Coronavirus prep

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Replies

  • AlphaHowls
    AlphaHowls Posts: 2,004 Member
    Not sure I totally agree that the pandemic is over but I guess if we close our eyes and do not report any #s we can pretend? I listen weekly at work to the case load and it blows my mind how pollyanna HR is when the cases tripled last week from the week before. I must just be one of "those" I guess.

    Hey on a different subject, has anyone gotten the Moderna updated vax yet? The only one I see available is Pfizer here in Tx just yet. Wondering what the delays are.
    I went over to Publix yesterday, they had not received shipment yet. Maybe in a few days. Tennessee here
  • ythannah
    ythannah Posts: 4,371 Member
    Hey on a different subject, has anyone gotten the Moderna updated vax yet? The only one I see available is Pfizer here in Tx just yet. Wondering what the delays are.

    The Moderna bivalent has been available here (Ontario, Canada) for the past couple of weeks or so. The first two weeks were reserved for the 70+ crowd, I think the rest of us can start getting ours on Monday.

    Except moi. Since I just had Covid I have to wait three months to get a booster.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,598 Member
    yirara wrote: »
    I will have to fight for the updated vax, because covid is pretty much over here and only people above 60 are at risk and will get it easily. Apparently. Though I think it's not available yet. Heard from a colleague who lives in a less posh part of town that vaccinations are freely available there because many people don't understand the local language well, or otherwise don't get vaxxed. So they set up a permanent location. I'll probably drive over once the new vaccinations are available

    Aren't you supposed to wait after being infected, for about the same amount of time as you'd wait after a previous vax? That's what they seem to be saying here.

    Since you tested positive, are you able to get antivirals of some type? (That does seem to be mostly a 60+/at-risk thing for availability here).
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    Not sure I totally agree that the pandemic is over but I guess if we close our eyes and do not report any #s we can pretend? I listen weekly at work to the case load and it blows my mind how pollyanna HR is when the cases tripled last week from the week before. I must just be one of "those" I guess.

    Hey on a different subject, has anyone gotten the Moderna updated vax yet? The only one I see available is Pfizer here in Tx just yet. Wondering what the delays are.

    Funny, all I saw here in Massachusetts when I scheduled my booster Sept 2 was Moderna. My previous shots were Pfizer but I went with Moderna this time.
  • paperpudding
    paperpudding Posts: 9,302 Member
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    Not sure I totally agree that the pandemic is over but I guess if we close our eyes and do not report any #s we can pretend? I listen weekly at work to the case load and it blows my mind how pollyanna HR is when the cases tripled last week from the week before. I must just be one of "those" I guess.

    Hey on a different subject, has anyone gotten the Moderna updated vax yet? The only one I see available is Pfizer here in Tx just yet. Wondering what the delays are.

    Funny, all I saw here in Massachusetts when I scheduled my booster Sept 2 was Moderna. My previous shots were Pfizer but I went with Moderna this time.


    Yes, Moderna has been around for ages.

    What posters are talking about is the new bivalent version of Moderna - ie better coverage of both main strains.


    If you get Covid here in Australia you are advised to wait 3 months before getting another Covid vaccine - same gap as between doses of vaccines.

    Anti virals are helpful if taken early - but are only available here for over 70's, and younger people with medical risk.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    Not sure I totally agree that the pandemic is over but I guess if we close our eyes and do not report any #s we can pretend? I listen weekly at work to the case load and it blows my mind how pollyanna HR is when the cases tripled last week from the week before. I must just be one of "those" I guess.

    Hey on a different subject, has anyone gotten the Moderna updated vax yet? The only one I see available is Pfizer here in Tx just yet. Wondering what the delays are.

    Funny, all I saw here in Massachusetts when I scheduled my booster Sept 2 was Moderna. My previous shots were Pfizer but I went with Moderna this time.


    Yes, Moderna has been around for ages.

    What posters are talking about is the new bivalent version of Moderna - ie better coverage of both main strains.


    If you get Covid here in Australia you are advised to wait 3 months before getting another Covid vaccine - same gap as between doses of vaccines.

    Anti virals are helpful if taken early - but are only available here for over 70's, and younger people with medical risk.

