I don't know; I'm surprised the office had you drop it off at a lab and didn't have a scheduled pick up or delivery of their own.

From what I understand, they can do some quick tests (like strep) in the office, but they are 100% reliable...so most offices do send those tests off for an official lab to verify too. Results will take a few days to get.. but five days does sound like a long time. Hopefully, it's 5 days in total and not 5 business days...

I meant to say the office tests they do in some offices "aren't" 100% reliable...

Yes, a throat culture can take several days. The swab that was rubbed in your throat has to be swiped onto a "growing medium" and then put into a controlled environment where it will stay for several days to see if anything grows. If nothing grows, then you "don't have anything." If something does grow, then, of course, there is something going on. Since you've been on antibiotics, if something does grow the doctor may want to do a "Sensitivity" -- where that same growing medium with the stuff now growing on it is sectioned, and different antibiotics are applied to the different sections. This is to see which, if any, antibiotics will kill whatever is growing. So, sometimes a doctor will just order a culture, other times they'll order a culture and sensitivity (the lab rats just say "C and S"). Sometimes what was originally ordered as a culture will end up a C and S.

Oh, boy.......I hope whatever I have doesn't need another antibiotic to kill it. After two weeks on amoxicillin and a month on doxycycline, I'm not eager to take another.

Carla, I, too, was surprised I was asked to bring it to the lab myself. That's never happened before. The girl at the lab said the specimen is going to New Jersey. (I'm in PA.)

Thanks, Lindsey. I think I'd rather just treat it with wine. :-)

staph culturing often takes longer... i had a severe, life threatening staph infection that took more than 10 days to finally get typed exactly and all of those samples were done in hospital. i was furious to say the least as i used to teach medical microbiology to medical students at IU. next to my expertise in plants comes microbiology. after they finally ID'd my staph type i calmed down (internally as i did not want to make anyone mad lol) LOL as i knew culturing gram-postive rare types has to go thru multi stages of testing :-)

do some research on what the possibilities of what you might have is and how it is cultured and tested. in my case i was soooo sick sooo fast dr's immediately started treating me w/ different antibiotics (while waiting for tests) that only added to my susceptible immune system. my system was soooo taxed from the staph that treating me w/ something for strep sent it into overload, taking immune strength away from fighting staph to working on what little strep may have been around. BTW basically everyone has almost all bad infectious bacteria in their systems, just not at levels high enough to be harmful or often even detected. because of that when you are treated w/ incorrect antibiotics (for an undiagnosed bacteria) your immune system puts up a fight, albet a small one often, but that creates a energy diversion adding to the severity of a real, undiagnosed, infection.

i would also like to add that right now in this country there is a very big problem causing a panic at the CDC involving 4 patients who brought a particular variant of drug resistance into this country from India called NDM-1. medical personnel are supposed to be watching for patients either on or getting new scripts for antibiotics as these people are the only ones getting infected. do a search on NDM-1 and decide if you want to even get antibiotics for something if it's minor. this particular variant is our new superbug and if it doesn't kill you and they can save you w/ drugs used during the 50's & 60's that were banned, you will need new kidneys and a liver after treatment (the reason for banning). this is a common problem in India because believe it or not they abuse antibiotics even more than the US does because of their lack of potable water! ~ liz

The international germ news gets scarier and scarier. Just to be clear, I'm against unnecessary use of pharmaceuticals of any type, and would never take an antibiotic for something minor. I was on them this summer because of Lyme disease--another scary topic.

Thanks, Liz. I hope your staph has gone away for good.

I have friends who are from India and was shocked at how often they used to use antibiotics--I'm not sure if this is as common as it was twenty years ago. It used to be a matter of course to take anti-b.'s for the slightest sniffle, among those who had access, of course. Now there is a price to be paid. Let's hope this new super-bug can be nipped in the bud!

Oops, I forgot to say that I hope you're feeling better soon, Alisande, and that you don't have to deal with thrush. You have had more than your fair share of illnesses this year, and I wish you a much better time of it from here on out!

Thanks, Sjerin. I appreciate your good thoughts!

My kids' pediatrician used to do both a quick-strep test and a send-ou-to-the-lab culture. That routinely took from 2 to 5 days.

Carla is correct in my experience.They sometimes do a quickie culture in the office with things like that, even with urine samples, but to get a real culture, it does take that long.

antibiotic use in India is actually at an all time high for them. the problem is their water is not treated, add to that their waste is dumped in the drinking water so all the leftover residue from our guts is in the water too. all of that adds up, over time, to antibiotic resistance. in this country we are also on our way to this problem because of landfills & septic fields leaching and inconsistent water treatment across the country. people w/ septic systems are basically having similiar issues as India, thou not quite as extreme, drug residues do leach back to their drinking well water. after looking into the NDM-1, i was surprised to find the CDC considers anyone who has used more than 1 antibiotic over 3 yrs a high risk for developing antibiotic resistant problems.

alisande, once you have a severe staph infection you are always a carrier, i got mine from a dental cleaning and now i'm extremely careful about those appts. i hope you are on the mend soon! ~ liz

Are you taking any PRObiotics? I've needed to take them when taking an ANTIbiotic to combat thrush and gyn. problems.

Well, let's just say I have some nice probiotics in my fridge. LOL

Thanks for the reminder that I should be taking them regularly for a while.