Is it just a bad cold? Shifting symptoms for 2+ weeks

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Everything started over two weeks ago - I started losing my voice. This is undoubtedly related to my new job: teaching summer school for primary grades, where I was constantly talking and projecting my voice. It came with a mild sore throat. These were the only symptoms for about 5 days, right up until the end of summer school/interacting with kids (I suspect I did catch something then, though).

After that, I started having more symptoms: runny or stuffed nose, cough, some slight pressure headaches. These lasted about 4 days. I felt no body aches, never had a fever, and was able to go through my day as usual but with more nose-blowing and hand-washing.

Then one day I had severe fatigue, body aches, slight nausea, and no fever on top of the wet coughs and runny/stuffed nose. These symptoms lasted maybe six hours and were completely gone after a two-hour nap that same day. I have not experienced any of those symptoms since.

However, for the last five days, my symptoms have looked like this:

-My wet cough that had been producing yellowish green mucus/phlegm all along started to spit out pale green globs of goo (more jelly-like in consistency) and then became altogether dry. It is now a very loud, barking, chesty/rattling cough and rarely produces phlegm.

-My nose is still running and/or stuffed most of the day and night.

-I still have no body aches or fever, but I now have soreness just below my ribs/sternum when I cough, and I suppose I've hurt my upper diaphragm from coughing.

I very rarely am sick and haven't sought an appointment with my doctor because I've felt as though I am still able to function with my normal life and the main discomfort I feel is annoyance that I cough so loudly/aggressively. I am just baffled as to what in the world this is - is it a bad cold? Is there a major red flag here I'm not seeing?

Thank you in advance. (And sorry for the length - I wanted to be thorough)

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1 Reply

  • Posted

    School kid's teacher catches every thing going at first, hopefully it is just that. My friend had one thing after another for almost a year when she first started teaching 5 year olds, now she is one of the healthiest people going, never seems to catch anything, built up a massive immunity is my guess.

    I would go to the doctor re the cough though. The discomfort you experience is probably from this cough but best to make sure.

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