r/AskReddit 12h ago

What's the sickest you've ever been in your life?

2.2k Upvotes

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234

u/EddieVeddersMistress 11h ago

Covid. It hit me very, very hard.

273

u/PsychologicalFox3357 10h ago

The number of COVID responses in this thread is pretty telling and pretty ominous. Also people waving it off, commenting it was like a bad flu… it can be, sure, until it isn’t.

It also hit me hard.

16

u/penchantforbuggery 8h ago

I get the covid vaccine every 6 months and will travel out of the country to get it if I must due to RFK.

6

u/Protiguous 8h ago

Fn'RFK.

5

u/phoontender 8h ago

I had it while pregnant I'm 2022. Spent a couple days in the hospital and then the next 10 days injecting myself twice a day with heparin because I was coughing up blood clot looking things 😬

13

u/nxnphatdaddy 9h ago

To be fair, the reason its so good at spreading is because the vast majority of cases are either asymptomatic or very mild allowing its spread to continue without its host being hindered to badly. We still dont understand why it beats some people up as bad as it does. 86% of cases fall into asymptomatic or very mild. There will always be a huge presence of negative events reported because those that have severe symptoms are far more likely to talk about it.

13

u/Comfortable_Beach700 8h ago

“Mild” is all relative when extreme is death, stroke, winding up on a ventilator, etc. And there’s been plenty of evidence that even non-severe cases do a number on the circulatory system. 

4

u/jackalopeDev 8h ago

As far as I know, I've managed to avoid it this far. Pretty happy about that.

2

u/HumorPsychological60 8h ago edited 7h ago

The majority of cases are asymptomatic so you never know

2

u/OsosHormigueros 7h ago

For those of us who have never been symptomatic, is there even an accessible way to check for antibodies? Would an asymptomatic infection leave anything detectable long term?

3

u/AnRealDinosaur 5h ago

You could get an antibody test, but a quick Google is telling me antibodies only stick around for a few months to a year. Plus youll have them if youve been vaccinated anyways. Ive only had it once, but I always qualify that with "that I know of..." because there really is no way to tell. I do think its safe to assume that unless you live alone in the woods, you've probably had it at some point.

3

u/OsosHormigueros 5h ago

Yeah, I'm sure I've had it but it might've been years ago. I've been vaccinated multiple times. I'm kinda haunted by the fact that I've probably had it but I'll never know when and if I infected anybody else.

4

u/RackemFrackem 8h ago

Flu is bad. So bad flu is really really bad. So it's accurate.

2

u/Tight_Man 8h ago

I mean “bad flu” is accurate, people just label colds as the flu a lot these days. I was in the hospital for a week with the flu as a healthy teen.

1

u/Bay1Bri 6h ago

In the US, right s million people died of covid.

76

u/Ok-Mix-6239 10h ago

I think that was definitely one of the sickest I had been. I was in Colorado at a friend's wedding and on the airplane ride home my throat felt a bit scratchy. I chalked it up to being in an airplane, but by the time we landed in Chicago I felt insanely horrible, already shaking from the fever, i was very disoriented. My husband drove us back up to Wisconsin and the whole ride home I just kept feeling worse. By the time we finally got back, my fever was sitting around 103, and I was miserable.

For a week, I only left my bed to drink water, pee, and grab whatever easy food I could stomach. I had everything, loss of taste, fever, insane rash, vomiting, diarrhea, sore throat, cough, horrible headache, shortness of breath. I slept close to 19 hours a day, I was so exhausted. I think by the 8th or 9th day I started moving around again, tried desperately to clean only to have my fever spike again. Was actually the first time I thought I could die from being sick.

The friends getting married had covid. They started to feel sick the day before their wedding, but had it anyways. Pretty crappy of them, luckily only my husband and I got Covid out of everyone there.

9

u/Afraid_Bicycle_7970 8h ago

That's how I was the first time I got it. I would get up to walk to the kitchen or bathroom and I would have to sit on the floor halfway there because I couldn't breathe and was so exhausted. I actually started getting scared that I would die.

3

u/HumorPsychological60 8h ago

Why we need to make sure we keep masking when using transport do we don't unknownly infect others too, even if we're asymptomatic. And so we don't catch anything that someone has brought into a confined space

I always mask and test before and after travelling just to make sure

Sorry your friend didn't have that courtesy :/

3

u/Spiritual-Eggplant59 9h ago

Was your husband as sick as you?
The first time I had Covid was before the vaccines were out and it wasn’t that bad. The second time was much worse, but not to the level you had to endure. I’m so sorry you had to go through that.

6

u/Beautiful_Weight_769 9h ago

Same, woke up and immediately knew I had COVID one morning. Couldn't function for two weeks and even when I got better I couldn't exercise for months without immediately doubling over from exhaustion and coughing.

4

u/Muted_Bookkeeper9127 9h ago

I was also very sick with Covid! I had a 104 fever, and it felt like someone was pouring cement into my bones

4

u/jaaaaden 9h ago

i was hospitalized with covid but it wasn’t respiratory. i nearly shit and vomited myself to death, but it was covid! horrible experience

4

u/RGQcats 8h ago

Me too. March 2020, all by myself, what do I do, called my doctor, no help, just tried not to die or need the hospital. Then had to deal with long COVID for a year, with full blown I've got it again symptoms twice. It really kicked my ass and my immune system.

2

u/nicoleonline 5h ago

COVID knocked me on my ass at 26 and just last year at 30. I had rigors even and I have never had that with any flu. I ended up with a heart issues that lasted for at least 6 months after infection both times. Could barely move I was so fatigued. Would climb into the bath because it was the only way to not feel like I’m being stabbed all over. Just the absolute worst.

The first time I had it I was on a trip overseas to the UK for the first time to play some shows. Early 2022 so likely that omicron variant. Caught it, shows canceled, and ended up “stranded” for weeks because 1. The rest of the band went home and 2. UK had very strict COVID rules to fly out. Had to test negative for multiple days in a row and I tested positive for 16 days.

1

u/Intelligent-Wrap7079 3h ago

What happened?