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Can't Clear My Throat - And White in the Back of it

For the past couple of weeks, I can't seem to clear my throat. I keep clearing it throughout the day, but I never seem to get anything up or down. When I look in there, the back of my mouth (top part of the throat) has white on it. I thought my tonsils were swollen, and the tonsil on the left side had an oval whitish spot on it. I went to the doctor and he said I had a build up of pus in my throat, and my tonsils didn't look bad. He put me on antibiotics, thinking it was strep or possibly mono. The strep test and mono spot came back negative, and nothing has grown on the culture they used from the strep test. It still feels like I can't get my throat clear, and it's making me insane.
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I have been a Clinical Microbiologist for about 12 years. I can tell you that any competent Doctor of Lab will do a backup culture when they do a Rapid Strep test (Although some foolishly do not).  But as TheBlair21 said, the culture was not growing. Unfortunately, most Microbiology techs are not as thorough as I am and some Labs strictly test only for strep in the backup culture. There is however another bug that causes Throat and esophagus problems that most people don't realize, and most doctors ignore. YEAST. Mostly some type of Candida species. In babies we call it thrush but most doctors don't look for it in adults. It can however cause thrush and Epiglottitis in adults as well as children. If it is in the throat it can be detected by a throat culture for Candida. If Epiglottitis you would most likely need a biopsy or just treat and observe. It can be treated easily with Diflucan or other antifungal agents, although most literature I have seen recommends a 14 day treatment rather than the normal 1 day treatment you might get for a Vaginal yeast infection. The recommendations I have seen say 200mg the first day and 100mg each day after for total of 14 days. I would recommend printing this out and giving it to your physician and he can take it from there.
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Avatar universal
i know the feeling, i too have the same problem with the throat. i just cant seem to clear it. especially when i wake up in the morning and after i eat is the worse casue its gets to the point where i cant stand it no more and i get fustrated. it just seems no matter what i do and try to resolve it i just cant clear my throat to save my own life. i went to the doctor and he said i might have allergies cause i had swollen tonsels and fluid in my ear so i have been taking claritin but it does not help me for nothing. i dont know whats going on but i wish someone or something can be done to get rid of this i had it for about a year now and im sick of it.
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Avatar universal
I came to this website last night after my 16 year old daughter told me she saw a big white spot in the back of her throat (on the top left side of the uvula). She had been feeling bad a couple of weeks with a headache and sore throat. She kept saying it felt like something was stuck in her throat. I blew it off and gave her over the counter meds. She still couldn't seem to shake the sore throat. Anyway I took her to the doctor today and she tested negative with the strep test but then when they did a CBC her white blood count was really high...thus some kind of infection there. They later determined that it was a different strain of step (not the usual one they test for). so gave her a strong antibiotic. If these are your symptoms, it could possibly be strep. I have also had my son misdiagnosed at one doctor or another only to go to another doctor to have it confirmed that he actually had strep. I guess strep is not always positive on the usual test they do, but you may in fact have it.
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