Recently had my first covid infection and decided to put together a little diagram about how it went

Next time you should know that any test where the control isn't working, is a defective test. So the third test should have been ignored and redone.

There actually is a faint control line. I'm pretty sure it was so "positive" that there were not enough color particles left for the C line.
- That's true.
  
  I guess as long as the decision taken after the test is the safer option (I.E. not going outside), it doesn't matter much.

Uh oh. A week ago I kept having headaches, fatigue, bit of a sore throat and was alternately sweating/freezing but no fever. I tested negative and proceeded as usual, minus doing anything. I’m still extremely fatigued, and doing little to nothing. I’m about to redo the test.

The tests can show negative no matter what your infection status. Some people don't shed enough of the virus in their sinuses to detect.

My wife is one of them. We had covid at the same time, same symptoms, everything. I tested positive while she never did.
- That’s important to know, so I boosted you. Thanks.
I had the sweating/freezing thing too, didn't put it into the diagram because I thought it was a side effect of the fever.
- Oh wow. Thank you for letting me know. Glad I got vaxxed. Can’t imagine how it may have gone not being vaxxed.
For future reference, if you're ever not sure, get a PCR test. The at-home rapid tests are great at proving a positive, but not so great at proving negative. These days, if your throat is soar, you more likely have Covid than not.
- Great. Thank you.

I've never seen "1" written like that. Is it a German thing?

I think it's a "Europe minus UK" thing, but I don't know for sure. Pretty certain though that the French write it like that too.
- I've never seen it written that way in Spain nor France, so maybe it's a Germanic language thing?
- In France we write it both way and AFAIK there is no "recommanded" or "better" way.
- But then again the French put speech inside these <<>> which is just inconsiderate imo 🤧
Writing 1 the other way is an american thing.
That's how we write it in Italy, but northern, so I guess yes, it's a German thing.
^
Sometimes it also has a line under it. 1. To distinguish the 1 and the 7, the seven gets a cross bar. -7-

Depending on what your work context is, you may be instructed to always write the 1 and 7 that way, to avoid confusion. You may also be directed to write a the zero with a diagonal slash. ∅ to avoid confusion with a letter O. If you do a lot of inventory work or something, it becomes useful.

I wear a Garmin watch that monitors heart rate, stress, etc. That was fun to map out my COVID timeline on.

Same. I only really paid attention to day one to day three of symptoms, but my body battery was super low on day two plus non stop stress through the first night (fever that broke around 4am)
The stress was a bitch. I work full-time in a grocery store and had a wife and newborn isolated at home every day. Not only was I constantly exposed to the public, but every little symptom or perceived symptom (lot of psychological/false positive over two years) would get the anxiety brewing inside of me, fearing I would eventually bring it home and potentially lose one of them. Every wet cough out of that kid would keep me up at night. This got a little better as the pandemic went on, and I wouldn't say I was in a constant state of paranoia, but fuck me if it wasn't a slice of Mr. Bones' Wild Ride.

You could argue my wife has it worse, though, being isolated at home with a baby for so long with little to do over the long Canadian winters. It definitely wasn't how she imagined mat leave would be.

Nice visualisation, but the test on day five is useless. The control isn't showing so something has gone wrong (either on your end, production end or "we'll don't know" end).

If C doesn't have a dash, trash it, it won't tell you anything.

Furthermore, due to oxidation and other foreign influences, I'm not even sure if this diagram is useful if you've taken this photo in one go (lining up the tests). The results are also just valid for like 30 mins or so.

Source: the manual of the tests I had at home (various brands)

Edit: this is merely context. Always check your test and act accordingly. For this visualisation it's okay I guess.

That's so cool! Thanks for sharing. It's interesting to see that it takes a couple of days for the self tests to show positive

I swear 'test on the first day of symptoms' has been the worst advice every employer has ever given just in case it's not covid. I've never seen someone test positive day of symptoms. It's always days 2-4 or longer.

At no point did I ever test positive. In the end I want to get one of those professional PCR tests done, because I thought I was dying, and that came back positive, but the home test is never worked for me.

If I had been asymptomatic those tests would have been useless and I would have got everyone ill.
- You need to yeet that shit FAR up your nose at least

That's not bad. Mine was - day one: a little tired and things taste funny.

Day two through 10: slept 23 hours a day and ate food in the 1 hour I was awake.

I have never felt so ill in my entire life as when I had covid. I basically had all of the symptoms except a headache which I suppose was some small comfort.

But it went on for like 3 weeks. One day before my first symptoms I'd gone on a 10 mile bike ride, 3 days after symptoms started I could literally not climb the stairs without a break.

But the worst bit for me was the brain fog. At one point I thought I was really cold but I couldn't really work out why I was cold and of course it turned out that the reason I was cold is because I was outside. But it took me at least 2 minutes of blankly staring around to work that out.

If you have a test lying around, or if they're cheap where you are, try one after a few weeks or a month.

Apparently you can test positive even long after you've recovered.

Even if it's negative now?

I like this layout

The symptoms fading out in particular was a nice touch

Except fatigue shouldn't fade out. Covid fstivue lasts a lot longer than people realize.
- True, but this is an individual's report on how they felt. That's still valuable
  
  A separate one on aggregate data would also be cool

I had the occasional mild cough for like 3 months after I tested negative and felt a smell of onion and/or petrol everywhere.

I'm glad you're better.

Damn, dude. That test is unpleasant when you have to take it. You don't even have to take it anymore once you test positive.

I salute your sacrifice for science!

Thank you for this! Extremely interesting. I just got covid for the first time 3 weeks ago and I still have cough, so annoying.

Interesting & quite a cool visualization!
I am on day 7 of symptoms right now, also just got it after dodging it for almost four years. My fever has subsided but boy am I congested still. I'm just glad the massive headaches are gone, I couldn't think straight for a while.

On the other hand, I've been wearing FFP2 masks in all indoor spaces religiously and I've been planning to keep doing it until I got covid (my masks didn't fail me in the end either, I got it from a household member), and at this point I am genuinely excited to finally not be the outsider anymore and feel more normal again.