A potentially unusual case

[Guest guest]

Hi folks, allow me to tell you my story regarding :

The thing that makes my story a little unusual is that I'm not writing about my

child (I have

no children) or a child at all. I'm writing about me, and I'm 30 years old. I've

had periodic

fevers, with accompanying sore throat, fatigue, loss of appetite, but

_absolutely_ no

stuffy/runny nose, cough, or sneezing. This set of symptoms has been going on

since

mid-March of 2006. The specialist that I went to visit suspects it might be

, but

knows that it is rare and that an adult case of it (as I might be) is apparently

very rare. He's

ordered lots of tests, and they should help rule out all the usual other

suspects.

He's given me a prescription for oral prednisone, and it seems to work fine for

treating the

outbreaks of the fevers.

My first question for this group is whether or not I can/should try to be able

to tell from

the other symptoms that a recurrence of the fever is likely to occur, and if so,

to take the

prednisone before it does (or before it exceeds 100F)? Or is that not

reasonable? (I realize

that for you that have children that are too young to speak that this question

may not

apply.)

I'm asking this because my recurrences seem to be about every 3 weeks, but I

only

accumulate one sick day per month at work. A little bit of math can tell you

that I'll

probably run out of sick days at my job unless I'm " lucky " enough to have my

fevers be on

the weekends or if I'm able to " head them off at the pass " by taking the

prednisone at the

onset of the other symptoms (which I can work through), but before the (rather

debilitating) high fevers. Any advice/hints/tips/suggestions would be welcome,

as would

suggestions for other adult resources (if there are any people besides me

with adult

?).

Thanks and good luck to you all and all you deal with,