My parents went on a two week vacation to Switzerland and have been back in the United States for around a week. In the last few days they’ve gotten very sick. The symptoms seem like covid or the flu, but my dad said their doctor ruled those out as well as strep throat. I’m sure they ran additional tests as well. Has anyone heard about something like this going around? Should I be concerned? FWIW I’ve been around them the entire time they’ve been sick and I haven’t caught anything.
COVID/flu symptoms are the same symptoms as a lot of things, so hard to say anything about what they have based on those symptoms. If their doctor is decent, your best advice is to just let them do their thing. You’re not going to get a useful diagnosis from the Lemmy community.
I should stop there, but I came here to answer the title of your post. Yes, my dad died of something they never figured out. Was very strange.
My wife’s stepfather got something while working in Africa that destroyed his liver over the course of months. He finally had to get a transplant. Cause was never identified.
A friend sent some time in an induced coma while they tried to sort out her situation. Turned out to be Zika. She “recovered” but isn’t the same. Several strokes, etc.
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Swiss here, can’t say I know about sudden weird illnesses going around. If I where to point some fingers I would probably mention the ac in the plane and maybe exhaustion due to physical activity.
My dad has had flu-like symptoms ending in a lingering cough that went away for about a week before coming back with a vengeance. He finally got diagnosed last week, parainfluenza RNA. Maybe look into that? Lot of people been sick with something flu-like lately.
He’s also not contagious and the doctor only gave him an asthma puffer because he was having trouble breathing recently but mostly he’s just been taking cough mixture to reduce the symptoms.Last month when I went on vacation, I caught something while on the vacation. I would have sworn it was Covid or flu but tests came back negative. Just a bad viral infection. I guess those still exist.
How did they rule out COVID or the flu? Most tests that US doctors use are not very good at ruling out either, just confirming. They can do true positives but are not as good at true negatives. Also, to be blunt, many people are in denial about COVID and fib to themselves and others about it. “They ruled it out” might really mean, “we downplayed some of our symptoms and the doctor said that might mean COVID is unlikely”.
But there are many respiratory illnesses aside from COVID and the flu and ones that cause a scratchy throat aside from strep throat, which is caused by just one type of bacteria.
I recommend masking in shared indoor spaces to protect yourself. This will also make you better able to help them if needed. And wash your hands + avoid touching your face when around them.
