Oh man, I’m sorry to hear that. Yeah, it was brutal for me but I had almost no respiratory symptoms (the time I did test positive in 2022). I slept 18 hours a day for a week and a half. My joints and muscles hurt so bad. I’ve been hit by a car and it was better than the aches of COVID. I’d rather the car than COVID.

From the studies, that seems to be the explanation. It all depends on where the virus is present. In some people, it can be present in the nose and mouth the entire time. For others, it comes and goes and generally, if your nose isn’t running, you might not test positive.

I’ve been seeing my doctor for inexplicable fatigue I’ve been experiencing the last few years. I chalked it up to insomnia until I got the insomnia resolved. Now, I’m getting great sleep but I’m still drained the next day. I can take an Adderall (and could wash it down with a Red Bull if I wanted/liked caffeine) at 1 pm and still fall asleep at 2 pm for a midday nap. It’s really uncanny.

He mentioned narcolepsy and I rolled my eyes. No way I have narcolepsy. We’re running some tests to see if there’s any other issues (hormonal) but if those come back negative, it may very well be narcolepsy. I went home and read up on it and apparently narcolepsy is activated by the influenza virus which I caught in early 2020 and that’s when my energy levels plummeted. Still, three years later, I’m drained all day every day.

Viruses can have some insane side effects. I never though in my wildest dreams this would be me, with no energy and falling asleep midday on amphetamine.

All the talk about Long COVID is definitely no joke, even if my case almost certainly isn’t COVID. The original influenza in 2020 was Bird Flu, which my girlfriend and her friend who caught it at the same time also tested positive for. This has really changed my perspective a bit and though I was masking regularly before, I kind of slacked on it and I’m not going to anymore. The risks are just way too great.