Sore Throat after Oral Sex on Woman.

[Worried Man 69]

Hi.  I know my question is like many other posts, but here goes.  I performed unprotected oral sex on a sex worker about 1 month ago.  I started to get a slight sore throat about 2-3 days later.  This was not a bad sore throat - almost like post nasal drip.  The sore throat is the only symptom that I have - no fever or anything else.  I feel that I have to try clear my throat all the time, and now my tongue is starting to hurt - probably due to clearing my throat.

Anyways, I got worried and got a prescription for Zithromax and took a single 2g dose 9 days after the exposure.  (I was not tested)

Since my symptoms did not go away, I took the remaining 4 pills as 2, 500mg doses several days apart (about 2 weeks after the original 2g dose).

Bottom line, is that my throat is still bothering me.  It still does feel like PND somewhat.  My throat feels better when I drink water, but soft drinks cause it to feel more dry and "crackly".

My wife is now complaining that she has a sore lymph node in her neck.  She went to the doctor yesterday, but he didn't test her for anything.  He just told her that it will probably clear up on its own.  He thought that it was probably viral or just her body fighting some bug.

My questions are:  

If I did catch any STD, wouldn't the Zithromax have killed it?  

What are the chances that I passed anything to my wife from kissing?

Could my problems just be allergies?


Thanks

[kishana]

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[marsha368]

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[matt184]

hey doc, i got these tiny little raised bumps on the roof of my mouth, and in the back of my throat, with a cold similar to the one the other guy had mentioned.
i went to a doc and she said they looked like little raised vessicles, that my body is fighting something off.

these symptoms dont sound like anything you could get from cunnilingus, right?

[H. Hunter Handsfield, M.D.]

Sounds like you caught a cold - perhaps just coincidental, or perhaps from your oral sex partner.  Anybody close enough to another person to have oral-genital contact is plenty close to catch a cold, even if there was no kissing.  Or you just caught a cold from someone in your environment.  In any case, the only STD that you conceivably could catch by performing cunnilingus is herpes, and your symptoms definitely don't suggest that possibility.  The antibiotic made no difference because colds are caused by viruses and no virus responds to any antibiotic.  There is no STD caught by cunnilingus that responds to azithromycin; gonorrhea and chlamydia are remotely distant possibilities that you can disregard completely.  Sounds like you have a wise doctor.

So the answers to your specific questions are:

In the exceedingly remote chance you had gonorrhea or chlamydia, the azithromycin would have cleared it up.  You could have given your wife a cold by kissing, but nothing else.  I can tell you what isn't causing your symptoms (no STD), but not what the actual cause is.  Allergy sounds like a possibility, but your provider is the one to answer that question.

Bottom line:  Don't worry about it.  Follow-up with your doctor if your symptoms persist, but they have nothing to do with the sexual event you describe.

Good luck-- HHH, MD