    Yes, sorry I wasn't clear - I was referring to new Moderna, which is the shot I got earlier this month. CVS rolled it out almost immediately after the announcement that it was approved.
  • Fuzzipeg
    Fuzzipeg Posts: 2,301 Member
    Let's hope you are well on the mend.
  • claireychn074
    claireychn074 Posts: 1,653 Member
    Any advice on getting sense of taste to return? How long before it came back for you?
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,984 Member
    edited September 2022
    Thought you might find this interesting. The stress reading of my Garmin watch. First plot today, lower one yesterday. Basically everything in orange (high stress) are the moments were I felt not so well. Very interesting :D Looks like I'm getting better. At least my piece of tech seems to think so :D

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    wyp19iz970jg.png
  • COGypsy
    COGypsy Posts: 1,365 Member
    COGypsy wrote: »
    Any advice on getting sense of taste to return? How long before it came back for you?

    How long has it been? It took a couple of months for me to get any significant taste back. Now I have probably 85-90% of taste, but I'd say more like 65-70% of smell. What I did with smell was "smell training" where I made a point of sniffing things like essential oils and other smelly things, like my jar of minced garlic, repeatedly throughout the day. Maybe something like that would help with taste. Start with some very strong flavor (maybe like black licorice candies) and if you have any kind of taste response, keep eating it in gradually smaller amounts and then try another flavor. For smell, I started sniffing very close to my nose and gradually moved it away. I feel like it helped some. Still can't smell things like candles, or rainy days, but I don't burn things quite as often.

    I’m about one month out and some tastes are returning, but not always accurate. Things taste mouldy or salty when they’re not, and my sense of smell is dreadful. I can sometimes smell stuff but can’t identify it - it’s as if I can’t recognise smells any more. As a foodie it’s pretty grim - can’t even smell my sourdough baking 🤷‍♂️

    If it’s any comfort, it sounds like you’re on a good track. You’re well ahead of where I was after only a month. I’m 11 months out, so where I’m at is probably as good as it’s going to get, although I have had a couple of incremental improvements to smell.

  • SummerSkier
    SummerSkier Posts: 5,186 Member
    I have a gal at work going on 2 years with loss of smell. That was her only symptom at the time also. Her husband had it a lot worse. I ask her every few months. She never lost taste tho.
  • claireychn074
    claireychn074 Posts: 1,653 Member
    Crikey it sounds like I’ve got off lightly. I am massively struggling to get the calories in I need to train - I don’t know what I’d do if I was a year out without being able to smell or taste properly 😳
  • Hiawassee88
    Hiawassee88 Posts: 35,754 Member
    edited September 2022
    @COGypsy
    Yeah, it was hard enough to deal with food when my senses were stronger. Now I seem to be stuck in a crazy binge/restrict cycle. Not because I'm trying to keep my calories low, but because nothing sounds good to eat and I don't have strong hunger urges generally, so I just don't eat. Then eventually my body has enough of that and I eat everything that isn't nailed down. I thought I was pretty sick when I had COVID, but this post-viral stuff has been no joke.

    My neighbor is going through this, but her sense of smell has not returned. Nothing really tastes good, so she makes homemade, hot potato chips on the daily. She wants a salty crunch, followed by a sweet chaser. She's mixing corn syrup, oatmeal, peanut butter and cocoa powder together. She's living on potato chips and sugar bombs.

  • COGypsy
    COGypsy Posts: 1,365 Member
    COGypsy wrote: »
    @COGypsy
    Yeah, it was hard enough to deal with food when my senses were stronger. Now I seem to be stuck in a crazy binge/restrict cycle. Not because I'm trying to keep my calories low, but because nothing sounds good to eat and I don't have strong hunger urges generally, so I just don't eat. Then eventually my body has enough of that and I eat everything that isn't nailed down. I thought I was pretty sick when I had COVID, but this post-viral stuff has been no joke.

    My neighbor is going through this, but her sense of smell has not returned. Nothing really tastes good, so she makes homemade, hot potato chips on the daily. She wants a salty crunch, followed by a sweet chaser. She's mixing corn syrup, oatmeal, peanut butter and cocoa powder together. She's living on potato chips and sugar bombs.

    At least none of that stuff can spoil, that’s a positive. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten sick because I can’t use the “sniff test” any more. Cottage cheese, yogurt, bagged salad, meat….I pretty much live in a single serving world now because no food can be trusted.

