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respiratory infection: could it have been diphtheria???
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» persnickety555 - diphtheria In 1987 I came down with a severe respiratory infection. I have never been so sick in my life. One morning I felt something in my throat that made me feel like I was choking. It took all the effort I could muster to dislodge this "thing", after which I said to my husband you would think I had some sort of membrane disease. I was totally unfamiliar with diphtheria at the time. The piece I dislodged was uniformly circular about the size of a quarter, yellowish green in color. Symmetrically placed to either side of the plug were black dots the size of a beauty mark. The plug was streaked in blood presumably from having been torn from my throat. I never discussed this information with my doctor simply because I didn't understand what he was asking when he inquired about any expectoration and several weeks had passed between this incident and the visit to the doctor. After the infection, which lingered for a long time, I began having trouble with numbness in my left arm. It was about a year later that I stumbled upon the word diphtheria. My son had a persistent case of conjunctivis. After three weeks of being unable to clear the eye infection, the doctor became very disconcerted after looking at his Ig results. He muttered to himself he has "something" theritic conjunctivitus. I couldn't make out the first syllable, but it sounded like it began with a "D". The doctor was foreign and he had a heavy accent. Wondering what he was talking about, I went to the library to research conjunctivitis in an effort to fill in the blank. The closest match was diphtheritic conjunctivitus, although it could have been staphtheritic conjunctivitus, what with his heavy accent. I them proceeded to see what diphtheria was. I was amazed when I discovered how closely it mimicked the infection I had had a year earlier. I then remembered my son's pediatrician's advice to me when she had given him his final booster. She told me I should get a booster, too. I never did, and my last shot had been in my early adolescence. The only discrepancy between the clinical descriptions I have read concerning diphtheria and the infection I experienced, is the color of the mucus plug. However, I once came upon an article that described a diphtheria that is caused by spores instead of bacteria in which the mucus plug would be a yellowish green.Does anybody have any idea what this might have been? I only wished I had had the foresight to take the mucus plug into the doctor to show him. When I later suggested to a doctor that I might have had diphtheria, he merely laughed. Of course, this is all purely academic at this point, but I would like to know. Is there any lab test available that could determine whether I had had diphtheria??? Thanks for any insight anybody can shed. -- posted by persnickety555 » NealC - Re: diphtheria In response to message posted by persnickety555:You may have had diphtheria. Were you vaccinated against diphtheria? It is unlikely if you were vaccinated. The doctors probably laughed when you suggested diphtheria because it is so rare a disease in the U.S. The conjunctivitis your son had was probably a staph infection since you mention he had been vaccinated. There is no way I know of that will tell you that you had diphtheria in 1987. -- posted by NealC
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