Constant Sore Throat - Left Side/muscular Posted: 11-30-07 05:02am
I have had a persisting sore throat for 5
months...
The day it started I was sitting at work,
and in the space of an hour I began to
feel very tired and was beginning to get a
sore throat. I went home to bed and stayed
there for two days. The doctor diagnosed
me with an acute case of strep and
prescribed a course of antibiotics, which
cleared up the puss from my throat and
relieved the intense pain.
Since that time I have had a constant mild
sore throat (only on left side), have
slept poorly, am often tired, and have
reduced exercise tolerance. One week, I
had very sore inner thighs. I am 22. I
returned to the GP a number of times, and
ended up having a whole range of
antibiotics along with blood tests to rule
out possible causes. All came back
negative.
Recently I visited the ENT specialist, who
did a laryngoscopy. He told me the sore
throat is not bacterial or viral, but is
caused by referred pain from a muscle
spasm on the left side of my neck (I had
no idea). He said this is usually caused
by injury, cold, or stress, is associated
with sleep disorder (where I miss deep
sleep) and is not treatable but
manageable. I realised I had a bad
snowboarding accident 5 months earlier
that may have caused it, but am unsure how
this relates to the strep.
To help, the ENT specialist told me to be
in bed early, keep my neck warm, have
massages/acupuncture, and not to stress.
When I do these things, the pain seems to
lessen but never fully goes away.
I am wondering a few things now...
What this condition is?
Whether there are others suffering a
similar problem, and if there are, is
there anything you've done that's been
effective relieving the pain?
And for the experts...
Whether my symptoms are consistent with
the specialist's opinion?
