Fever, Coughing, Vomiting. Negative Strep Test. Prescribed Antibiotics But No Improvement. Suggestions?

Posted on Mon, 20 Aug 2012

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 Answered on

Sat, 8 Sep 2012 Last reviewed on

Question : my 16 yr old son has had a fever for the past 15 days, accompanied by coughing and some vomiting. on day 10 we took him to a doctor, did a quick strep test, which was negative. the doctor prescribed some antibiotics and said he should be feeling better in the next few days... here we are 5 days later and he is not improving. Ibuprofin and tylonol seem to help him with fever symptoms, but his fever spikes immediatly after it wears off... suggestions?

Answered by Dr. Gyanshankar Mishra (1 hour later)

Hi,
Thanks for posting the query on XXXXXXX
After going through your query, I would like to comment the following:

1. Your son seems to be suffering from lower response to antibiotics and continuation of fever requires that the antibiotics be changed to a higher group and a broad spectrum.Amoxycillin + clavulinic acid would be a suitable one.
3. Continue symptomatic medicines for fever.
4. Also do a sputum gram stain and culture test and chest xray pa view.
5. Since the medications have been started late in the course of disease it will take some time to resolve the symptoms.
6. I suggest you for a follow up with your physician for a review of management as outlined above.

I hope I have answered your query. I will be glad to answer follow up queries if any.
Please accept my answer if you have no follow up queries.

Regards

Dr. Gyanshankar Mishra
MBBS MD DNB
Consultant Pulmonologist

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar