Urban75 Home About Offline BrixtonBuzz Contact

General Coronavirus (COVID-19) chat

I've not seen whether asthma-type inhalers help but might be worth asking whether you could try one?

I’ve been given an inhaler. I’ve only used it a couple of times and I’m not sure it was helpful but it might help other people, perhaps if they have a problem with oxygen levels which I don’t seem to have. The GP sounded a bit doubtful about the evidence for using it.
 
I don't seem to have the fatigue other people have had but I am not sure my lungs are back to normal at all. Don't really want to waste doctors time though and I'm not sure when I'm going to be able to see them.

I shouldn’t think the doctors would see it as wasting their time. It all seems geared to dealing with covid at the moment.
 
Last edited:
I’ve been given an inhaler. I’ve only used it a couple of times and I’m not sure it was helpful but it might help other people, perhaps if they have a problem with oxygen levels which I don’t seem to have. The GP sounded a bit doubtful about the evidence for using it.

Blue (salbutamol) one?
 
Yes. I think it’s the standard one used for asthma. I was given a prescription for the inhaler and a course of antibiotics when I spoke to the 111 doctor.

(edit: actually from the local out of hours GP not the 111 doctor)
 
Last edited:
I don't seem to have the fatigue other people have had but I am not sure my lungs are back to normal at all. Don't really want to waste doctors time though and I'm not sure when I'm going to be able to see them.

No harm in talking to them. It would mean that if your lung problems get worse then they'd have a record of when it started.

You could also try using a peak flow meter peak flow meter to check whether your flow is unusual for your age and height - they're very cheap to buy. Though I guess they might be difficult to use if you've never used one before.
 
Last edited:
No, peak flow meters are easy. You just blow into them as hard/fast as you can :)

They do vary person to person though. I've had asthma since I was 6ish so I have low peak flow. I was active (played football, ran cross country) when I was a teenager though so (I presume) I have large lung volume which makes up for it a bit.
 
^^ this. Before the shitshow I had a load of tests done - my doctor said I'd missed out on having them because I'd had asthma for so long, they never did them when I was young. It's good to give a baseline to compare how you're doing in the future. I presume will be valuable information for cv.
 
No, peak flow meters are easy. You just blow into them as hard/fast as you can :)

They do vary person to person though. I've had asthma since I was 6ish so I have low peak flow. I was active (played football, ran cross country) when I was a teenager though so (I presume) I have large lung volume which makes up for it a bit.

I think it's probably tricky to get the hard/fast thing right the first time without being shown in person. Friends have tried mine (pre-covid, obvs) and just sort of breathed into it. Youtube probably helps though.

They are helpful to track your own lung function even if for some reason your result is atypical, better or worse than expected, because it's the difference in your own lung function that counts most (unless you literally can't breathe, obvs :D). With asthma it's more helpful to compare your peak flow against your best effort (in recent years, not over your whole life) than to compare it against a general chart, and I assume it's the same for everyone. Mine hasn't got any worse lately, and that helps me not to worry and means I can reassure my daughter.
 
it's the difference in your own lung function that counts most (unless you literally can't breathe, obvs :D). With asthma it's more helpful to compare your peak flow against your best effort (in recent years, not over your whole life) than to compare it against a general chart, and I assume it's the same for everyone.

Yep, exactly that - I nearly added something like it :)
 
Best of all would be to have a reference reading before you contract it, but retrospective readings are a bit difficult :( . In view of coronavirus I'd imagine doctors will take readings from people as standard just in case.
 
Where did you read this, Teaboy ?

Me and my g/f were discussing this (she's a scientist who works in the larger healthcare industry) I've just googled covid lung scarring asymptomatic and pages come up.

Then again you may not wish to google it as there is f-all we can do about it. :(
 
I really would warn people to be cautious about catastrophizing too much about some of this possible long term health post-infection stuff. A fair number of people who think they had CV had some normal winter bug or chest infection, both of which can linger a bit.

Then even if you did have it any possible long term health issues is very speculative currently, and the worst scenarios are likely to get the most headlines. There's also really complex stuff around fear, learnt patterns of behaviour, and projecting expectations on to your actual situation.
 
I really would warn people to be cautious about catastrophizing too much about some of this possible long term health post-infection stuff. A fair number of people who think they had CV had some normal winter bug or chest infection, both of which can linger a bit.

Then even if you did have it any possible long term health issues is very speculative currently, and the worst scenarios are likely to get the most headlines. There's also really complex stuff around fear, learnt patterns of behaviour, and projecting expectations on to your actual situation.

