Lemierre's Syndrome

My story on Lemierre's Syndrome begins on Friday-June 20, 2008. As I'm leaving work, I felt a slight scratchy feeling in the back of my throat, and I remember thinking to myself "Kinda odd for me to be gettin a sore throat in the middle of summer!" I blew it off and through out the evening it was getting worse. I had to work on saturday, so I took some cold medicine before bed. In the middle of the night I woke up having to vomit and diarreah along with cold chills, not a pretty sight! I wasn't sure if I had the flu bug or food poisoning. As I headed to work on saturday morning, I had to pull over on the side of the road to vomit, "thank God it was 4:30 in the mornin!" I made it to work, and worked about 2 hours then I had an attack that I could only describe as being stuck in a freezer for 3 hours. My body was shaking as if I was having a seisure, and I was very cold.

My supervisor seen what was going on and he sent me home early. Still thinking it was the flu or food poisoning, I went home and tried to rest. The rest of the day saturday and sunday were the same way, couldn't hold any food or water down and was still having those cold attackes.

As I head to work on monday morning, I felt fine. About 2 hrs into the shift there was another cold attack. By now the attacks are starting to last abit longer, about 30 minutes! As I left work early, I picked up my girlfriend and headed to the emergency room. We explained my symptoms- sore throat,vomitting,diarreah,cold attackes and now a big rash on the right side of my neck and very weak. They took a test for strep throat , alot of viles of blood for testing,and a few X-rays. The tests come back negative for strep throat, but they sent me home with a prescription for it anyways because they thought it might be in an early stage thats not going to show up on the tests yet. The hospital set me up for a followup appointment for 2 days later at some outpatient facility and I'm off work until further notice.

Two days later, on wednesday, symptoms are getting worse, still having cold attacks and can't hold anything down, not even water! My girlfriend and I make it to the follow up appointment and we tell the doctor that the symptoms are getting worse. The doctor does no tests(0,none,nothing), looks at the papers from 2 days ago, and tells us he thinks its strep throat, then gives me another prescription.

On the way to have the prescription filled, my girlfriend is on the phone with her mom, telling her about the quack doctor we just seen. As she is talking to her mom, I had another cold attack and her mom told her "That's not strep throat ,go to her family doctor right down the road from us." We get to the family doctor and this being the worst attack yet, I could even get out of the van. My girlfriend goes in to get the nurse and have all the paperwork faxed over to them. The nurse comes out to the van to see me and realizes how bad I am then goes back in to get the doctor. This awesome family doctor took one look at how I was then looked at the papers that were faxed over to him,then said " OHHH MY GOD, this guy is in septic shock, his blood count is way out of whack, he has a blood infection, GET HIM ADMITTED TO A HOSPITAL NOW!!!!"

Within the 5 days this was going on, I went from being your average healthy factory worker to a weak little newborn puppy. I couldn't eat, drink, sleep, barely breath, and very,very weak. Every bone and muscle in my body ached, even those I didn't know I had.

I was admitted to the hospital, and spent 5 days their. Antibiotics were given to me, but wasn't working very good. They needed to know what kind of infection it was so they could give me the right kind of antibiotics and the right dosage. It took 2 days for them to figure out it was Lemierre's Syndrome. On top of this blood infection, I also had pneumonia, and the rash that was on my neck turned out to be a blood clot in one of my jugular veins that will never open back up. The doctor told me that if I had waited 1 more day to come in, that I wouldn't be around to tell my story.

During my stay at the hospital, I had so many different tests done- CAT SCAN, SONOGRAM, just to name a couple. There were also alot of different doctors and specialist trying to figure this disease out. I was poked with so many needles and so much of my blood was taken (about 75 to 100 viles.) It was a very unpleasant stay, but it was all needed to get better and I thank each and every person that helped!

Lemierre's disease is also known as the "Forgotten Disease" because it is so rare. It is said that less than 1 in a million will contract this disease. If you do have any of these ongoing symptoms  that I described aboved, please see a doctor and don't be afraid to get a second opinion.