Calling all Coronavirus Survivors: Tell us your tale of COVID

Yup! My mother and father in law got covid a few months ago. They wound up on molnupiravir instead because they couldn’t get off their meds that had interactions. The thing with paxlovid is that it’s actually 2 drugs. One drug is the antiviral, and the other drug (ritonavir) boosts its efficacy, but also has lot of interactions.

Key drug interactions: You should not take ritonavir with any of the following drugs: alfuzosin, amiodarone, astemizole, bepridil, avanafil, chlorazepate, cisapride, colchicine, diazepam, dihydroergotamine, dronedarone, elbasvir/grazoprevir, ergonovine, ergotamine, estazolam, flecanaide, flurazepam, fusidic acid, lovastatin, lurasidone, ombitasvir/paritaprevir/ritonavir, methylergonovine, midazolam taken orally, pethidine, pimozide, piroxicam, propafenone, quetiapine, ranolazine, sildenafil (for hypertension), simvastatin, St John’s wort, terfenadine, triazolam, vardenafil.

Ritonavir interacts with many other medications and can change blood levels of one or both drugs. Consult your doctor or HIV pharmacist before taking any other drugs with ritonavir or a ritonavir-boosted drug. This includes: calcium channel blockers, drugs for heart conditions, anticoagulants, asthma and allergy drugs, proton pump inhibitors and H2 receptors, indigestion remedies, anti-fungal treatments, anticonvulsants, anti-TB drugs rifabutin and rifapentine, immunosuppressants, some chemotherapy drugs, steroid-containing inhalers, nasal sprays, eye drops, creams, as well as medicines bought from a high-street chemist, herbal preparations and recreational drugs.

It has a ton of interactions yeah. My brother is a pharmacist and warned me about that, I checked the list. And the only drug I take regularly is omperazole, so I didn’t have any interactions.

I was able to wean myself off my anxiety meds this year, which is awesome, but they weren’t on the interactions list either. (some actually do)

Anyway, it is an amazingly effective drug with little to no side effects, as long as you are not taking any of the many drugs on the interaction list for ritonavir.

Even if you are on some, particularly cholesterol or blood pressure meds, doctors will often prescribe paxlovid saying stop taking your current meds for the 5 days. 5 days off those meds won’t really hurt, especially when the alternative is a really bad case of covid (which can be very bad for your heart)

It really is a wonderfully cool drug that works very effectively, it just needs to be taken with care.

Medcram’s video is a good explainer.

Sad that it is sitting on shelves unused though.

I almost didn’t take it, because my local healthcare provider had severe rationing rules. And I was like, I am 36, fairly healthy, should I take it from someone who needs it more? The pharmacist was like… we have a ton of it, just take it.

Apparently it isn’t being prescribed. Part of that make sense with it needing to be prescribed before 3-5 days of symptom onset. People need to be educated that they can take the drug (and it is FREE) It is prophylactic, which makes it difficult for people to understand, you are supposed to take it when you don’t feel that bad.

That story is from April. My brother is a doctor and prescribes it to all his Covid patients. He’s been seeing a huge surge of positive patients since July 4th, and he says some of his patients now are having trouble finding pharmacies with Plaxovid.

This is in Birmingham, AL though, so the shortages and surges of BA5 variant can be local.

I suppose the surge is on now, but I live in an area with high cases, and the pharmacist said they had a ton to go around.

Anyway, if you do test positive, make sure you ask your doctor if you should get prescribed paxlovid. It definitely will help, and at least in some areas, there is not a lot of rationing.

My eldest daughter had COVID last month. Bad cold symptoms for the most part. She took several days off work then worked from home for a couple days. She is still tired though.

That’s true, and it’s something I brought up earlier. Particularly statins. But that shouldn’t be a concern as paxlovid must be prescribed anyway, and your doctor will know your meds.

So, yes your doctor will, but Paxlovid has also been authorized to be prescribed by pharmacists alone. So, make sure you let the pharmacist know exactly what you are taking. My current prescriptions list is always weirdly out of date when I go to the doctor. They have set up test to treat centers, and I think people just need to know to have a list of their current meds ready to discuss with the pharmacist.

