My strep appears to be back.
I've been feeling worse and worse since early September. Tired, tired and more tired. We did our Rainshadow Concert, with three two hour rehearsals in the evening that week, two concerts on the weekend. By Sunday evening my chest ached the way it did with the two rounds I've had with strep A, pneumonia and infected muscles. Strep A of the muscles hurts. All my muscles felt like a bad strep throat.
Anyhow, for October we put Mordechai, the clinic plastic skeleton, in the waiting room in a chair. We change her outfits and have two wigs and sometimes she has no wig or a hat. Partway through the month I gave her a sign: "Please wear a mask if you are sick." I had gotten a cold from someone who didn't put on a mask and I was just so tired. Had to cancel two days of clinic for that cold and then dragged the rest of the week and felt like crap all weekend.
Hoped to rest the four days over Thanksgiving. Now I was noticing the little creeping cough that was getting worse. This strain of strep A is not in the throat. It's lower, trachea and then will creep into pneumonia. Testing again and back on antibiotics.
And then a patient came back in after seeing me and the Urgent Care, creeping cough, in her upper chest, getting worse. The Urgent Care did a urine: she has a little protein. There should not be any protein. That's my bug, this strain causes a very mild proteinuria and walking pneumonia that can build up over 1-2 months. Damn it.
I went to my dentist. Asked how he was. "Fine, but my wife got a strep throat and they had to use two antibiotics. The first one wasn't working."
"Was the first one zithromax?"
"Yes." he said, puzzled.
"And then did they use penicillin or clindamycin?"
"Clindamycin. And that worked right away!"
"We have a strain around here that is resistant to zithromax. Dang it."
I've been seeing it every two years since 2012. Sigh. Guess I will dip a urine on anyone with a worsening cough. Because most of it's viral, but..... And zithromax is the go to for walking pneumonia. Now 50% of the strains of streptococcus pneumonia are resistant to it. Zithromax works still for Bordetella pertussis and Chlamydia pneumonia and Mycoplasma pneumonia....
There are over 4000 known strains of strep A, which is different from strep pneumonia.
Six days into the antibiotics and I am finally feeling human again. The last two weeks was so bad that I was falling asleep immediately after dinner, as early as 4:30 pm. This bug is so sneaky....
IRON NODER: TOKYO DRIFT