I might have gotten it from my campus workplace, where it is rampant, though it really could have come from anywhere. First came the post-nasal drip, then a sore throat that kept me up all night. The doc put me on amoxicillin immediately. Over the next few days, all it did was get worse. I went back and got azithromycin (five times as strong as amoxi), which seems to be working, though the improvement is slow since I didn’t get the azith until the 23rd, and this mess started around the 17th.
I have been through so much Kleenex that a small forest must have been destroyed to provide it all. I’m working on a bottle of Robitussin, I’ve used a neti pot, have run the humidifer with Vapo Steam mixed into the water, have been resting as much as possible, missed more than a week of work (I’m sure the students are happy not to be in class, but they have sent me some very nice and encouraging emails), coughed my head off, blown my nose so much I thought my brains would come shooting out, gone through half a bag of cough drops, drunk gallons of fluids, and even had my neighbors attend to my trash barrels because I didn’t have the energy to do it myself.
I appear to be slowly clearing up but my ears are still stuffy. The doc said I might need a chest x-ray if this persistent cough doesn’t quit pretty soon.
It’s hard to think with a head full of goop. I hope I made some sense.
Go ahead and pit your own infections, pains, and anything similar. Let’s pool the misery!
I got a sore throat last week, which has now snowballed into bronchitis, a sinus infection, an ear infection, and conjunctivitis. I can neither hear nor see. I’m Helen Fucking Keller over here.
I’ve been out since Tuesday with the sore throat from hell. It started off slowly, but now I can barely swallow and I have gone through about 2,000,000 mg of Ibu in the past couple days. I have completely lost my voice, and since I talk for a living that means I had to cancel every single class I had scheduled all week. Every time I try and go to sleep I have to carefully balance the need for a Cepacol lozenge to numb my throat and the desire to not choke to death in my sleep. It’s been great.
For the next two-three weeks, I’ll sound like I have my head in a fishbowl, my eyes will look like I’ve been on a bender, my nose like I should lead Santa’s sleigh and I’ll smell like vapo-rub and Hall’s cough drops. And that’s with drugs!
It wouldn’t be so bad if I hadn’t just recovered from the flu from hell.
I have something in my shoulders which seems like it is probably tendonitis. It’s sort of cycling through, starting in one shoulder, now that one is getting better the other one is worse. I have been having it “treated” by a chiropractor, who has done good things for me before in other areas, and last time I saw her she said she was “running out of tricks”. This did not inspire confidence.
Just reaching forward with nothing in my hand can cause an intense twinge, and of course every time I get one of these twinges there is not only the momentary pain, but also the knowledge that I have probably just further inflamed that particular tendon.
Crap on a cracker. I hate the idea that the older I get the more of this kind of crap I have to put up with, until I’m some kind of immobile lump with continence issues. I’m only 60, for crying out loud. Give me my pain-free shoulders back, dammit!
Roddy
Sorry to hear about that, viv. If it’s any consolation, it seems that half my friends have, or had, the same thing this month. Something horrible is going around.
I’ve had a recurring sickness for years that the doc can’t figure out. I feel just like a bad virus coming on for about a week at a time, several times a year. It always feels the same. Doc sent me to an immunologist to see if it wasn’t lupus, and it was ruled out. But now that I read about all the myriad immune disorders out there, I think he was on to something and that I have some sort of immune deficiency. However, I read that these disorders are hard to pin down and diagnose. All the docs have to go on is my claim of feeling sick, which is hard for them to measure. I’ve got it again now and I’m bloody sick of it.
The aches are settling across my shoulders right now. The nose is complaining. My voice is going off in odd directions. Could be a cold. Could be a flu. Could just be allergies. Regardless, not feeling that great.
The thing is - not sick enough to truly warrant sympathy, but not well enough to get all my work done.
Sorry to hear this. Sounds familiar, though I never had the conjunctivitis.
I feel really bad that I (?) passed this on to my elderly, asthma-prone mom. Got her to urgent care and on doxycycline immediately. At least she had the pneumonia immunization and booster.
Are you me?? I just went back to the doc today for the second set of chest xrays, a steroid shot, and antibiotic booster shot (which hurt like hell), refill on the expectorant, and a second round of antibiotics. I have all the same symptoms you have. It sucks. I’m going on week 3 of this crap.
Hope you’re feeling better soon…drink lots of fluids!
For me it was the 12 hour flu. It was the chirp of the smoke detector that awoke me. Not feeling right, I get up and discover the power is out. Then it hits me, the stomach flu.
So all night long while getting sick I have to fend in the dark and without water. Not fun. I had to hunt down flashlight, basin, and handsanitizer. A little later, sweating, and feeling delerious I am solely concerned with clean water to flush. So in the middle of the night, I take a bucket and my flashlight down to the lake to grab a bucket of water. Its 62 steps down, back at the top of the stairs I nearly passed out. But it was a pretty night, bright moon, gentle breeze, geese honking, for a while I stood there trying not to faint, the view somewhat psychedelic in my misery. But for all that, it was only a 1/2 bucket of water which just filled the toilet and didn’t flush it.
At that point I gave up on sanitary, and waited for the dawn. Luckily the lights returned just before the dawn. I slept all day.
Thank you, and likewise. I’m hoping I didn’t pass it on to anyone in my office, and glad that I haven’t given it to my boyfriend (yet irrationally pissed off that he doesn’t have the good grace to get sick with me. )
It’s the ear thing that’s really killing me. I’ve never had an ear infection, and I suppose I’m lucky it doesn’t actually hurt, but it’s unbelievably uncomfortable (I feel like something’s squirming around in there :eek:) and I can hardly hear anything, except for my own voice, which sounds like it’s coming over the mega-est megaphone known to man.
I have allergies, but usually they are mild. During spring and winter, I may get the sniffles here and there and have to sleep with a roll of tissue near my bed so I can blow my nose, but this spring has been the worse allergy attack I’ve ever had. I hate it. My nose is stuffed half the time, I’m sneezing all the time, and it’s lasted longer and been more severe than any time I can remember
I came back from a nice weekend in the mountains to an inflamed tonsil. It was starting to go into my glands in my neck and creeping towards my ears, but I slept A LOT, took extra Vitamin C, and took it easy, and I seemed to have headed it off at the pass. From your description, it sounds like I dodged a bullet (fingers crossed, of course).
In exchange, I have a sore back today. Oh well - what can you do?
I have an autoimmune disorder that doesn’t really affect my quality of life. Been diagnosed with alopecia areata (and androgenic alopecia) since I was 18. I’m thankful that it’s not life threatening, but I wish it would just go awayyyyy!!!
)