(Yeah, I know. I come out of lurking to post this.)
I know medical advice threads are frowned upon so, before I say anything else, let me mention that I already saw an urgent care doctor about it this evening and have started taking the meds he prescribed, I’ll be talking to my primary doctor on Monday, and if I feel worse before then I’ll go to the ER. No advice in this thread changes any of that, unless of course you all think the urgent care doc is actually an assassin who is trying to kill me to prevent me from turning into the worst superhero ever, Amanda, the Girl Who Can Shoot Pus From Her Eyes. (And no, I am not making that my new username.)
Also, I am terribly sorry about the horrifying thread title. But you have to admit it caught your attention.
OK, so here’s my story: Woke up on Monday with a fever, vomiting, and a slightly sore throat. Assumed it was a stomach bug. Tuesday, more of the same, but the nausea was gone. Wednesday, I had a slight fever and my sinuses were stuffed up, so I figured maybe it wasn’t a stomach bug after all. Maybe it was an incredibly bad cold.
And then it got weird.
I woke up in the middle of the night to find my eyelids had crusted shut. This probably should have freaked me out, but I remembered that this used to happen when I was little and would get sick, so I washed the crust off and that was that. Went to work that morning (for the first time all week) feeling like I was getting over a cold: coughing, blowing my nose, but otherwise fine.
End of the day rolls around, and I start feeling sick again. My throat suddenly hurts again, and my eyes are red and watery. I get on the bus to go home and by the time I get to my stop I can barely see because of all the watery pus that’s coming out of my tear ducts. My dad drives me to an urgent care facility.
The doctor seems like he’s in a rush to get this over with, so he looks at my eyes and throat and then this lovely conversation happens:
Doc: “Don’t worry, this is all normal. Here’s a prescription for eye drops and antibiotics”
Me: “You’re giving me antibiotics for a cold?” :dubious:
Doc: “No, your throat looks like you have strep.”
Me: “Wait, I have strep throat? And the eye thing? Do I have pink eye or something?”
Doc: “No, that’s a symptom of strep.”
So now I’m on the antibiotics and eye drops, it’s 4:30 AM and I can’t sleep because my throat hurts so much and my eyes are annoying as hell. And so I turn to the smartest internet group I know to ask the questions that plague my mind:
Is it normal to diagnose strep without doing one of those throat test things? To be fair, my throat feels exactly like it did the one other time I had strep, so I’m not really doubting the diagnosis. I just think it’s weird.
What the hell is wrong with my eyes? The internet doesn’t say that it’s a symptom of strep. If it’s pink eye, will the antibiotics help it anyway?
Did I somehow manage to have three different diseases all in the span of one week? My throat hurt when I had a fever but not like this. And I still have a stuffed up, runny nose. That’s not a strep throat symptom, right? Can I have a cold, strep throat, and pink eye all at once?
Assuming it’s strep, how long until the antibiotics do their thing? I took one at 9 PM and was told to take them twice a day for ten days, so I guess I’ll be taking the next at 9 AM (in about 5 hours). Am I looking at more than 24 hours of feeling like a sword swallower who made a terrible mistake (and also has pus-filled eyes for some reason)?
(oh, and I apologize if this is the wrong forum. I debated back and forth over GQ and IMHO, but settled on GQ because my questions are mostly factual.)