I just noticed the mucosa around the nasopharyngeal side of my right choana (the place where the nasal cavity empties into the upper throat) feels slightly inflamed. This is typically the first signal that I am getting an upper respiratory infection (cold, flu, covid). Similar feelings can occasionally be caused by minor trauma, such as food or a pill going down badly and stretching the tissue. But I haven't noticed anything like that, and generally I would notice.

Whenever I've noticed the choana thing in the past, another 24h has always been sufficient time for me to become more sick, and also much more confident that I am. So I'll resolve this tomorrow at 3:00 pm EDT. Then, if I am 95% confident I am infected, I will assume I was already infected at the time of market creation and resolve YES, otherwise NO.

Earlier today, before noticing the irritation, I also noted I was feeling some brain fog / anhedonia, which would be consistent with malaise at the beginning of an illness. It's at the edge of day-to-day variation though, and might not mean much.

I started taking zinc lozenges within an hour of noticing. This is the first time I have tried this. After talking to ChatGPT + Claude I am unsure that the lozenges I bought will help even if this is a virus, because they contain citric acid, a chelating agent that binds up free zinc and should reduce the antiviral effect. I did choose a formulation with as little citric acid as possible, but all the formulations (5 of them) that I checked at two pharmacies had some citric acid, and so long as it's present at all in a product, there'll probably be enough of it to chelate all 5-10 mg of zinc.

On the other hand, chelation prevents the zinc from tasting like fire, which I guess is why the manufacturers would corrupt their medicine with chelators. I'll look for maximally yucky chelator-free lozenges to order in preparation for next time.

Sorbitol, mannitol, glycine are also chelators and could cause similar issues as lozenge ingredients.