Don't Ignore Strep

I had ignored a minor sore throat (with tonsillar involvement).

I had just used salt water and gargled and it seemed to get better.

Then later I got very sick and ended up in the hospital.

The doctor told me I had scarlet fever (or scarlatina if you live in the nineteenth century as I sometimes do).

Later, when I read the symptoms at Wiki I realized I had like twelve out of thirteen symptoms or something like that anyway.

It was a horrible experience.

I'm still on antibiotic and I'm hoping I didn't get one of the resistant strains or strains that recur.

I'm also hoping I didn't actually go over to rheumatic fever which can cause permanent heart damage. I did start getting some of the arthritic bone symptoms very slightly and I don't have problems like that normally.

The pathology of rheumatic fever is actually very similar to that of devastating auto-immune diseases. It's the similarity of the antigen to composing elements of human tissue which results in the antibodies mistakenly attacking your body.

Some doctors now believe that Strep A might be able to engender lupus, RA and even MS through this process.

I believe I sustained some brain damage (I have memory and cognitive problems lately) by going so long without antibiotic.

But my symptoms were largely subclinical until this thing suddenly went haywire.

I never even got fever (just fluctuations that were abnormal but under 99 degrees--except when I had panic attacks...as in, "WTF is this?!")

I used the opportunity to get checked for a host of other horrible diseases and everything came back negative.

And I had encountered some of the weirder symptoms with strep (peeling of feet...that was WEIRD...and even hives..which I never had before in my life).

My brother was also diagnosed with strep in the past few weeks and I haven't been around him in months and months.

I think a horrible strain of this came into our area recently.

I wish this would have been diagnosed sooner but clinic medicine isn't always the best.

When I realized I had something very serious and there was no longer any way to avoid the "monetary hit," I went to a very good hospital.

That doctor diagnosed me in the first five minutes once he listened to my list of symptoms.

Don't fuck around with strep.

But the problem is, in adults the sore throat is often very minor (as it was with me).

But if you see tonsillar exudates, definitely make the trip to the doctor.

Doesn't necessarily mean it's strep, but it might be.