Continuining to battle strep

For timeline purposes, the date strep first entered our house (this year) when Ben tested positive on February 26th.  Liam tested positive the next day on February 27th.  Based on their behavior I became concerned about P.A.N.D.A.S.  Life began to go on as normal, though Ben seemed to develop a cold virus of sorts while on antibiotics.  Both boys finished their antibiotics on March 8th.

That very night I woke with shooting pains in my throat.  By morning I felt worse, and since it was a Saturday (March 9th), I went to Urgent Care and tested positive for strep.  My tonsils were so swollen that I got a short of steroids in the butt.  It was the sickest I felt in a long time and even on Monday, I wasn't feeling myself.

Tuesday, March 12th Liam was awake in the middle of the night and Ben woke with goopy eyes.  As soon as Liam woke, he said he had a headache and he didn't want to get out of the bed.  So I packed them up to go their new off base pediatrician (who we saw last month for the strep).  Both boys were swabbed for strep using the rapid strep test.  Liam tested positive on the rapid and Ben tested negative on the rapid.  His pediatrician claimed it could be a false positive based on his recent bout of strep.  However, this article from a medical journal published in 2002 does not support that and in fact shows that the rapid test is more accurate for recently affectied patients: http://www.jabfm.com/content/15/4/261.full.pdf

The next day, March 13th Liam was up at 4am saying his throat hurt, he had a headache, and his tummy hurt.  We went back to the pediatrician who had cultured Liam's positive rapid test (not not Ben's negative test) and said the culture was negative and Liam must have something viral.  The only positive of that day was I got my first double nap since November 2009.  I made an appointment for the boys to go to my doctor as he opens at 7:30am.

Overnight Liam began to run a fever.  By the time we got to the doctor on March 14th, Liam's temperature was 102.6, he was lethargic, not interested in drinking due to throat pain, and miserable.  My doctor did rapid strep on both boys.  This time Ben was positive and Liam was negative.  He agreed with me tha both needed antibiotics.

I am ready for our war with strep throat to be over.  I am worn out after this week.