As someone who used to work in healthcare software, the #1 cause of most negative outcomes was drug interaction issues. With all of the different pharmacies and systems, sometimes things don’t link up properly, and a pharmacist might see a different list of current meds than your doctor has. It is something that is always an issue, because the different systems don’t like talking to eachother or updating.

This can have some super nasty side effects for those on certain meds, people just need to be sure you have a good discussion with the pharmacist before you take it.

I was lucky, because my healthcare system was prescribing through phamacists, but ones that were in hospital system, so they had direct access to my chart.

If you were to walk into a walgreens with a test-to-treat, I would hope they are being extra cautious and asking questions.

One thing I learned the hard way, COVID is not like other maladies and when you hear that you should rest, you should rest. Not power through and work half days which were more like full days in my case. Your body needs to be all hands on deck to fight this fucker, and rest as in sleep and reducing stress and probably avoiding screens more than usual is important. Which is what I did not do. And it came back to bite me.

So take the opportunity to take care of your self if/when you catch the virus.

Yes, another very good point. Be sure to list your meds when procuring paxlovid, statins in particular.

By no means don’t be scared to take Paxlovid, it is exceedingly safe. Just make sure your pharmacist/doctor has your exact list of current prescriptions, as well as OTC drugs you are taking. If they have that, and there are no contraindications, you are golden to take a wonder-drug!

I think I’m on the far side of it. If the vaccines and the booster and the Paxlovid worked as advertised, then I would have been very, very miserable without them.

The worst part, beyond the symptoms, was spreading it to my wife and child. We tried to do some minor quarantining, but, we live in a duplex with one bathroom. There’s only so much quarantining one could do. Fortunately my wife only felt like she had a little cold for a few days, which was good because my lazy ass has been dragging and I haven’t been able to help out as much.

The worst part, beyond the symptoms and spreading it to my wife and child, is that my three year old (who had two of his three vax shots) is out of daycare for what feels like a month, because first I tested positive, then, much later, he tested positive, and his daycare ruled that he can’t come back until 10 days after he tested positive. Which is pretty exhausting during the best of times.

But it all could have been worse, and what it was was bad enough. We’ll skip the monkeypox and the next few COVID variants if possible, please.

We went to visit my wife’s family in Iowa. Her dad and brother farm together, their 3 college age kids were back for summer and we took our two sons with us. Most of the Iowa contingent, except for the college age kids are unvaccinated.

I went for 4 days and came home, the wife and kids stayed for an extra 10 days.

The day after I left my brother in law tested positive. Then one of his sons. Then my father in law.

Now my youngest son, 12, is positive. They were supposed to get on a flight home tomorrow. First day of school is in 8 days.

Fuck this fucking virus.

Sure, you can blame the virus, but I feel as if this is where your ire should be directed.

Her parents both spent multiple weeks in the hospital last winter and are still feeling effects. As old overweight multiple co-morbidity having people they are lucky to be alive at this point and still don’t protect themselves or their families.

Ire is not a strong enough word.

Fuck man I am so sorry. Family can truly be the other F word.

Hey guys what the incubation time on Covid. Sunday was my birthday party at my sisters. I got my vaccine just before I went. I’ve been miserable with my sternum having been plunked by my coughing fits. I do very poorly with vaccines as my body overreacts so bad. Got a call from my niece and she’s sick today and has Covid.

If I get a quick test will it be accurate if I might have gotten Covid the same day I got vaxxed? If I had COVID right now I’d never know cause symptoms are rough from the vaccine anyways. this headache is just brutal.

My daughter has co- workers who tested positive after three days of being around someone who was positive.

I felt bad for about a day after each of my vaccines. Usually took half a day to kick in.

I’m the same as Scuzz, generally a day, sometimes the second day for symptoms. The general rule for COVID incubation is, “about a week,” but let’s call it 5 days for symptoms to show. The problem is thats the top of the bell curve. You can show symptoms before and after that by several days.

Keep up on the latest symptoms here:

Booster shots will NOT make you test positive. However, the BEST time to use the rapid antigen tests is when you have symptoms. So get tested ASAP!

I got major déjà vu reading this post. Isn’t this similar to how you got COVID last time?

Last time I got it the day before my booster. Got it from wife who got it from her anti vaxxer Mom.