Why are sore throats such a mystery?

[FMJeff]

I contracted a severe sore throat over the weekend and the most they could prescribe for me for immediate relief were ice pops. What the fuck?

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[Jennitalia]

i've always been advised to gargle salt water.

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[sr71blackbird]

Sore throats are caused my mucous dripping down your throat from your nasal passages. The ice pops numb the pain receptors and fool you into thinking you arent irritated. There is really nothing a doctor can do until whatever bug you have thats causing your nasal passages to stop dripping goes away.

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[TooCute]

There are a gazillion things that could be causing a sore throat,
like bacteria, a virus, allergies, or some sort of physical trauma.
If it's bacterial, like strep, they can put you on antibiotics. But
otherwise, there's not much you can do but sit it out and try to
dull the pain. Tylenol can help with sore throats, as well.
Gargling with salt can help decrease inflamation, while hot
water can help circulation which may help you heal faster.
Sprays and lozenges that have anesthetic properties could help,
but at least for me I find that they numb my mouth and not my
throat. Plus I can't get over the taste of phenol in chloraseptic
spray. EEW. Phenol is bad bad stuff!




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[Wormwood]

i've always been advised to gargle salt water.

Is that some kind of code?

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[angrymissy]

i heard motrin works wonders for sore throats... kills the pain immediately! ;)

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[HordeKing1]

As TC said, sore throats aren't a mystery, but there are limited things that can be done to allieviate the suffering they cause.

Antibiotics can only be given for bacterial infections (like strep).

I find very cold beverages in general work, and periodic gargling with warm salt water. Then again I also like cholorseptic and other numbing agents.

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[Thebazile78]

I personally dig Celestial Seasonings 'Cold Care' tea at breakfast and at bedtime, along with a nice hot shower to get gunk out of my throat.

For a general sore throat, I usually use hot water with lemon and honey. It's an old singers' remedy that tastes a li'l better than the saltwater.

Of course, if you go to urgent-care rather than your primary doctor, you may get care somewhat akin to college health centers. . .

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[FUNKMAN]

after many a sore throat it seems like i can tell when it's something serious or not... i wake up in the morning and go UTOH! I'll give it a day or two and in most cases it becomes more severe and my voice begins to become impaired. I always keep extra antibiotic on-hand and usually 2 to 3 days on them will make it go away... i've been doing this for many years now.
I can't seem to gargle with salt water, it makes me gag, i can't even gargle with mouth wash other than towards the front of my mouth, as soon as it gets near my throat i gag...

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[SatCam]

a tablespoon of cum always does the trick

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[HordeKing1]

FUNKMAN wrote:
I always keep extra antibiotic on-hand and usually 2 to 3 days on them will make it go away... i've been doing this for many years now.

Taking antibiotics for only 2 or 3 days is really bad. It doesn't completely kill the bacteria in that time (even if you feel better) and instead makes the surviving bacteria more likely to be immune to further doses of the same medication. Improper use of antibiotics is the major reason why we have an increasing number of bacterial strains immune to antibiotics - which is a frightening thing.

Always take antibiotics for the full 10 days or as prescribed.

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[TooCute]

I always keep extra antibiotic on-hand and usually 2 to
3 days on them will make it go away..

1. Where are you getting 'extra' antibiotics? By not finishing it
when it is perscribed to you? Bad.
2. Antibiotics do expire.

Try not taking the antibiotics. I'll bet you anything the sore
throat goes away in the same amount of time anyway. If you're
always taking the antibiotics (not as prescribed and not even
bothering to get a diagnoses of it as a bacterial infection in the
first place), you have no way of knowing whether the sore
throat would have gone away on its own in the frist place.

The only time I know for sure I have a bacterial infection is
when I get strep, because strep has a certain smell to it. In that
case it is absolutely imperative that you take antibiotics as
prescribed.


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[FUNKMAN]

Horde King and Too Cute!

Thanks for the warnings and advice. All i could say is this method works for me. TooCute mentioned that:



I'll bet you anything the sore throat will go away anyway


i would disagree, after several days it gets progressively worse, more pain and more impairment on my voice, then I would say it needs antibiotics. One antibiotic can decrease the pain "overnight"...

i do use "leftover" antibiotics and never experienced an "expired" non-affect... when i run low and I'm experiencing another sore throat, I'll go to the doctor for a new prescription...

I'm sure you can agree that their are a godd percentage of "mis-diagngosis" and people are prescribed medicine that they should never have taken. It's happened within my family with my dad, uncle, and wife. My wife recently had pain in her back and the first doctor said she had tight/sore muscles and prescribed a muscle relaxer. She went to another doctor because she had a group of welts on her back along the bra line and it turns out she had 'shingles" all along... She was then prescribed antibiotics and is healing up well. She never needed muscle relaxers.

For now i am going with "what works" for me but Thanks Again for the advice....

Funkman

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[Death Metal Moe]

"I say take it easy for a few days and suck on some ice pops for immediate releif of the pain.........

Oh, and is THIS you card?"

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[TooCute]

i would disagree, after several days it gets progressively
worse, more pain and more impairment on my voice, then I
would say it needs antibiotics.

It's not a matter of disagreing or agreeing. It's a simple matter
of right and wrong. You have no way of knowing whether your
sore throat is caused by bacteria, and whether antibiotics are
going to help it or not, without a throat culture. "more pain"
and "more impairment" do not mean that it is a bacterial
infection.

If , when you (not your doctor) decide that you need antibiotics,
you take them and the sore throat goes away, it's still possible
that it wasn't caused by bacteria. And if it indeed was (and yes,
antibiotics can often make you feel better within a day or two
because they will kill the majority of the bacteria in the first day
or two), you are still doing yourself and the world an
extraordinarily large disservice by not taking antibiotics for a
week or ten days (unless you're taking a z-pack, which I think is
5 days), because while most of the bacteria are killed, as was
already mentioned in this thread, the ones that are more
resistant to the antibiotics are not killed, and they live to
produce more anti-biotic resistant bacteria. Similarly with
expired antibiotics - they may be less effective and thus kill only
the weakest bacteria, allowing the resistant bacteria to live.

What you are doing is creating a race of super bacteria that
can't be killed with regular antibiotics. If you don't believe me,
you are most welcome to ask your doctor. But all you have to do
is look at the progression of stronger and stronger antibiotics
that hospitals have had to use in the past few decades to try to
control bacteria (for example, strep throat) that in the past
would have responded to something as basic as penicillin.

At some point, things are going to evolve that do not respond to
antibiotics (oh and btw, I don't advocate the use of anti-bacterial
soaps and sprays, either, for regular household use, but that's
just my opinion)


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[FUNKMAN]

TooCute,

your time and advice is Much Appreciated!

Funk

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"I can feel the hand of a stranger, and it's tightening around my throat"