Does anyone survive Quinsy?

[josiephina]

I heard about it being almost always fatal in the "old days". Most doctors treat the tonsilitis before it gets to this stage, but not everyone is so lucky.

Just wondered if anyone out there was a survivor!?

[Kim A]

My friend Brenda had quinsy over the winter. According to her GP, the treatment these days is to prescribe antibiotics and that good old remedy 'wait and see'. B took the antibiotics, and waited. Eventually, the quinsy (which is like a big squishy boil (sorry!) burst. Very, very unpleasant, but she's fine. Apparantly, quinsy was only really that dangerous before there were proper anitbiotics and the like,,, although you might get a secondary infection if one burst and you had no antibiotic cover.

[Ed Strong]

I had quincies(sp?) when I was five and I'm here 50 years later! It is dangerous unless treated with antibiotics (usually penicillin) as the tonsils, which are the first line of defence against germs & viruses, become infected themselves and because they swell up they can block the throat and cause you to suffocate. I had my tonsils out after that but my daughter, who suffered with two bouts of quincies in her teens (all that french-kissing!!), didn't have her tonsils removed and has had no more problems and she is now 33.

[josiephina]

Thanks for that guys. Sadly my mum wasn't so lucky. Forced the antibiotics down but they didn't seem to work. She thought one had burst as it left a funny taste in her mouth but she developed complications.
Good to hear it's not all bad!
There's always hope!

[netibiza]

I always got quinsy every month when a teenager for about 3 years until my mum went mad at the hospital and they took my tonsils out, never looked back since. Oh by the way, I survived.

[Dollie]

My mate had it quite bad - was in a lot of pain and off work for three weeks - but made full recovery.

[gazzawazza]

My daughter had one two years ago. It was treated as Kim A says with antibiotics and waiting and seeing. It went away but then last August she had tonsilitis again so she had them out in October.

[mkt]

i had quinsy about five years ago. I'd never heard of it until i got it and i really hope i never get it again, it was dreadful. So painful and absolutely zapped all my energy. It seems as with tonsilitis you either never suffer or its something that once you get it once it seems to flare up a lot in future but so far so good as far as im concerned. Another thing to say, although im sure theres probably no medical support of this being hereditary it seems to run in my family. I was actually ill with it in the end for over a month and when my mum mentioned it to a relative (the kind you only see at weddings and funerals!) she said that many of the family had suffered (recurringly) with it. Anyway we all seem to have lived to tell the tale! She also mentioned something about an old wives tale which went along the lines of placing an onion inside a sock (clean i presume!!) and draping it around your neck. This was supposed to soothe the pain and make you better.
Alternatively you may just smell of onion and sock. Nice!

[Lonnie]

I've had one twice, up all night walking the streets they were so painful, and the pills I had to take were massive, or so they seemed, but they worked.

[Pippa68]

Mr Pippa had one a couple of years ago..being a 'typical' man he didn't go to the doctor. I went away visiting relatives after he had a 'very sore throat'..I had told him that if it was to get any worse he must get it checked out. It did, he didn't.

when I came back a week later I raced him off to the hospital ~ the quinsy burst on the way (to be honest I haven't seen anything so gross in my life).

To cut a long story short the doctor we saw said he had been very lucky..if he had left it any longer without medication or the quinsy hadn't burst, he could have been a goner.

[shazzzz]

ive been watching quincy for years im hoping to survive him i think he is still alive he keep popping up on sky

[sherrie25]

Hi had Quinsy a few years ago its nasty i ended up spending 4 nights in hospital, and i think i may b coming down with it again i am in lots of pain and i cant move my mouth but i was fine after my hospital stay last time so i am sure if i ended there again i will be fine x

[ickymonkey]

hi , my names Ben and im 30 years old and have had a quinsy 3 times in my life so for..the first was when i was 18 and was treated with pills

then I had a quinsy 4 months ago.. start with just a sore throat on a tuesday and thought nothing of it..as the week went on my troat got worse and started using throat lozenges,gargling soluble aspirin and even got a spray which only made me gag..

then on saturday i was at my girlfriends house feeling ruff but ok and had a nice evening together..then when i went to go home , as soon as i hit the fresh air .. i started shaking , sweating and feeling very ill

on the sunday i was stuck in bed all day .. i had the hot potato voice(where your voice completly changes ) producing more saliva than normal and dribbling as i couldnt swallow and sweating..

on the monday i went to the doctors and i was rushed to hospital and spent a week on drips .. the plan was to pop it with a needle but it was on the linning of my throat and not on my tonsil..so all they could do was pump me full of anibiotics through a drip..by the end of that week it poped and was sent home the same day.

then last week i started feeling the same as before sore troat , unable to swallow and feeling ruff , but this time i didnt ignore it and went straight to the doctors.. and surprise surprise,, i had another quinsy.. not as bad as the last but still another quinsy..this time they treated it with penicillin and metronidazole..

and now im booking in for a tonsillectomy next month and i cant wait.. i never want another quinsy as long as i live.

[Pumpk1nCh1ck]

I'm a survivor. I had quinsy with recurrent tonsillitus when I was about 18 while away at college. (I'm now 32). I couldn't walk or swallow any saliva as it was too painful and I had a massively swollen face and neck which made me look like I had mumps, even though it wasn't mumps as I'd had mumps before when I was a child. The doctor couldn't see the back of my throat as it was so swollen, so he had to push my tongue down with a spatula to see my throat. I had to stay in hospital for about 5 days on two occasions hooked up to intravenous antibiotics and an intravenous drip as I couldn't swallow, and every time I accidently slightly swallowed a bit of my own saliva it hurt and made me cry. I was put on a waiting list to have a tonsillectomy. I was on long-term antibiotics for about half a year while waiting for the operation as otherwise the tonsillitus and quinsy just came back. Had the tonsillectomy done, and was in terrible pain in my ears, head and throat from the operation, so I couldn't walk. I had a severe haemorrhage in the night where I was spitting out large mouthfuls of blood with clots in every second about six nights after the tonsillectomy was done, so I was rushed back to hospital in the night, and they tried to stop the bleeding, but they couldn't. Eventually the bleeding stopped by itself. Then I took about two weeks to recover, and I'm better off now that I don't have tonsils anymore. I must add that one night when I got my intestine wrapped around my bowel I had so much more pain than I ever had from my throat, which makes the quinsy and haemorrhage from tonsillectomy almost pale into insignificance.

[Pumpk1nCh1ck]

I've always had very bad asthma, allergies, irritable bowel syndrome and complete androgen insensitivity syndrome where my gonads were taken out when I was 12 and I was taking oestrogen HRT and inhalers for asthma. I don't know if those things could have made me more suseptable to getting the quinsy and recurrent tonsillitus when I was 18. Thank goodness I never get it anymore now that I don't have tonsils!

[klown]

I had it when I was about 36, Im 47 now. Had to have it lanced in hospital and spent the night there on a drip of antibiotics. The smell and taste of it was unimaginable, the poor nurse who looked after me was gagging, "there ate some smells you just cant get used to " she said as she opened the window.Never had it since.