I woke up today with all the signs of strep throat (again). I saw my son yesterday, and he was sick, but it doesn’t seem like whatever he had could have incubated in me overnight. Don’t most cold-type germs take a few days to incubate?
What I think is more likely is that last week, I was digging in some juniper at a client’s house. He used to have a big pine tree; it died, and the guys that cut it down didn’t cover the juniper, so there is a thick layer of dead pine needles throughout the shrubbery. This has resulted in rainwater being trapped in the juniper roots, and the whole underside of the shrubbery is white with mold and mildew, and all the branches are rotting. So I tried to shake and scoop out as much of the rotting stuff as I could. But I seem to vaguely recall the same thing happening to me last year. (i.e., I was digging in the juniper and got sick.)
My question is: where does streptococcus hang out in the wild? Is it exclusively to be found in mammalian hosts, or does it occur in any favorable conditions and glom onto you if it can?
Yes, but the exact time to onset of symptoms depends on the individual. It’s possible for a person to be asymptomatic and infect someone else, and yet both display symptoms at the same time. It just means the scond person progressed to symptomatic stage faster.
Of course the simplest explanation is that it’s coincidental. Two people having a sore throat at the same time in the dead of winter is hardly surprising.
It’s certainly possible to get lung and throat infections from molds and mildews. Nothing to do with Streptococcus. The fungal spores just germinate in your throat and start to grow. It’s probably worth getting a doctor to check out if it lasts more than a few days. Fungal respiratory infections can get nasty.
Alternatively, the irritation from the fungal spores may have weakened the membrane of the throat, and made infection by streptococcus more likely.
There are lot of species. Several of them are a normal part of your mouth and gut flora. You carry them all the time. The disease causing forms, AFAIK, are all obligate pathogens, meaning they have to be living on some person or animal.