Have you had the COVID antibodies testing done?

[1GirlTwinBoys]

If so, when did you, and how long was it after you were sick?  What were your results?

Do you think the test is accurate? I'm getting one done tomorrow but it will take a few days to get the results.

[Jean in Newcastle]

I did over three months after I was quite sick for six weeks. It was negative. I wonder if I waited too long. The symptoms weren’t like any cold or flu that I have had before but maybe it wasn’t Covid 19. I won’t ever know, I guess. 

[Pronghorn]

My husband was sick in mid-March. In August he tested positive for antibodies. I believe the test was accurate.

[kokotg]

I had it twice (once I went to get it; the next time my NP offered it to me when they were doing a blood draw for something else). I was sick with a mild-pneumonia like dry cough for 6 weeks in March/April....everyone in the house had it with assorted symptoms and duration (dry cough for everyone; some headaches, some sore throats, some low grade fevers). First test at the tail end of symptoms; second a couple of months later: both negative, and my husband had a negative test, too. Word is T-cell testing is coming sooner or later, and I'll get one of those if I can, too.  It was a very weird illness like nothing we've ever had before...but walking pneumonia would also explain it (if with strange timing).

[Acadie]

8 hours ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

I did over three months after I was quite sick for six weeks. It was negative. I wonder if I waited too long. The symptoms weren’t like any cold or flu that I have had before but maybe it wasn’t Covid 19. I won’t ever know, I guess. 

 

1 hour ago, kokotg said:

Word is T-cell testing is coming sooner or later, and I'll get one of those if I can, too.  It was a very weird illness like nothing we've ever had before...but walking pneumonia would also explain it (if with strange timing).

I'm really looking forward to the time when inexpensive and accurate testing for cellular immunity becomes available, because I think many of us will find that we have, in fact, had Covid and retain some degree of immunity.

[YaelAldrich]

My daughter had the antibody testing about five months after my husband came home from Japan when COVID just has started getting going there.  He stayed with our best friends who were actively caring for the Israeli/Jewish Diamond Princess passengers (the cruise ship that was stuck off Yokohama Bay with all the COVID cases).  The family had a dry cough but otherwise not sick.  I made him take and wear our Totobobo masks but he was uncovered during meals, etc. I assumed he brought it back to our family when the younger two kids started to have a dry cough and a mild fever (this never happens to them!).  Of course the MD wouldn't see them or test them at that time.  They recovered within a week.  Her test was negative.  I still suspect they had COVID.

[kokotg]

8 minutes ago, Patty Joanna said:

This is what drives me crazy about this--and I'm not criticizing you!  What drives me crazy is that it is hard to tell what is going on!!!  And it's pushed other sicknesses to the back of our minds (and that includes--or can include--the medical profession).

 

 

I'm skeptical by nature so I have always tended to assume it was likely something else. I mean, EVERYONE seems to have had some mystery illness that was "probably" covid in the spring, right? But, on the other hand, we know now that way more people DID have covid than we thought at the time, at least in a lot of the country. And the positivity rate was super high in many places--which is of course partly because tests were so hard to come by--but it also means that a big percentage of people who suspected they had it actually did. So who knows? When someone said walking pneumonia and I read up on it that it definitely fit, so I still figure that's the most likely explanation, but it would be nice to know for sure--just to satisfy my curiosity. 

[Terabith]

I'v had it done when I donated blood, which I do as often as they'll let me.  I've always been negative so far, which doesn't surprise me, since while we aren't as extreme as some folks (we do go into stores, masked and socially distanced; we've done a few medical appointments and blood donations, and we see my in laws, who also go into stores, and we have up until now let one of my kids socialize with three other kids, and my oldest has done a few masked, mostly outdoor, socially distanced things at their school), we are much more careful than most people I know in real life.  

Edited November 18, 2020 by Terabith

[Jean in Newcastle]

1 hour ago, kokotg said:

I'm skeptical by nature so I have always tended to assume it was likely something else. I mean, EVERYONE seems to have had some mystery illness that was "probably" covid in the spring, right? But, on the other hand, we know now that way more people DID have covid than we thought at the time, at least in a lot of the country. And the positivity rate was super high in many places--which is of course partly because tests were so hard to come by--but it also means that a big percentage of people who suspected they had it actually did. So who knows? When someone said walking pneumonia and I read up on it that it definitely fit, so I still figure that's the most likely explanation, but it would be nice to know for sure--just to satisfy my curiosity. 

The problem though is that Covid19 can cause pneumonia - walking or otherwise.  But so can other viruses and bacteria. 

[kokotg]

13 minutes ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

The problem though is that Covid19 can cause pneumonia - walking or otherwise.  But so can other viruses and bacteria. 

yes, there's that, too. Mild pneumonia explains the symptoms but doesn't rule out covid. I wouldn't be doing anything differently if I knew it was covid (if, on the other hand, I'd known it was walking pneumonia at the time, I'd have gotten antibiotics and maybe been able to knock it out earlier--but I wasn't about to go to the doctor unless it was an emergency; eventually I did a tele-visit and got a script--but by then it was just about over and I didn't ever fill it).

[Ottakee]

14 hours ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

I did over three months after I was quite sick for six weeks. It was negative. I wonder if I waited too long. The symptoms weren’t like any cold or flu that I have had before but maybe it wasn’t Covid 19. I won’t ever know, I guess. 

I had the classic covid pneumonia on x Ray, difficulty breathing, cough, fever, etc back in Feb.   I did the antibody test ....but it was when it was first available....and it was over 3 months later and it came back negative.  It might have been too far out for that test 

I donate blood next week and they do a free antibody test so we will see what that says.

[1GirlTwinBoys]

So my blood test showed that I do have the COVID antibodies.