Hi Vernon - I had strep like throat infection before, during and after radiation; only mine was not strep. They cultured it, but nothing grew, so they said it was viral in nature and that no meds exist to treat it. Long story short, I just had to ride it out, it took several weeks, and it was medium painful, but it did cure itself.

So, are you sure your's is actually strep. If they didn't culture it to confirm diagnosis that azithromycin was not a cure. I say this because initially they didn't culture mine; they just relied on the fact that the inside of my mouth and throat LOOKED like it would if I had strep (green crud everywhere).

Now, as for the "feeling like I'm going backwards" side of this. I think we have all felt that too, including me. I expected recovery to be a linear process; I would just feel a little less bad every day, until eventually I felt good. Sorry buddy, it just isn't that way; at least it wasn't for me. I had lots of ups and downs, am still having them at 6 months post radiation. Right now,while I can taste all food, that doesn't mean any of it it tastes anything like it did prior to treatment. In fact, lots of it tastes pretty bad. Ice cream tastes bad (or no taste at all). I'm still waiting on a cheeseburger that tastes even close to what it did prior to treatment (french fries are okay though). Steak is halfway good, but most chicken is bland, particularly chicken breast.

I still have a lot of sinus drainage that dries in throat and makes it hard to swallow. Using a sinus irrigator helps that problem a lot, so it gets used daily.

Keep fighting, many people on the forum have told me recovery is often measured in years, not weeks or months. I didn't believe them at first, but now that I'm six months into this I see they were right. I'm way better than I was immediately after radiation ended, but I'm not anywhere near back to normal yet; it may never come. If that's the case, so be it.

Good luck, keep fighting
Tony