White spots on tonsils, Sore Throat

[Carrigon]

Take a guess how sick I am now. Alittle too much fun with my new boyfriend, and now I'm deathly ill. I woke up today with the white spots on my tonsils, severe sore throat. Then the fever kicked in. And I have a pounding headache. I've been gargling with salt, lemon juice, and also, apple cider vinegar with apple juice. The vinegar seems to be making the spots go down. If I'm not better in the morning, I'll see if I can go to the doctor. All they can really do is throw antibiotics at me. I'm not freezing like I was, though. I had the chills all day and all night, and then that stopped and now I'm just feverish.

I finally find the right one, and I end up sick due to our disease. This has happened to me before when I've dated. I get the white spots and sore throat and get deathly ill. I wish I had my health and strength.

 

[SOC]

HSV-1 reactivation? It's known to reactivate with stress, including physical stress, so maybe the extra...um...physical exercise was enough to set it off. We tend to think of cold sores with HSV-1, but I believe you can also get lesions on other mucosal membranes in the mouth and throat.

It might be worth seeing a doc if you can get him/her to prescribe Valtrex. If you have an ME/CFS specialist, I strongly suggest you call and report this.

 

[Artstu]

I've had really active tonsils for years now, nothing the doctor gave me seemed to work. A friend told me they used to squeeze the white pasta like stuff out, it sounds disgusting, but that's what I have to do every now and then to relieve the discomfort, I just stick my finger in and give them a squeeze

 

[snowathlete]

As another poster says above, squeeze them out with your CLEAN fingers. They are tonsil stones and are a mixture of bacteria or virus, sulphur and white blood cells.
I would also ask your doctor to take a swab and test what the infection is. Before I for my ME bad I had this for years and then it stopped and u got ME so i wish I had tested while I could. I think whatever it was was a factor in me getting ME.

The good news is that your immune system is doing something, so it's functioning to some degree. I would strongly advise not mentioning ME to your GP in this because they may prescribe antivirals if they test and find a virus, but may actually be put off taking some action if they can put it down to your ME.

 

[SOC]

I would strongly advise not mentioning ME to your GP in this because they may prescribe antivirals if they test and find a virus, but may actually be put off taking some action if they can put it down to your ME.

I second this advice. Too many GP's seem to become professionally crippled as soon as they hear CFS (in the US). (Some CBT would be in order for this phobia, I would think, but I'm no psychiatrist, tg) Since you have some clearly identifiable symptoms, I'd let them deal with that and not make an association to ME (or CFS).

OTOH, the downside of not mentioning ME/CFS is that they'll assume your immune system can handle the infection and not do anything. The usual damned if you do, damned if you don't situation PWME face on a daily basis. {Wow, I'm sounding very pessimistic this afternoon. Maybe I need a nap. }

 

[Carrigon]

I never tried cleaning them out before. I always just followed the gargling thing. And right now, the left one is causing me severe ear pain. The spots are going away slowly, but I still have a few. And I have really bad post nasal drip, too.

I really don't know with this. I've gotten it before after being with men, and always thought it was strep. But I'm wondering if it's an autoimmune response.

Anyway, I might finally drag myself to the doc tomorrow. Whatever it is, I picked it up. And I want it gone.

 

[hurtingallthetimet]

maybe it is strep? the infection pus pockets from it? ive had strep before had had what spots on throat and was told pus form the infection

hope you are feeling much better

 

[Carrigon]

I dragged myself over to this urgent care clinic this morning. Huge mistake. They had advertised as taking my insurance, then they were like, we don't take your plan, only some plans from your company. But they said they would take my medicare. So I gave them that. I will no doubt be billed and haven't a clue how I'll pay for it yet.

They ran a rapid strep on me, negative. She said it looks like I've got oral thrush on the uvula and she wasn't sure if the spots/stones on the tonsils are also from oral thrush or what. She sent a culture to the lab, that's what will really cost me. And she gave me a prescrip for xithromax antibiotic just incase I've got a real sinus and throat bacterial infection. But she said to have yogurt and probiotics with it. And I've done that today.

I have bad headcold symptoms with stuffy nose, post nasal, and a dry cough. No one has a clue what all this is. Whether I was already walking around with a sinus infection, then picked up a headcold and oral thrush. Who knows. But I'm the sickest I've been in years. And the earache in my left ear feels like someone shot me with a gun in the ear. I just had to take naproxen for the ear pain. When it wears off, the pain is unbearable. It can be from a tonsil stone. I was only able to get one out. There are two more on that left tonsil.

Interestingly, they cared more about my blood pressure reading than all this. No matter how many times I tried to explain to them that I have POTS and we read higher and my reading was normal for me. They were like, you have high blood pressure. Complete and total idiots. It was in a good normal for me at 142 where I was not lightheaded weak or dizzy. I'm fine at that. When it dips below that, then I start to get sick.

The doctor didn't offer me anything for the stuffy nose or post nasal drip. She said to keep taking my nyquil. And she didn't offer me anything for the screaming ear pain, just said to keep taking the naproxen. And then they couldn't wait to get rid of me.

The office visit, plus rapid strep test came to $160, and I have no clue what the lab throat culture will be. If medicare picks most of this up, I'll still end up paying about twenty percent. But that I can deal with. If they don't pick it up, I guess these people will get five dollars a month. I really don't have it, and should have walked out the door and gone to the ER for free.

Not all that surprised about the oral thrush thing. Chronic Immune Dysfunction. It's just one more proof that we are very physically ill and susceptible to this stuff.

 

[Valentijn]

I first noticed tonsil stones about 2 months ago. I finally figured out what they are and that they have a real name Basically can see them with a small flashlight and mirror sometimes, though others hide deep in tho tonsil folds. If you do a google image search on "tonsil stone", better images will come up than what I'd be able to describe

Anyhow, it started off by being scratchy back there, like something sharp was poking me. I managed to gargle/poke/gag up a little piece or two before I knew what they are. Then I figured out how to locate them with my fingers and was able to GENTLY scrape some out with my finger nail. Yesterday morning I noticed my problematic tonsil (the right one) was swollen. And now using the flashlight and mirror I could get a glimpse of the deep tonsil stones while clenching throat muscles, gagging, and/or poking around with a thermometer.

With the swelling, scraping them out with a finger doesn't work, so I used the thermometer to gently poke them to sort of squeeze them out of the folds. It seemed to be a bit easier after getting the first stone or two out. The surface ones I was able to scrape or cough out were a bit stinky, but the deeper ones are a bit black looking and extremely bad smelling.

These are often a cause of bad breath, so also worth poking around a bit if having that problem or feeling like something is stuck back there.

 

[Valentijn]

To follow up on myself ... I decided to poke around in my "normal" seeming left tonsil. I've never felt like anything was stuck in there, it isn't swollen, and I couldn't see anything even holding flaps of tonsil out of the way.

But I dislodged several sizable tonsil stones while poking blindly in the folds with my thermometer.

Absolutely disgusting things, and now I wonder how long I've had them without noticing. Based on the smell of what's coming out, months seems likely

Going to try gargling mouth wash regularly to hopefully keep new ones out, and maybe get a tonsil irrigating/flushing system if that doesn't work.

 

[snowathlete]

They do smell, tonsill stones. It's the sulphur.

Any update Garrigon -did the culture results come back?

 

[Valentijn]

They do smell, tonsill stones. It's the sulphur.

Mine smell like rotten crud/death, not sulfur. But they hadn't hardened, so not proper "stones" I guess.