Strep infection not responding to antibiotics? - UPDATE - 9 days no better - opinions welcomed!

[Heavenly]

I was diagnosed with strep throat on Monday, December 12.  The doctor prescribed penicillin and by Wednesday I was feeling a lot better and by Thursday the sore throat was gone.  Last night before bed my throat started hurting again and this morning I woke up in terrible pain and feeling even worse than I did on Monday.  I went to the clinic and they said that the swab was highly positive for strep.  So now they've put me on cefprozil which they said should knock it but may not.  If not I'm not sure what the next step is.  Has anyone here ever had a strep infection that doesn't respond to antibiotics?  I feel horribly ill and Christmas is in one week!

Edited by Heavenly - 12/20/11 at 9:18am

[katelove]

How many days did you take the Penicillin for? A standard course over here is 10 days, with 2 weeks being pretty common for more serious infections.

How long have you been taking the new antibiotic? It usually takes a couple of days to see improvement, as you found with the penicillin.

Gargling (then swallowing) soluble aspirin can help with the pain, assuming you don't have any reason not to take aspirin. And a chlorhexidine mouthwash is a good gargle if you find that you get really bad breath.

Hope you're feeling better soon.

[Heavenly]

On December 12 I was prescribed a 10 day course of antibiotics (penicillin).  I took the doses at the appropriate time.  On December 18 I was started on cefprozil and I have now had 5 doses (2.5 days) worth of it with no improvement.  Throat is still killing me, still spiking fevers, very weak and shaky. I am starting to think I should go back in because this is obviously not working.

[katelove]

Do you know why they stopped the penicillin early? For a resistant bout it's not unheard of to not see improvement for several days but, if you're concerned, then definitely go back to them. Do you know if they ordered sensitivities with the culture? That's really the only way to tell if you're getting the correct antibiotics if you have a strain which is resistant to the common ones.

[Heavenly]

They stopped the penicillin because I'd already been on it for 6 days with no improvement.  Tuesday evening I ended up at the hospital for 8 hrs (from 4pm to 12am) because my fever spiked to almost 104 degrees.  When they saw that they took me right back to treatment.  They did a bunch of blood work and put me on IV with saline fluid, steroids (to decrease the swelling in my throat because I couldn't even swallow my saliva), some kind of stronger antibiotic, something for nausea and a couple different things to stop the fever.  There was a bit of a scare when my temp dropped 8 degrees in an hour and a half when they gave me meds.  It was down to 96 degrees.  It ended up going down to 95 degrees.  They said to give it a few days to go back up to a normal level.  It is hovering around 96.5 now so that's not too bad.  They said the infection is on its way out but for some reason I was stuck in a high fever and that the reason my throat hurts so bad is that there are open sores on my tonsils.  They sent me home with a prescription throat gargle to use every 1-2 hrs and a prescription for oxycodone.  The fever hasn't come back so I am happy with that but I still very, very weak.  When I got home from the hospital I went to bed and was woken up at 5am with my oldest two vomitting so they've been home the last two days.  I banished them to the basement recroom so we didn't expose each other to anything and they seem to be feeling a lot better.  Just hoping Christmas will bring health to us all!

[katelove]

Glad things are slowly improving. You've had a rough time! I hope you and your kids are well enough to enjoy Christmas.