Strep throat which won't die - which antibiotics now?

[lordloveadog]

I have strep throat which recurred after 10 days of penicillin. Thought cured as antibiotics worked straight away. But no. Was back after about 48 hours of finishing course.

What do I need now? More of the same or a second line antibiotic?

Am abroad. At the moment having injections of an antibiotic 'in penicillin family' together with, I think, a steroid. But tomorrow I'll be given an oral course. Would be very grateful for input on what this should be.

I had strep throat at end Oct as well and I'm not sure it got entirely better; still had pain and inflammation. Was intending to go back to dr. Then got covid at start of Dec. When recovered from that was left with nasty throat infection again. So this may be quite a long term thing, but I don't know for certain.

Feel like repeated covid has destroyed my immune system, which wasn't great to start with.

Sorry you’re suffering with it! 💐

I had a recurrence after Amoxicillin when I had strep throat in June. GP was happy to put me back on more Amoxicillin but I asked to have Cefalexin instead and that sorted it 👍

(my son actually had to have three rounds of different antibiotics to shift his!)

I had strep throat decades ago. I was so ill. I had various ABx, none of which worked. I begged and begged the GP to take a swab. After six weeks they finally relented and sent a swab to the lab. 3 days of azithromycin and I was better. I had a particular type of strep that was resistant to everything else they had given me.

Has it not been swabbed? My guess would be if penicillins aren’t shifting it then you might want a macrocycle like clarithromycin. Cefalexin may also work. Source: an amoxicillin allergic child with recurrent tonsillitis

Thank you all! Will ask dr back at home to swab and cultivate if it recurs after this treatment.

In meantime will discuss those options with dr here tomorrow.

The best thing ideally would be to negotiate a home swab kit with your GP so that you can swab as soon as it appears.

I had a problem with recurrent tonsillitis in summer 2018, in the end it shifted with a really long course of penicillin - maybe 3 weeks.

The dr gave me 7 days of Cefalexin to take home - she had been injecting me with a closely related injectable antibiotic for 2.5 days so made sense to continue along same line. Am much better after the 2.5 days so it's broadly right, I guess.

Hopefully that'll kill it. Will try to actually rest. Started running as soon as felt better during penicillin course, which may not have helped.

Have appointment to see GP on Monday anyway and will try to interest him in question of why I am constantly ill, though expectations low.

Thanks for advice and handhold.

When I saw an ENT (private) about my recurrent tonsillitis a few years ago (and he actually talked me out of a tonsillectomy) he said that tonsillitis is sometimes caused by a biofilm. The bacteria die back but not completely so it keeps flaring up. He also said that eventually and inexplicably the biofilm seems to die off and it doesn’t come back. This did happen for me though I don’t remember how long it took. I have a feeling it was one of those things that resolved shortly after seeing him, as they often do.

My daughter had scarlet fever when she was five and then had recurrent strep A infections (confirmed by throat swabs). She ended up having her tonsils removed as she was only well for four days after finishing her ten day course of antibiotics before becoming ill again.

She grew six cm in the six months after her surgery after not growing at all during the year she was ill.

Claire I'm so glad your daughter recovered!

Thanks for all info and reassurance that this is beatable.

Appalled at idea of biofilm. Now frantically gargling aspirin and apple cider vinegar, which Dr Google indicates might be diy methods for disrupting it.

You could suggest Doxycycline. I've just had them for a throat infection and they've worked well. They cleared a bad chest infection for me a few years ago when other antibiotics didn't work so I suggested them to the gp this time. Hope you're well soon

I for got to update after you were all so helpful.

After the last course of antibiotics my throat was still quite painful and I kept thinking the infection was coming back, but it never got really bad again. When I saw GP he referred to ENT for check.

ENT looked down throat with tube through nose and said was still inflamed and sore-looking but would probably just get better. Also did bacterial cultivation, which was negative.

After tube thing, sinus spent 24 hours emptying itself in appalling way. Then throat got gradually better. I think residual problem was that sinus was dripping into back of throat and causing irritation.