Of course that's why this is 'chat' as its just general musings. Over the years there have been loads of we don't know what this means for the future style health scares which have to come very little, BSE (mad cow) springs immediately to mind.
 
Of course that's why this is 'chat' as its just general musings. Over the years there have been loads of we don't know what this means for the future style health scares which have to come very little, BSE (mad cow) springs immediately to mind.

For sure, I'm just wary of, and concerned about, people starting to project symptoms and conditions onto their situation so just wanted to raise it.
 
Just FYI Southern trains are fucking clean, like the floor is the colour it should be and it smells of disinfectant even through a mask. I cannot recall this being the case in living memory.

It did occur to me that the dickheads wearing chin warmers would be best told they've got a massive spot on their nose so the paranoia will make them cover up :D
 
Again, T cell part of the picture likely missing.

More about that

Now comes a new paper in press at Nature. It confirms that convalescent patients from the current epidemic show T-cell responses (mostly CD4+ but some CD8+ as well) to various epitopes of the N (nucleocapsid) protein, which the earlier paper had identified as one of the main antigens as well (along with the Spike and M proteins, among others, with differences between the CD4+ and CD8+ responses as well). Turning to patients who had caught SARS back in 2003 and recovered, it is already known (and worried about) that their antibody responses faded within two or three years. But this paper shows that these patients still have (17 years later!) a robust T-cell response to the original SARS coronavirus’s N protein, which extends an earlier report of such responses going out to 11 years. This new work finds that these cross-react with the new SARS CoV-2 N protein as well. This makes one think, as many have been wondering, that T-cell driven immunity is perhaps the way to reconcile the apparent paradox between (1) antibody responses that seem to be dropping week by week in convalescent patients but (2) few (if any) reliable reports of actual re-infection. That would be good news indeed.

 
Walked up my local high street y/day (I usually go via the back streets if I go out) and was shocked to see so many people wearing masks, considering when in full swing of this thing hardly anyone was. The folk not wearing them were all the Deliveroo drivers etc. who all hang out in bunches.

Still a security guard on the door of the CoOp, people being considerate etc. I was pleasantly surprised.

As an aside cos I've not been keeping up. On August 1st family have arranged a BBQ to celebrate a nieces graduation, it means 4 households and 12 people meeting up, BBQing and staying over - is this allowed these days?
 
Walked up my local high street y/day (I usually go via the back streets if I go out) and was shocked to see so many people wearing masks, considering when in full swing of this thing hardly anyone was. The folk not wearing them were all the Deliveroo drivers etc. who all hang out in bunches.

Still a security guard on the door of the CoOp, people being considerate etc. I was pleasantly surprised.

I've noticed that too. Its really good and reminds me just how people responded when we went into full lockdown.

As an aside cos I've not been keeping up. On August 1st family have arranged a BBQ to celebrate a nieces graduation, it means 4 households and 12 people meeting up, BBQing and staying over - is this allowed these days?

I don't think you'll be compliant unless the rules change, that being said I may have misunderstood the rules.


On the whole though I think you're OK during the outside bit. We've all walked around parks and you'll see large groups of people clearly from different households meeting up. Whilst the tables themselves are spaced out in pub gardens the nature of pub benches mean groups of friends are shoulder to shoulder. From everything I've seen the risk of transmission outside is very low.

The bit that would worry me is the staying over bit. Estimates vary but I've seen figures of 60% - 80% of transmissions are familial, as in happen in the home. We can't really rely on the Government to tell us whats safe we have to make our own call, that will be different for different people but those numbers do look a wee bit worrying from my perspective.
 
Thanks Teaboy

My main concern is the mother-in-law, almost 80 and with an existing pulmonary condition.
I've strongly suggested/recommended to my wife it's the wrong thing to do right now.

It's really difficult isn't it? So many older people live for the moments they get to spend around family, it provides so much joy, pride and purpose. Trying to strike that balance between protecting the elderly without depriving them of a life worth living.
 
As an aside cos I've not been keeping up. On August 1st family have arranged a BBQ to celebrate a nieces graduation, it means 4 households and 12 people meeting up, BBQing and staying over - is this allowed these days?

No. For group meet-ups it’s either:
a) any number of people from 2 households in any venue inside or outside (including staying over), or
b) 6 people outside only from any number of households (though practically limited to 6 of course).

In either circumstance distancing should be observed between any members of different households: 2m apart, or, only where that is not possible, down to 1m apart where appropriate mitigation (in practice masks or screens) is used.
 
Enjoying my first train journey through East Anglia since lockdown. The people running the coffee van outside the station looked pleased with themselves - no competition from inside the station.
 
Back
Top Bottom