The Diagnosis

Well, for those that might be interested in the saga of "what the hell is wrong with Sheryl and why does she keep getting sick", we may have an answer. I made another visit to my doctor today - well, actually one of her nurse practitioners. After explaining my sordid story to her, she checked my lab results from my first visit to the doctor in February. Turns out I was not positive for strep, but was positive for something called "staphylococcus aureus". Basically - a staph infection.

And apparently, "staph" is quite resistant to most forms of penicillin, including Augmentin, the one I've been on twice now. In fact, that link to Wikipedia that I put on the word staph above is to the specific form of staph that I have. The article calls it a "superbug" (one of the major ones) due to its resistance to antibiotics.

What this means is that it's quite possible that the Augmentin I've been taking has been doing really no good whatsoever, and that the reason I keep "getting well" after a few days is just my immune system kicking in naturally. And then - something small, such as missing some sleep, might happen to break down my immune system again - and guess what? I wind up with a horrific sore throat and fever of 102 yet again.

So what's the solution? More powerful drugs! (That thankfully come in a smaller size pill that will hopefully prevent choking hazard this time...) I've been put on something called Cipro. One of the things that Cipro has been used for is to attempt to treat people that have possibly been exposed to anthrax. Uh, yeah. 1000 mg a day of powerful bacteria-fighting artillery. Fun stuff. But my doctor is hoping to stop this craziness once and for all. Heh - yeah, me too. I seriously feel like my body has been through the wringer these past two months.

Go away, superbug, go away...