I Had Omicron

I am pretty sure I had Omicron in January.  I say “pretty sure” because I did not confirm infection with a PCR test.  By now you know why I think most of these tests are unnecessary.  It felt like a cold, and a rather mild cold at that.  Most people in my family had the same symptoms; I encouraged them not to test, and they did not.  I remember that people around me felt sick too—some took time off work, some blamed allergies.  I am pretty sure it was COVID.  

We were on vacation at the time, lest you worry I spread my infection to sick people, although I did take a flight home while still stuffy.  Masks on airplanes were still mandatory at the time.  

But I hedged my bets.  I took hydroxychloroquine for a week.  I tripled my daily vitamin D, did daily nasal washes, and started taking Dr. Zelenko’s Z-stack vitamins (I haven’t stopped taking those).  I never lost taste; I never lost smell.  It took me a month to shake the sniffles, but nothing else lasted more than 36 hours.  

My wife, Liz, never felt ill.  She has lupus and has taken hydroxychloroquine for years.  Maybe that is why.  

Back up a bit.  I am pretty sure we avoided COVID before then.  Liz and I were extra careful.  She has an autoimmune disease, and I work near sick people.  We weren’t taking any chances.  We cancelled vacation plans (not the vacations, just the plans), and found we could live quite comfortably—enjoyably, even—at home.  Alone.  We did not go out to eat.  We stopped shopping in the mall.  We became friends with Doordashers, the Amazon Delivery persons, and other deliverers of our on-line shopping selections—at an appropriate social distance, of course.  We picked up groceries curbside.  We went out rarely, and when we did, we masked religiously.

We both took Johnson and Johnson vaccines in March 2021, and my wife instantly had a lupus flare.  The migraines which she had previously experienced once a month became daily, painful affairs.  She had to change medications to a more powerful and (any surprise?) much more expensive drug.  She still has ringing in her ears and extra pain in her joints that she dates from the shot.  Migraines are no longer daily, but still more frequent than before.  I was skeptical of mRNA technology from the start, but I regret the decision to take a vaccine.

I am a curious person, and life had presented us with the opportunity to study something that had never been studied before.  I began measuring antibody levels in friends and colleagues who had made a variety of choices about vaccination and COVID precautions.  We identified some people who had had COVID but did not know it.  We identified people who had COVID after vaccine.  We learned early on that Moderna produces the highest immune response, and we learned that vaccine did not add much immunity to people who had disease.  Some people, including me, had little immune response to vaccine.

The antibody tests available then were not very good, and they kept changing, making it impossible to track serology over time.  That is why Liz and I joined the TXCares study.  After answering some questions, we measured the S-protein and N-protein antibodies in our blood three times over six months.  Here are our results:

S-antibodies (S-Ab) can come from either infection or vaccine, but N-antibodies (N-Ab) can come only from infection.  Since our S- and N-antibodies increased in February, I am pretty sure we had COVID in January during the Omicron wave.  

Antibody tests are still not very good.  For example, I consider the change in N-protein levels from nil to barely detectable significant, even though our levels did not reach the arbitrary positive level of 1.  But at least these tests were consistent over time, and the results corresponded with our clinical history.

How do I feel now?  For starters, we are not scared of COVID anymore.  We do not mask (except at the hospital), we do not avoid people, and we shake hands again.  The only current lifestyle impact is the continued coercion to vaccinate.  If an activity requires a vaccine card, we avoid it.  That means we still do not travel internationally, and we do not patronize certain entertainment venues, including, regrettably, venues we once loved.  But that is it.  Otherwise, we are normal again.  Well, maybe not quite.  My wife’s lupus is worse, and I have a positive d-Dimer, but that is a story for another day.

Antibody levels consistently and reliably inform on immunity, yet they are spectacularly underutilized.  Perhaps this is because they are spectacularly inexpensive.  Consistent, reliable, and actionable information is not what the game is about right now.  If spike protein antibodies are a good thing, and I am still not sure they are, Liz and I have plenty to spare.  But we were going to have them sooner or later.  COVID is not going away until most of us catch the virus.  Vaccinated or not, most of us have.