I saw the otolaryngologist on Thursday afternoon, in the next bigger town south of us.
He is underwhelmed by the CT scan and with no sinus symptoms, basically just said, "Call me if something changes."
So it looks like the ten days of penicillin V worked. This time I did not get pneumonia or sepsis. However, the strep A antibodies are up and they did make me feel hellish. I asked for another titer which was drawn on Wednesday. It's a send out to Seattle so may be back Monday. I am curious if it will be higher than the first one. In a strep A infection, the ASO (antistreptolysin antibody) rises for about a month and then drops and tails off. An elevated ASO is supposed to indicate a strep A infection within the last 6 weeks and is used to help diagnose rheumatic fever. And other strep A pseudo-autoimmune disorders. There are currently six known. Another antibody is the streptozyme and that is a more general strep antibody. It takes 3 months to go down.
I think my antibodies were highest during the week before this and now are coming down. That fits with the face pain starting around June 6th.
I cancelled a day and a half of work when it was at it's worst, and we cut the schedule back. We moved all the physicals and the medicare wellness visits to late August and September as non-urgent.
Whew. I am really really happy to not be out for two months or ten months (or dead). I've been tired for the last three weeks and worried, but it does not look like chronic fatigue has been triggered again.
The next job is to try to figure out how to manage the antibodies when they rise.
In the morning when I rise