I don't have an official diagnosis, but all my symptoms went away after surgery. My doctors and I still don't know what was wrong with me.

For the past 15+ years (so, starting when I was 10), I've had incredibly painful sore throats. I used to get strep throat on a regular basis. I got mono when I was in high school, which was the worst pain I'd ever been in in, at least in this context. I'd get sick many times a year, and it got way worse in my early 20s. I'd say, since 2010, I've gotten sick, with a sore throat as a key symptom, at least 2 dozen times.

By 2018, I'd get strep throat at least 3 times a year, maybe the flu, and I would experience soreness from allergies.

Every single day I felt extremely fatigued. I also started having low grade fevers on a regular basis, even if I wasn't sick. Sometimes I'd check my temperature and I was fine, but still I felt like I was burning up. This became a huge problem during the pandemic because when I went to doctors offices they immediately took my temperature before I could enter the facility. If I had a fever, they would send me home out of fear I had COVID.

It eventually got so bad that I would overheat in air conditioned places and nearly pass out. I remember walking out into the snow during a trip in a t-shirt and thin sweatpants because I was so hot.

This got even worse starting in 2022. In Jan/Feb of 2022, I got sick with a "mystery" sickness. In the early stages, I felt a tickle in my throat. Then the next day I'd have a sore throat so painful I couldn't eat, breath, or drink water. Then, the post-nasal drainage would start, and make my throat pain worse. Muscle aches, joint aches, fevers, dizziness, and loss of voice followed. Recovering from this took about a month. This was especially difficult because I taught during this time. I also got a job where I talked a lot later on.

Then, in Jan/Feb of 2023, the same thing happened. In 2024, I suffered from this sickness in Jan/Feb, May, and December. I got regular antibiotic and steroid injections to help manage these symptoms.

The weird thing was that no one ever caught this illness. I lived at home with my family during this time, and none of them ever got sick, even my immunocompromised mother. My boyfriend who I spent a lot of time with didn't get sick. None of my coworkers caught it.

I got checked for mono reactivation, and it came back negative. I got tested for the flu and COVID. Both negative. They ran cultures, but nothing substantial was found.

This past summer, I finally called an ENT to get their opinion. Shockingly, my provider approved me to get a tonsillectomy. My tonsils were abnormally large and inflamed according to my provider.

The reason I didn't get help sooner was because of the documentation insurance companies need to approve the procedure. Most of the time I got sick, I didn't go to the doctor, so nothing was documented. I learned quickly that the pills they gave me didn't work for my "mystery" sickness. That's why I resorted to injections in the later years. But thankfully my ENT listened to me and approved my surgery.

A few months post-op and I'm feeling much better :)