ALS News Today Forums Forums COVID-19 and ALS Omicron – Oh my!

  • Omicron – Oh my!

    Posted by Amanda on January 31, 2022 at 7:50 am

    As most of you know I’m a moderator on the forum because my family has a significant history of familial ALS. I think we have lost 14 members, and currently I have one cousin my age (50s) with ALS. I tested positive for the SOD1 mutation about 12 years ago and have been participating in the pre-fALS study since. I have not been diagnosed with ALS, I have been told their are abnormalities in all my testing and I show some symptoms, but those symptoms are not significant and they are not progressing yet. So ALS is not an underlying condition for me.

    So when the pandemic started the only underlying health condition I have is mild asthma. For half the year I live alone, and from about December to May mom mom stays with me to escape the Maryland winters. I work in the schools with kinder – 8th grade. Of course in the beginning we were working remotely and let me tell you for a school psychologist that is not a lot of fun and it’s kind of challenging. I would much rather be working in a face-to-face setting with students. I was and continue to be extremely careful and mindful of safety practices. Many of the students I work with are being raised by elderly grandparents who do have underlying health conditions, or the children themselves have health conditions. I have always been diligent and gone the extra mile to ensure that everything I used was sanitized, everyone in and out of my testing rooms washed their hands before and after touching anything, wearing face coverings and anything else that followed the district’s COVID safety protocols. I think it worked because I hadn’t had even a slight old until January 2022!

    I thought this variant was supposed to be mild. I’m fully vaccinated and it had me down and out of work most of January, and my mom was in the hospital for a week. Now, she is unvaccinated, smokes and has copd. I know, a bad combination, but she is my mom and she makes her own choices. We don’t always agree, but we do accept the other’s decisions.

    I’m so careful mainly because I respect other people and I want to be a responsible community member. I don’t want this to be a political debate about COVID or conspiracy theories – anything is possible and not really the point of this post. If you are a caregiver or pALS are you continuing to do anything differently as the pandemic continues? As new variants spring up do you pay attention to the new information and does that change anything for you? Or are you over the pandemic and continuing with life without being overly concerned for face masks and such?

    Jerry Fabrizio replied 1 year, 7 months ago 2 Members · 1 Reply
  • 1 Reply
  • Jerry Fabrizio

    Member
    September 27, 2022 at 3:32 pm

    Hi,

    I think I got the Omicron two weeks ago.  I know I have Covid not sure which variant.  This is my second fight with Covid, so it is different than the first   This time sniffles and temperature with body tired.  Lungs were affected a little also.

    Not too bad I am recovering well now.  I did get a monoclonal antibody infusion a couple of days ago and I am sure that helped.

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