    The issue I’ve got is that I cook good nutritious food, which I know isn’t mouldy. But then it tastes mouldy so I can’t eat it. I’ve ruined fish, meat, vegetables, cake, chocolate- anything with a flavour. And I usually love my decaf cup of tea but that tastes vile too. I need to eat quite a lot of protein for my sport and I’m just not doing it. Blasted virus.

    The worst for me was ironically that my taste came back first. So I couldn't smell food burning, but could totally taste the char! I've been taking a regimen of supplements that I really do think have helped (n=1 of course, but several parts of it were recommended by docs I work with. I work at a medical school and my department houses most of the specialties involved in treating and researching COVID). If you want to send me a friend request, I'd be happy to share in more detail. I'm not sure it's very interesting to the rest of the people in this thread.
  • SummerSkier
    SummerSkier Posts: 5,186 Member
    @yirara great news that the virus is declining in your bod! I was SO HAPPY yesterday in that I was able to schedule and get my bivalent moderna in the afternoon, and did not have to wait until the 30th. I haven't had a booster since Nov 21 so it's timely for me and I will get a flu shot at work in a few weeks. It reminded me of when the vaccines first came out and you just had to keep looking to get an appt.

    Either the cases are ramping up again or it's a big coincidence that quite a few folks I know are getting sick. And this new round of Omicron appears to be more flu like than the last one which was mostly a razor sore throat for many in Jan/Feb.

    I was looking at our work #s because those reflect reality in our little microcosm vs official #s anymore due to home testing etc... the spike we had in mid July was similar to the one we had in Jan. Our county in Jan was red but in Jul it never got about yellow. I hope that means that less folks are having to go to the hospital and treatments are easier to procure. But I think part of it is the underreporting as well.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    I don't know if this will help those of you who lost taste/smell because of COVID, but when I have a bad cold and lose some taste/smell, I eat a lot of spicy Asian soup, and this does get through to my senses.
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,984 Member
    @yirara great news that the virus is declining in your bod! I was SO HAPPY yesterday in that I was able to schedule and get my bivalent moderna in the afternoon, and did not have to wait until the 30th. I haven't had a booster since Nov 21 so it's timely for me and I will get a flu shot at work in a few weeks. It reminded me of when the vaccines first came out and you just had to keep looking to get an appt.

    Either the cases are ramping up again or it's a big coincidence that quite a few folks I know are getting sick. And this new round of Omicron appears to be more flu like than the last one which was mostly a razor sore throat for many in Jan/Feb.

    I was looking at our work #s because those reflect reality in our little microcosm vs official #s anymore due to home testing etc... the spike we had in mid July was similar to the one we had in Jan. Our county in Jan was red but in Jul it never got about yellow. I hope that means that less folks are having to go to the hospital and treatments are easier to procure. But I think part of it is the underreporting as well.

    Thanks a lot :) And so glad for you that you got the new shot. I don't think it's available here yet but I keep my eyes peeled and will get it eventually.

    Here it's totally a case of underreporting. My GP wouldn't want to see me and basically nobody cared whether I got an official pcr test or not :( I got one nonetheless, after some searching on where I could do this. From what I heard, a massive amount of colleagues is off sick. Basically, most of management in my department is sick as they were in the same meeting with an infected person. Some of them don't care and still come to work >:) There's a big department meeting later next week, and I will not come in, basically saying I'm still testing positive. I'm sure I'll manage some coughs and sick looks during Teams meetings. Some colleagues have said the same. Glad I'm 80% home office anyway.
  • smithker75
    smithker75 Posts: 80 Member
    @COGypsy
    Yeah, it was hard enough to deal with food when my senses were stronger. Now I seem to be stuck in a crazy binge/restrict cycle. Not because I'm trying to keep my calories low, but because nothing sounds good to eat and I don't have strong hunger urges generally, so I just don't eat. Then eventually my body has enough of that and I eat everything that isn't nailed down. I thought I was pretty sick when I had COVID, but this post-viral stuff has been no joke.

    My neighbor is going through this, but her sense of smell has not returned. Nothing really tastes good, so she makes homemade, hot potato chips on the daily. She wants a salty crunch, followed by a sweet chaser. She's mixing corn syrup, oatmeal, peanut butter and cocoa powder together. She's living on potato chips and sugar bombs.

    Wow, that is exactly like my experience. I only ate hot chips and vegemite wholemeal bread sandwiches for a solid week (Australian here). It was akin to pregnancy cravings/tolerances. I've not heard of anyone else that had such distinct food preferences with COVID.