strept throat...

Strep throat is no joke. Take time off to let your body kick it and finish your antibiotic medications - even if you feel better, even if they upset your stomach, etc. The Streptocoocus bacteria has an antigen profile similar to your heart valves - your immune system can produce antibodies that attack your heart valves - serious stuff - rheumatic fever, scarlet fever, etc, that can effect you the rest of your life, or shorten it - not much of a trade off vs. missing 7-10 days of training.

Totally agree. Hopefully you were lucky enough to get Zithromax (which is a 5 day course) instead of another antibiotic that takes 10-14 days.

In either case, make sure you are over it before you resume training. My wife had strep this past fall, went on Zithromax for 5 days and then when the sore throat wasn't completely gone she went back to the doctor and they found that she still had a mild strep infection so back on the Zithromax she went for another 5 days.

Running isn't or at least shouldn't be your life. If you can't take two weeks off to completely get better then you really have a problem.

Be very careful with strep throat! A few years ago when I had it, I went to the Doctor and was given antibiotics. I felt better within a few days, so I resumed running. Things went downhill and I ended up very sick again. It turns out the strep infection didn't go away, an abcess (sp?) developed on my tonsil, and I had to get my tonsils removed! The whole experience was not fun and I missed several weeks of running instead of just maybe taking a week or so off to begin with. Don't mess with throat or chest infections - they can be nasty!

yeah strept sucks, it can easily come back too. Unless your body kills all of the bacteria, it can still come back. That is why you must take all your medication even if you fell better. The last time I had it I was even told to change my toothbrush after I finished my medication to prevent it from coming back.

thank you very much for all of your imput. I have three days left on the drugs, so i will probably just jog a day or two for 20 minutes to keep my legs from becomming mush. i did get zithromax.

Personally if I were you, I'd wait until the Zithromax is finished - 5 days off isn't going to kill you. Someone else said something about getting a new toothbrush - good idea, and you might want to discard the toothpaste while you're at it too.