My wife and I were intimate on Saturday afternoon. Sunday morning, she woke up with a horrible sore throat and temperature. We went to the doctor and she was diagnosed with strep throat and given antibiotics.
I know there’s no way to know if I’ll come down with it until the incubation period has passed and I haven’t shown any signs, or if I do get an outbreak…
So the question is - how long until I’m in the clear if I don’t get symptoms???
Strep symptoms might typically develop a few days post-exposure. We’re pretty much talking sore throats here, what with your lip obsession and all, right? Just the facial lips? “Intimate” brings in diagnoses such as gonococcal pharyngitis so I’m just assuming we’re talking strep–or at least, ordinary sore throats.
Assuming your wife has acute streptococcal pharyngitis (and that’s a whole other discussion–look up other threads here) and was given an appropriate antibiotic such as penicillin in appropriate doses, practically speaking she’ll be non-contagious in a couple or three days, so let’s call your clear period a week or so out from when she started taking antibiotics.
There are lots of fine points. For one thing, a lot of sore throats diagnosed as “strep” are not, and a lot of folks are put on antibiotic courses weaker than an injection of penicillin, and a lot of folks hide strep in their tonsils even when their clinical symptoms clear. But it’s a pretty benign disease, so don’t sweat it too much.
Oddly enough, this question kind of hits close to home since nearly three weeks ago my sister was diagnosed with infectious strep. I had been around her just before she was diagnosed so looked up the incubation period on-line. Apparently, once you begin taking antibiotics, your infectious period ends about 24 to 48 hours later.
Not sure if perhaps I wasn’t entirely clear.
I am wondering if my contact this past weekend from my wife may have infected me, not how soon I can again have contact with her and be safe. How long until I will know if I am not getting sick?