that 2 weeks AFTER SYMPTOMS COMPLETE instead of the 2 weeks to build back up it took her over a month and she's still suffering a bit 6 weeks on. For me it was frustrating as I was coming back from an injury, but equally I've still got an achilles thing, it's our winter, and I've a trip back to the UK in July, so all up I'm not focussed on a race I 'need' to be back for, so that's helping me take it easy on recovery which I hope will pay off in long term.

Came here looking for this. I am in day two of covid in an isolation facility in Hong Kong

I had a scratchy throat and today I felt really tired and some minor muscle pain but I think that’s from lying around so much.

Scratchy throat is mostly gone, very little congestion and no coughing.

I had three doses of Pfizer - i have not lost my taste or smell.

I am hoping this for me may not be a big deal.

My question - if I’m not coughing 48 hours in am I unlikely to take a turn for the worse?

I had a great week of training last week in Sydney - now im sitting on my ass eating prison food. Bummer

I think what you really need to take into consideration is the possibility of long haul problems. I have no idea how severity correlates with the potential for problems later on. I only know that it isn’t uncommon for people to have a case with minor symptoms but to have fatigue and heart issues set in weeks or even months later.

I was listening to a podcast with one of the British cycling coaches. His recommendation, which I assume is somewhat informed by doctors and other coaches, is just resting for 10 days following your last positive test. Then starting a very slow build from pretty much ground zero. The other thing I think everyone would recommend is monitoring your resting heart rate. When it has dropped back to nearly your normal value, it is probably signaling that your body is mostly finishing fighting the infection. Heck, it took almost 2 weeks for my resting heart rate to drop back to normal after my last booster shot and the early clinical trial data suggested that people weren’t really building substantial immunity for at least a week post vaccination. No matter how you feel , realize that your body is still working very hard to clean up the mess. Invest the time now in proper rest to avoid bigger problems in the future.

Thanks for your post. I checked my Oura report (night 2). My RHR was 68 vs 58 normal. I will keep an eye on this as you suggest.

So, I picked up something from my daughter and then got really sick. All blocked up, blowing green stuff and coughing it up. Felt terrible and had a week off work sick but still doing a bit. Got prescribed antibiotics and got better. Last week i was back at work and on antibiotics and feeling much better. This week I was feeling really good. Today I thought I would give a 15 min bike ride a go this morning. Was feeling okay, had a slightly liquid nose where it isn't too runny but need to blow it every now and again.

Did 15 minutes on zwift, with HR under 100, and power under 100w. Easily the easiest ride I have ever done on my trainer.

Anyway, this afternoon, I have started to feel weak and run down, with a slight sore throat.

It's like I am allergic to exercise. I had 1 250ml can of 4% beer with dinner last night but haven't been drinking alcohol otherwise. Antibiotic course finishes Saturday but won't be drinking again until I finish it.

I went for an easy walk on Sunday also and felt okayish. It's just today that I have started to feel bad again.

This is so frustrating. It's been almost 6 months since I have been able to train properly.

Feels like I am never going to get back to any exercise apart from incidental exercise from walking places.