MRSA sinusitis rant. I would love advice :)
Hey guys, I am just looking for some positivity right now. I was hoping maybe some of you have had similar experiences to what I’ve been dealing with and can possibly share your wisdom and advice I would really really appreciate it.
I’m a girl in my 20s and I’ve never had sinus problems or an infection once before until about over a month ago. It was actually the first day of March- I just out of the blue couldn’t eat a bite of food without feeling like something was stuck in my throat and making me cough for a while. Over the next few weeks my symptoms only worsened, trouble eating/coughing pretty often but especially after food, hoarse voice, headaches and facial pressure especially ears, congestion, some runny nose sniffling. Just the whole sinusitis thing. Typing this out, in hindsight I so should’ve known I had a sinus infection at that point but I had just never experienced this before so I didn’t know and my PCP sent me to GI doctors thinking I was having some sort of sudden reflux issue. Fast forward to around last week or so (an endoscopy, many doctors appointments, and about a month of hell from these symptoms later) I got referred to the ENT doctors because my GI doc couldn’t find anything wrong. First appointment with ENT they talked to me and did some scopes, said it seems like I’m dealing with some chronic post nasal drip (hence the feeling of something in my throat and the cough and my other complaints). They also told me my nose anatomy could definitely be contributing, apparently I have pretty small nostrils (lol) and a deviated septum (sarcastic yay) which makes all the congestion want to go down my throat usually and make my life hell. But point is I was told that all of it could be caused by maybe an infection or maybe an allergy so they started with a nose swab which very quickly confirmed that I’ve had a MRSA sinus infection.
The last 10 days have been strict with meds + rest. I took 300mg clindamycin twice a day, I also often took things like sudafed, delsym, antihistamines (prednisone at first then hydroxyzine when I ran out), and asteline nasal spray as needed. It took until around day 5 or 6 on antibiotics when I finally started to notice some improvement. But I officially took my last dose of clindamycin yesterday morning and while I’m relieved to have improved a little with many symptoms gone like the headaches, the pressure, the cough/congestion has only reduced, but hasn’t gone away fully and is definitely still causing me a lot of discomfort and even anxiety at times especially when it comes to food since that is what seems to disrupt all the congestion and make me hack. Oh I’ll add too that at the end of last week, toward the end of my antibiotic course the ENT’s did a sinus CT scan to check up on everything up close and they told me it looks like the infection is at bay and my sinus’s appear clear. So I’m left wondering why am I still struggling with some symptoms? Idk :/
I guess I was hoping to hear from others on when I could possibly expect to feel fully better like my usual self, I could honestly really use some optimism, it’s been a very hard month and a half. I’ve lost probably over 10 pounds and have had to miss a lot of work and other things that I wish I could do. Do you think the cough is just persisting because maybe my throat is just so irritated from everything? I know sometimes things just take time but I am eager to feel better. If anyone’s gone through anything similar please feel free to share I would love to talk. Especially if anyone has an advice on any things I can try to speed up the healing process?