Swollen throat forever

[Oliwerko]

Hi there mates.

Oh well, another health-related topic.
Today is a month since I got sick. A month ago, I woke up with a swollen throat that lasted a week pretty unchanged (despite all the herbs/teas/tinctures/rest I got) so I went do my doctor to have a look at it, because after the week, it got worse, the pain was less pronounced with swallowing but the root of my tongue hurt pretty bad. Anyway, the doctor prescribed me antibiotics, 500mg twice a day, no weak stuff, for 10 days. During that 10 days it really got better (during the first two of them anyway), but not perfectly. Three days after I finished taking these pills, the pain returned. Less serious, but my throat was still red and swollen. So I went to the doctors again, she has made some blood tests and so on, all of which were negative. So it's a month from the initial illness and approx. week and a half from the negative test results. According to them, I should be fit, but still, the tongue root and lower throat aches.

Actually, I've had problems recovering from an illness in October, when it also lasted very long. The thing is, what to do now? With tests being negative, I should be healthy. Or could it be that I recovered from the bacterial disease with the antibiotics and catched a viral one immediately after? I guess my next step would be to go to an allergologist/immunologist, it seems to me that it could be an allergy/immunity-related problem (although I wish it wasn't).

Do any of you have similar experience?
I'm just tired of being ill for months. It's no good that when I catch some illness, I'm ill so long. Do any of you have any ideas what the problem could be?

Many thanks lads.

[RickJ]

For the last several years I have been catching a cold or something in my chest.  It always comes on me in mid september and it stays with me for months.   Just as you describe antibiotics chase it away but when the antibiotics are done the illness comes back.   Finally the doctor told me to keep better control of my blood glucose level.  I took his advice and that seemed to help me quite a bit.   Perhaps something similar is happening with you.

[Meowster]

Could you have some kind of auto immune deficiency disorder-type thing? A chap I know of has something that effects his immune system and makes him very prone to be struck down badly by illnesses, and for prolonged periods of time.

I think I could be talking about this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immunodeficiency

Unfortunately I don't know the chap well enough to walk up to him and ask him what health problems he has exactly  

[MoodyBlues]

No idea what the problem could be, but I hope you feel better soon.  It sucks to have an illness drag on like that.

[Anian]

Yeah, it really could be some immunologic disorder...although dr. House says it's not lupus.  
Maybe tonsils, don't know if you had them removed or not, but I guess your docotr would've noticed that sort of thing.

[Oliwerko]

Thanks for replies guys,

Finally the doctor told me to keep better control of my blood glucose level.

As far as I know I'm okay with that.

Could you have some kind of auto immune deficiency disorder-type thing? A chap I know of has something that effects his immune system and makes him very prone to be struck down badly by illnesses, and for prolonged periods of time.

I think I could be talking about this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immunodeficiency

It could be, however the funny thing is that the tests are negative. Maybe I'll give it another shot by monday to be completely sure it's not just prolonged bacteriologic disease.

No idea what the problem could be, but I hope you feel better soon.  It sucks to have an illness drag on like that.

Thanks 

Yeah, it really could be some immunologic disorder...although dr. House says it's not lupus. 
Maybe tonsils, don't know if you had them removed or not, but I guess your docotr would've noticed that sort of thing.

Yeah, the doctor would notice it I'm sure, as far as I know it has some typical symptoms.

The worst thing I fear is that it's an allergy. You know, the last three days it's more like the aching is actually in my tongue, not the throat. It's weird. The throat aches only a bit, the majority of the pain is in the tongue root. I've never experienced such a thing before 

[Nacho]

Not wanting to be a moderator, but do you people really still post health issues here? Something serious can be going on and you might need to be diagnosed, go to the doctor, for God' s shake!

[Andail]

Nacho, amigo, he just wrote he's been to a doctor several times!

I doubt it's an allergy, as that wouldn't be affected at all by antibiotics. You probably had some sort of infection, and the antibiotics got rid of that particular one, but also weakened your immune system enough to allow for a new infection at the same spot.

Some people tend to be sickly for months and months.
If your doctor has done all the usual tests and they came back negative, all you can do is ingest loads and loads of c-vitamins, and drink water.

[Khris]

all you can do is ingest loads and loads of c-vitamins

No. All those vitamin pills available in pharmacies are merely one big scam, a normal diet provides more than enough of c-vitamins and the others, and taking more doesn't have any positive effect whatsoever.

[Oliwerko]

Khris, he didn't say anything about pills, did he? 

Yeah, I hope it's the case Andail mentioned. Of course, allergy wouldn't be affected, only it got me wondering if an allergy wasn't triggered by the sickness (if I remember correctly, this is a common case?). And yup, I'm drinking lots and lots of tea and eating lots of whatever that has c-vitamin in it, that never does any bad. At least I can normally do things, I'm not having fever or anything, so I guess it just requires time.

[auriond]

In the meantime, honey's really soothing for the throat. If you can, get your hands on some Manuka honey, preferably with a UMF rating of 10+. Two or three tablespoons a day, I forgot which. My brother swears by it since he had a lingering cold and tried some and got better really quick. Of course, I can't promise that it'll work for you, but even if it doesn't, well you just ate some really delicious honey

Oh, and don't forget to use a plastic or wooden spoon. Metal causes oxidation in the honey or something and destroys its beneficial properties, supposedly.

