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Excellent answer...One goes to the doc when sick in a way they haven't experienced before, when it's getting worse &/or lasting an unusually long time.
Re: RSV vax-- They came up with a cure, now they need a disease for it to go with. Gotta re-coup those research expenses. and causing fear among the naive is the easy way.... Most every kid gets RSV (usually passed off as a common cold) by the time they're 6 and survive, then we remain immune for a lifetime...If they didn't survive, they had an inadequate immune system and were doomed anyway. If it wasn't the RSV, it would have been some other common infection.
Yeah...they sure put 'fear in the heart' now. From time to time, someone on Facebook will post something like "Pray for our family, _______ has RSV". But I will admit...it IS kind of scary when you hear about a baby having it. But I'll also admit, all the babies I've known who had it, were sick, no doubt, but they recovered.
I first learned of RSV in 2021 from posts on this forum, and then followed the surge in cases in the news for weeks. The typical RSV season begins in fall and peaks in winter but that year it began around April and lasted into July. There were severe cases and hospitalizations. It might have been easy to miss the reports because of the covid obsession.
That's similar with COVID and why they were finding people dead who didn't realize they couldn't breathe. They didn't FEEL like they couldn't breathe, but the oxygen wasn't getting through the lungs and into the bloodstream.
When my sister had COVID in 2021, it started as a sort of cold, then after a week morphed into diarrhea, then she felt very weak. The weakness is what made her call her doc and ask at what point she should go to a hospital. He said get an oximeter, and if your oxygen is less than 90, go to the hospital. Hers was 74. But she didn't feel as if she couldn't breathe.
The last thing she remembered was getting out of her husband's truck and walking into the ER. She woke up in a different hospital seven weeks later.
The second time she had COVID was a runny nose and a headache, and it never got worse than that. She just worked from home that week.
There used to be a thing they called walking pneumonia when you don't know you have pneumonia. Don't know if it has a different name now.
I only heard of RSV this past month, I think.
Going to a doc is probably a good idea for the OP, but I don't go, either, unless it becomes something I absolutely cannot ignore, so I am in no position to preach.
I am so sorry your sister suffered that!
I had what they called "walking pneumonia" at first but believe me when I say it morphed into regular ol' pneumonia!
I agree that the OP should probably go to the doctor. I had heard of RSV several years ago for the record, but I think it was mostly in children.
Last edited by Mightyqueen801; 01-12-2024 at 02:38 PM..
Reason: fixed my typo in quote
Well, there's bacterial pneumonia, which usually requires IV antibiotics, and viral pneumonia for which there's no treatment beyond supportive care as needed.
I continue to improve each day, and the risk/benefit ratio still has me avoiding the ER or UTC.
I suppose if one is prone to respiratory problems (which I'm not), it would be prudent to buy and use an oximeter when suffering from a bug like this.
We have an oximeter and used it every day when COVID showed up. Recently, we got lax about doing that since my husband had his knee replaced and our focus was on his surgery after care. However, a couple of weeks ago, he picked up some kind of bug. The irony was that he had to see his PCP as part of his follow-up care after surgery. While there, the PCP brought in her nurse and the nurse administered the flu shot and the RSV shot to him. So...we don't know what bug it was that he picked up or how he got it.
About a week after he got it, I woke up one day with a splitting headache. When I got out of bed, it felt better to be up and about. Then, I was coughing, sneezing and constantly blowing my nose. When I coughed up something, it was always clear. I was constantly clearing my throat. The day of the headache, I checked my temp and had a very low grade fever. I also noticed that my blood sugar readings spiked. I looked that up and found it was common to have that happen if one is ill.
My husband had the same symptoms. We sure used up a lot of tissues! Although my husband was the one who first picked up this bug, I got rid of it before him.
Lately, we've been using the oximeter and both of us are in the good range.
I had "walking" pneumonia last year. It coincided with me breaking my kneecap. I had a pain in my lung but no other symptoms really, it showed up on my Xray. Turned out to be quite serious, had to be hospitalized with a tube in my lung to drain it along with massive amounts of antibiotics. Thankfully, they cured it this way, because the alternative was surgery to scrape my lung.
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Probably a common virus. Just pay attention to the color and amount of phlegm. These things can turn. But it sounds like your recovering. If you backslide, get right in.
I suppose if one is prone to respiratory problems (which I'm not), it would be prudent to buy and use an oximeter when suffering from a bug like this.
It's not a bad idea to have an oximeter in your home first kit whether you are prone to respiratory illness or not. Just like it's not a bad idea to have a blood pressure machine at home even if you don't have high blood pressure. Neither are expensive.
Excellent answer...One goes to the doc when sick in a way they haven't experienced before, when it's getting worse &/or lasting an unusually long time.
Re: RSV vax-- They came up with a cure, now they need a disease for it to go with. Gotta re-coup those research expenses. and causing fear among the naive is the easy way.... Most every kid gets RSV (usually passed off as a common cold) by the time they're 6 and survive, then we remain immune for a lifetime...If they didn't survive, they had an inadequate immune system and were doomed anyway. If it wasn't the RSV, it would have been some other common infection.
Everything I've read states RSV doesn't confer lengthy immunity, and in fact its rather short.
It did somehow escape public notice all these years though, and is now suddenly "a thing." My life wasn't in danger but it did feel like I was drowning when I had it a year ago, it possibly was the worst "chest cold" I've ever had. I did not get vaxxed for it but I might someday.
Everything I've read states RSV doesn't confer lengthy immunity, and in fact its rather short.
It did somehow escape public notice all these years though, and is now suddenly "a thing." My life wasn't in danger but it did feel like I was drowning when I had it a year ago, it possibly was the worst "chest cold" I've ever had. I did not get vaxxed for it but I might someday.
"The common cold" has been around forever. But it's been attributed primarily to a coronavirus (not THE coronavirus). Most people are exposed to RSV at some point or another in their lives, and most of them, when they have symptoms at all, just assume they have "a cold." But "a cold" isn't a medical diagnosis. It's a collection of symptoms, which can be caused by any number of actual diagnosable illnesses. RSV is one of them. RSV can also present as much more severe symptoms, or even become bronchopneumonia. That's when it becomes potentially deadly to infants, the elderly, and immuno-compromised adults and children.
Our planet is much different now than it was in the 1950's (when RSV was first identified and named). There's more pollution, more obesity, more stress, more filtered-air buildings that create what's known as "sick building syndrome." There are also more people, more unhealthy foods, more fad diets, more people working more hours to pay more bills (remember there were no cell phones or internet or even call-waiting in the 1950's, and most households had one car and no TV or - one black and white console TV).
As people overcome the lower mortality rate in the 1950's, and live more years now than before, we discover that more things can now kill us, that couldn't before, because we simply hadn't lived long enough to be affected by them. RSV is one of those things. What most people got over (and still get over) in a week, when they're 40 years old, can kill them when they're 70 and their immune system has taken a nose-dive simply because it's old.
So we now have more people living longer in a dirtier, less healthy environment, and are getting sicker with things that we didn't live long enough to get sick from in the 1950's.
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