My glandular fever story - 'severe throat pain and tonsillitis'

I've spent so much time googling Glandular Fever (GF) recently I thought it might help to add my story! First of all I’m 25, female and have suffered from throat infections / tonsillitis in the past so am no stranger to muddling through the salt water / aspirin gargling / manuka honey and lemon / spit bucket scenarios. This past month however was ridiculous because the ‘severe sore throat’ wouldn’t go away!

Here’s where I’ll start. I had a colonoscopy on Sep11th where I had a large polyp removed from an awkward place, then on the 18th had a barium x-ray – the two of which left my body in a bit of a mess and experienced quite a bit of soreness and general feeling of unwell-ness. On Sep 22nd my throat felt a little sore and I checked my tonsils – yes, infected with a little pus. I’d also been experiencing some pain under my left rib cage – which I felt was swollen and a little sore. I put this down to the colonoscopy.

Between Monday 24th – 287h Sep I became increasingly more tired with a terrible headache around my right, puffy eye socket. Daytime was worse, I felt sensitive to the light. My throat remained slightly swollen with some pus but not enough to think I needed treatment for tonsillitis. Over Saturday 27th and Sunday 29th September I developed fever, exhaustion, sweating, shaking (especially at night) and on Monday 1st October went to the doctors who prescribed pencillin for high temperature and infected tonsils. When I explained the tenderness of the pain I thought was in my bowel – he prescribed me anti-spasmodic tablets and said it was likely to be due to the colonoscopy poking round the bends of the bowel. These didn’t work.

A week later, 8th October I’d finished my course of pencillin and all symptoms had gotten worse day by day. Tonsils had only really been swollen on the one side (my right) – but that one alone covered 2/3 of the back of my mouth. But the other side had cottoned onto the idea and was catching up now. This terrified me. I was prescribed amoxiclav instead of pencillin and he took a swab to check what kind of infection I actually had. I also insisted on having blood tests carried out for GF. The doctor was sceptical but all my internet research of prolonged, agonising tonsillitis + bowel pain (in the spleen area!) led to GF.

Back to doctors for results 10th October. Throat swab came back as ‘flora normal’. You really should have seen how minging my mouth was – to be described as normal! I cried. By this point I had quite clearly what they call ‘hot potato mouth’. Blood tests were positive - which was a brief hallelujah followed by a - what do you mean there's no treatement? I was prescribed soluble ibuprofen 400mg and some paracetemol and told to stop taking amoxiclav. The worst part of this was that you can't take the painkillers round the clock - during the periods of no ibuprofen the swelling was unbearable.

By Friday night I could barely move. I hadn’t managed to eat for days, could barely swallow. Earache had taken over the entire right side of my face. My glands were so swollen and sore it hurt to support my own head. I couldn’t breathe properly and hadn’t slept for three days because everytime I did I would completely block my airways and wake up in terror. The pus had completely covered my tonsils so they were all white and some of the back of my throat. The dongly thing couldn’t actually swing by itself so I constantly gagged. Sleep anoea I think they call it?

I rang NHS direct – through my husband as I couldn’t sound words properly with the hot potato mouth – who rang me back – who said they’d get my local doctor to come round – local receptionist rang to say that they’d ring again when the doctor was near and on his way – then a doctor rang to say that actually I’d have to go to the clinic but there weren’t any appointments nearby so I’d have to travel 20 miles to a clinic I’d never heard of and couldn’t get to easily. He also said that the clinic wouldn’t really be able to do anything other than tell me whether I needed to go to A&E. I first rang at 6pm. It took me to 11pm to get an answer from them – by which point A&E would be full of drunks.

Saturday 13th October went to A&E at 5am hoping it’d be quiet but arrived between shifts and was forgotten about while they tried to get an ENT doc to come and see me. These four hours were the absolute worst of my life. I couldn’t hold my own head up yet the glands at the back of my head meant that I also couldn’t lean on anything either. I was eventually admitted to a private room (infectious has it perks) at 9am and given IV saline as I was so dehydrated, two steroid injections (over two days), codeine, diplofenic, ibuprofen, paracetemol and on a penicillin IV drip for three days because my GF developed into tonsillitis and a possible abscess.

As soon as I had the steroid injection it was amazing. It was wonderful. The best best best thing ever. I really, really put off going to the hospital because I hate being a fuss or a bother. But I was at the point where I was asking my husband to smother me with a pillow because GF made me want to kill myself. Except I was too weak to do it myself and couldn’t work out a way to do it. I sure wasn’t going to be swallowing a lot of pills…

I got out of hospital late on the 15th thankful to be alive – but missing the 24 hour pain assistance. Monday and Tuesday at home were sketchy. I couldn’t sleep for more than two hours and I was literally watching the clock waiting for it to be time to take more painkillers. I was taking 3x ibuprofen, 8x paracetemol and 8x codeine a day and crying out for more. But by Wednesday I felt a little bit better - Wednesday evening felt great and on Thursday I should have taken photos by the hour to see how quickly my tonsils improved!

It’s now the 20th October and my tonsils have finally got rid of their pus but I cannot stress how awful this whole experience was. Yes I’m exhausted and the codeine and three weeks of antibiotics has wreaked havoc with my system but I really don’t mind. I can swallow my own saliva. I can breathe air. My mouth doesn't taste like rotting flesh. I really truly think that if I hadn’t gone to A&E I’d have died of exhaustion and pain. I think the biggest difficulty was researching on the internet and reading about GF and how it causes a ‘sore throat’ or at best ‘severe throat pain’. I’ve been ill quite a lot – as I’m a weakling with a stupid immune system – and I’ve had tonsillitis really bad before – but this! This was like hell. Calling it a sore throat is just plain awful and how do you measure your own pain against other people's? I didn't want to waste anyone's time and it was such a RELIEF to be told at the hospital how sorry they felt for me because of how awful my throat looked.

To recap; I’m only blathering on in the hope I help someone else who is in as bad a state as I was – and for them to know that the hospital will help and not turn you away. Otherwise I’d have continued typing on google phrases like these forever; can glandular fever really be this bad? / am I going to die from glandular fever / will I ever feel better with glandular fever / glandular fever why is this happening to me / glandular fever completely covered white pus tonsils / glandular fever unilateral earache / glandular fever if it’s all on one side could I have quinsy / should I know if I have a quinsy? / the secret horrors of glandular fever they didn’t want to tell you.

Time to delete my search history now : )

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