An Evening At Urgent Care (or I’m Ready To Not Be Sick)

Usually when I am sick with a cold, I have a somewhat predictable pattern of how things go. It starts with a weird scratchy throat that feels more like I can’t quench a thirst than a sore throat. Then I have the typical symptoms of a cold for a few days. And finally, I start to get better. And when I’m getting better, I usually don’t have a regression of symptoms other than congestion. It can take longer for me to get over some colds than others, but I normally can tell when I’m starting to get better and am over the hump.

But this cold that I’ve been dealing with for over a week hasn’t been following the pattern that I’m used to. My sore throat was different before I had cold symptoms, so I didn’t think at first that I was getting sick. Most of my cold symptoms were gone on Tuesday, but my sore throat was getting worse every day. I was struggling to swallow anything and even drinking water was extremely painful. And I was starting to not be able to breathe as deeply as normal because my throat was really swollen. I also started to lose my voice, which was really odd. I knew this wasn’t what a normal cold is like for me, so I told myself that if I wasn’t better a week after the symptoms started, I would go to the doctor.

That one-week mark was on Wednesday and I kept calling to try to get in to see a doctor. But there were no appointments until next week, so if I wanted to try to see what was going on sooner, I had to go to urgent care. I know that going to urgent care is for stuff like what I was dealing with, but I would have preferred an appointment. But I didn’t really have an option so I went in after work on Wednesday and prepared to be there for a while.

It was pretty crowded when I got there, but I was seen about 2 hours after I arrived (a sore throat isn’t the most urgent thing in urgent care so I knew there would be a wait). I explained the timeline of my symptoms and how I thought I had a cold over the weekend but that what I was experiencing at that point didn’t feel like a cold. I knew it was very unlikely it could be strep since I don’t have tonsils, but I just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing something that needed to be treated.

The doctor I saw was very nice and he understood my concerns. And he agreed that it was the right move for me to come in just to confirm that I was doing all the right stuff to get better. I didn’t get another Covid test since I had taken a few at home and my symptoms weren’t really what you would expect with Covid. He checked my ears to make sure I didn’t have an ear infection and then ran a rapid strep test even though he knew it probably couldn’t be that. But I appreciated he wanted to confirm since some people can still get strep after having their tonsils out. But as expected, it wasn’t strep and it wasn’t anything else that I was checked for.

My diagnosis: I likely had a cold over the weekend (as I assumed) and my sore throat and laryngitis were due to inflammation in my throat and vocal cords. The inflammation could be just from the cold or I could have had another random issue at the same time such as allergies. But all my remaining issues were due to inflammation so I needed to make sure I resolved that. I was prescribed two different anti-inflammatory medications (basically Advil and Tylenol) and was told that it might take 3-5 days before I’m better.

When I went to the pharmacy, I also picked up a few over-the-counter items. I have used the throat numbing spray before when I had a sore throat, and I really should have thought about getting it when things were bad earlier in the week. But at least I got it while I was there so I had something that I knew would take some of the pain away.

I’m still dealing with a pretty sore throat and I still don’t have a voice, but I do feel a lot better than I did when I went to the hospital. I can tell some of the inflammation has gone down but I also know I have a few more days to go before I probably will be better. But to have any relief from the pain I’ve been experiencing over the past week is nice. And hopefully, by the start of next week, I’ll be feeling better and can finally get back to my normal routine again.

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