[Nacho]

Nacho, amigo, he just wrote he's been to a doctor several times!

Eeeek... I must stop replying to threads after just taking a glance to the initial post... 

[Oliwerko]

Heh, I didn't really know about the spoons, now it seems pretty logical.
Yeah, I eat some honey (and garlic sometimes too), but it doesn't really make a difference for me. Maybe a different honey would?
Thanks for the advice everyone.

[Andail]

all you can do is ingest loads and loads of c-vitamins

No. All those vitamin pills available in pharmacies are merely one big scam, a normal diet provides more than enough of c-vitamins and the others, and taking more doesn't have any positive effect whatsoever.

First of all, I don't know why you assumed I was talking about vitamin pills. Secondly, there exist plenty of good supplements on the market, as long as you avoid the one-dollar boxes that taste like strawberry, found in supermarkets.
Thirdly, define a "normal" diet. If you think that a typical modern, processed meal, along with all the additives and E-numbers, really constitutes a decent supply of vitamins, think again. Or maybe you live on a farm, with fresh foods that haven't been processed or shipped around the world or deep-frozen?
Fourthly, or wherever I am, some people are in more need of vitamins than other. Some people have a poor absorption of nutrients due to dysfunctional intestinal walls, or for a number of other reasons, and need excessive amounts of vitamins.

Or to sum it up, your "no" has been 0wned

[Khris]

I really don't want to turn this into a discussion about nutrition. But...

What exactly did you mean by "ingest loads and loads of c-vitamins"?
Were you not talking about L-ascorbic acid?
Because if you were, even if one doesn't eat that healthy, the body gets enough of it. Ingesting more than needed (60-100mg/day, depending on which organization you ask) leads to the body simply discarding it.
So no, ingesting loads and loads of c-vitamins doesn't do shit, except one's suffering from scurvy.

If you were talking about something else, I apologize.

And by the way, the equasion "processed/deep-frozen food with additives & E-numbers = unhealthy, bio-food = healthy" is simply bullshit. But don't take my word for it.

[Meowster]

Don't know about l-absorbic acid but actually that equation is quite accurate as far as I know. Vitamins do get destroyed in the cooking, freezing, and soaking processes, and start to deteriorate as soon as the vegetable is picked meaning that - yup, the fresher the better.

If by "bio-food" you mean organic (I'm not too good with all these terms I'm afraid), then as far as I know it does actually make a difference in terms of how healthy it is even if only because organic food tends to go "off" faster and so is generally fresher when consumed. I don't know too much other stuff about organic veg though.

So it is important to eat healthily or you will suffer ill effects from it and one of the symptoms can be a lowered immune system of course. And eating a lot of processed/frozen food is notoriously bad for you... lots of fresh veggies and fruits and fish, nom nom nom!

[BOYD1981]

I must actually agree with the positive affects of healthy living; last year I decided to really cut back on sugary foods, drinks and junk food in general and stopped drinking fizzy drinks and instead just stick to bottled water, and I feel a lot better. I also have the advantage of not smoking and hardly ever drinking alcohol.
It really does seem like such an obvious thing to say but if you give it long enough (like a couple of months rather than days) healthy eating really will have you feeling better.

[Khris]

@Meowster: That's the general public's view, and that's the reason why organic food can be sold at higher prices.
This view stems from the popular belief that "artificial/industrial/processed = bad, natural = good", which, of course, is also not always true, not even most of the time.
Here's a study that nicely links both recent topics:
A comparison of the vitamin C content of fresh and frozen vegetables

There are many similar wrong ideas that are widely believed to be true, e.g. that fast food is bad in general.
But eating a Big Mac every day is fine, as long as you balance it with, say, a glass of orange juice.
Another example are the alleged beneficial effects of eating green salad. It has the nutritional value of a piece of paper.
Or take diets: a diet will cause a gain of weight, not weight-loss. Exercise will cause weight-loss, a diet will simply make the body use better what ends up inside of it, thus decrease what gets discarded.

(Note that these are not personal beliefs I just pulled out of my ass but insight gained from scientific studies.)

But, like I said, this thread is about Oliwerko's swollen throat, so unless it's OK with him, we might discuss this in another thread.

[monkey0506]

Khris, I've never personally researched it, so I'm not staking a claim as to having a clue what I'm talking about, but per that Wikipedia article you linked to, the Vitamin C Foundation recommends "up to 30,000 mg during illness."

It's not very explicit as to what "illness" but that's definitely much higher than the 100mg you previously referenced. And according to their own webpage Vitamin C in high doses cures everything from asthma to diabetes!

As far as the swollen throat goes, I don't really have any suggestions there...Drink Listerine! Drink Listerine!... :

But I've had similar long-lasting ailments before (perhaps not quite as long) and I know one thing for sure...it sucks. Sorry to hear you're having a bad time with it man. Best of luck to you.

[Khris]

Yeah, you'll notice that the Vitamin C foundation also sells Cardio-C ("My father loved the taste of Cardio-C." -TOMMY O. (Sweden))

Those Vitamin C megadose proponents are basically all quacks.
Among them is one Matthias Rath, an asshole who claims that vitamins can cure AIDS and who's unfortunately very successful in South Africa.