sick day 4: the final report (because i had better be well enough to go to work tomorrow)

The urgent care venture was interesting.  Mostly because the mystery was somewhat resolved in only a matter of... four hours (shock and awe!).

Apparently, I don't respond to Cipro even though I've never taken any other fluoroquinolone antibiotics and could hardly have developed a resistance.  So I've upgraded to Doxycycline, of the tetracycline family, with which my body is very familiar.  Additionally, I was asked to take not one, but two more HCG tests along with a CBC and a tissue culture.  The woman I saw today told me that my original HCG on Wednesday was positive, not negative as I was told by my goddess PCP.  Today's both came out definitively negative.  So, as you might imagine, I'm perplexed.  If my HCG were in fact originally positive and today's is in fact negative, it is implied that the Cipro did its job and the infection is obliterated.  However, the symptoms having gotten worse instead of better does not jive with this conclusion.  Therefore, as we press forward with bigger and better antibiotics, I am skeptical as to their capacity for success.

However, with the combination of Azo and Doxycycline I am feeling slightly better already.  Nausea and headaches subsiding.  Perhaps I really had a bad reaction to Cipro... dizziness, headache, loss of appetite, nausea and weakness of limbs are all adverse effects of fluoroquinolones.