Good Advice (0 comments)
So it's June and I have a sinus infection/influenza sort of thing that's proving more tenacious the viruses I've fought in the past. It's been going strong for six days and I'm only now showing progress toward getting better.
Far and away the worst of the (many and interesting) symptoms has been the swollen, painful tissue all around my throat. At its worst, it put the act of swallowing around 6-7 on the pain scale. I found that I was clenching my teeth and doing breathing exercises in subconscious preparation whenever there was liquid in my mouth. Bearing down and pushing through the pain worked when I was conscious, but I was reminded that even when I'm drifting off to sleep, my salivary glands are still at work. Everything would be fine until an autonomic response triggered and I would suddenly be wide awake, abs automatically pulling my legs up into the fetal position, marveling at the level of discomfort inside my skull.
After the worst night of that, where in I didn't sleep more than 12 minutes straight (note: nights spent this way last very long time), I went to the doctor. A quick swab and culture ruled out Strep A, meaning that antibiotics probably wouldn't help. That left me with the "suck it up" option -- not what I'd wanted to hear. The nurse did what she could, and gave me some advice I hadn't heard before:
After gargling with warm salt water to clear away mucous (as I'd been doing), pour out an adult dose of children's ibuprofen and gargle that before swallowing. Children's ibuprofen is a suspension in liquid, and exposing the pain meds directly to the aggravated tissue can help it serve as a topical analgesic before it starts working more generally.
For what it's worth, that's worked pretty well for me. There's some light burning sensation on my now-raw tonsils when they come in contact with the painkiller syrup, which leads me to my next point:
Fuck tonsils.
My sister seems to have been exposed to the same virus and had the same symptoms for the first twelve hours, but then she was suddenly fine. Why? She's been tonsil-free for almost 20 years.
Again, fuck tonsils.