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Back in early April, 3 days after having seen my Endocrinologist, my throat started bothering me, and my voice started getting raspy. That was on a Friday. By Monday, my throat was very sore, and I had swollen glands. I could barely talk, and had a lot of gunk in the back of my throat...and what I would call a dry cough. When I coughed, I brought up mucus, but no pus. I had no headache, no sinus pain, no fever. I called my doctor, and he prescribed Amoxicillin for 10 days. The Amoxicillin helped me bring up the mucus from my lungs. By that time, some was yellow/green, and the last day I coughed anything up, it was brown. Whatever had been in my lungs was now gone. The sore throat and swollen glands went away, but my voice was still raspy, and if I talked too long, it got worse. I also still had a lot of gunk in the back of my throat, and found myself clearing my throat a lot more than usual.

On April 30th, I ended up in the emergency room because my blood pressure was 188 over 85, and my face felt tingly. I've been on blood pressure medication for many years, and had already discussed with my doctor, the fact that my blood pressure had crept up to the 140's when it had normally been in the low 120's for a long period of time. My systolic number had always been around 60. They tested me for everything, and the only thing they found was that I was positive for Covid. While at the emergency room, I had the doctor check my throat because my voice had still not returned to normal. He said he saw nothing...no irritation whatsoever.

I finally decided to see an ear, nose and throat doctor. He told me I had rhinitis, and pharyngitis, prescribed a nasal spray, and a one-time medication. He also told me to take one 10 mg. Loratadine every day. My left nostril still runs periodically from the rhinitis. My voice still isn't back to what I consider normal, and I still get gunk in the back of my throat from time to time, that I have to clear. I have to see this doctor in October. In the meantime, I'm also seeing the physician's assistance at my Gastroenterologist's office, to see if I can eliminate acid reflux as the cause. I've been on medication for that since the 80's. Had my last bronscopy last summer. A couple of years ago I had a bad case of acid reflux. Woke up in the middle of the night, with my throat and nose burning. I had eaten a pepperoni flat bread pizza from Walmart the evening before, and the grease was coming out of my nose. I figured I must have aspirated some of the reflux. I coughed up as much of the crap as I could from my lungs. A day or two later, I brought up some yellow mucus, so I called my family doctor, told him about the acid reflux episode and the yellow mucus. He told me that if I started having problems breathing, to go to the emergency room. Fortunately it never got to that. I recovered with no problem, but acid reflux can cause throat irritations too. I'd just like to know why I haven't been able to totally get rid of the gunk in my throat, or my voice getting raspy if I talk too long.