If you have a sore throat and go to a doctor, most doctors worth their salt will not write you a prescription for an antibiotic. Sore throats as a rule come from viruses, and antibiotics do not work on viruses. Depending on how swollen and red your throat is, your doctor might take a throat culture to look for “Strep” throat, which is definitely not a good thing to have, and, for which, you need a course of antibiotics.
But what happens if you go to a doctor with a sore throat and other indicators you have an infection? That happened to me. I went to a doctor who was filling in for my primary care doctor two weeks in a row. The result was no antibiotics either time, even though there was visual proof something else was going on.
After I finally got to see my primary care doctor, what followed was a diagnosis of a peritonsillar abscess; admission to the ER, then the hospital; two doses of intravenous steroids; and antibiotics for twenty days. And that is not counting pathology tests looking for bad things, because children get deep throat infections. It is rare with adults, and usually points to something not good, which, in my case so far not turned out to be something not good, except an infection.
When I could not get a script for antibiotics, there would have been something to have been said for remaining calm, and politely but firmly stating my case to a higher authority. That would have been going to the head of the clinic I’ve been going to for many years or elsewhere in the hospital in which my clinic resides.
So, I learned from my mistake of playing by the rules, but not stating my case. I will state my case next time.
Octopus Grabbus' Log 