Treatment

Valley fever usually involves supportive care and sometimes medications.

Rest

Most people with acute valley fever don't require treatment. Even when symptoms are severe, the best therapy for otherwise healthy adults is often bed rest and fluid intake. Still, doctors carefully monitor people with valley fever.

Antifungal medications

If symptoms don't improve or become worse, or you're at increased risk of complications, your doctor may prescribe an antifungal medication, such as fluconazole. Antifungal medications are also used for people with chronic or disseminated disease.

The antifungal drugs fluconazole (Diflucan) or itraconazole (Sporanox, Onmel, Tolsura) are generally used for all but the most serious forms of coccidioidomycosis disease.

All antifungals can have serious side effects. But these side effects usually go away once the medication is stopped. Possible side effects of fluconazole and itraconazole are nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea.

More serious infection may first be treated with an intravenous antifungal medication such as amphotericin B (Abelcet, Ambisome, others).

Three newer medications — voriconazole (Vfend), posaconazole (Noxafil) isavuconazonium sulfate (Cresemba) — may also be used to treat more-serious infections.

Antifungals control the fungus, but sometimes don't destroy it, and relapses may occur. For many people, a single bout of valley fever results in lifelong immunity. But the disease can be reactivated, or you can be reinfected if your immune system is significantly weakened.