Complications That Untreated Strep Throat May Lead To

Unlike sore throat, that spontaneously appears and disappears in a few days, strep throat needs to be treated with antibiotics. In case it is left untreated, strep throat may worsen and degenerate into severe complications, like coronary disease, rheumatic fever or kidney inflammations. These complications used to be lethal before the discovery of the penicillin, but nowadays strep throat is easily and efficiently cured by the proper treatment.

Sore throat and strep throat should not be taken one for the other. The first one has a viral cause and easy symptoms. Strep throat is a bacterial infection, generated by Group A hemolytic streptococcus bacteria and it is more severe. The common symptoms of strep throat are: lymphatic nodes, throat inflammation, coughing, fever, fatigue and tonsils enlargement. The sore throat's symptoms never last longer than a few days while those of strep throat have a progressive character and it takes more than seven days for them to go away. In case it is not treated, strep throat generates scarlet fever or tonsillitis; a low immunity may induce the infection a systemic character, causing multiple damages to the body.

Strep throat represents an extremely contagious condition that mostly affects people in the periods associated to flu and generates more severe symptoms than those of sore throat.

There are cases in which physical exams are all that it takes to determine whether a patient has a sore or a strep throat. Most of the doctors are able to make the distinction between a viral and a bacterial infection, only by checking on the tonsils and the body temperature of the patients. But an exact diagnosis requires tests performed in the laboratories. The most common of these tests is the pharyngeal exudate. In case a bacterial cause is detected, the proper antibiotic treatment is prescribed to the patient right away.

The serious side effects of antibiotics determine the doctors to limit their prescription to severe cases of strep throat. There are situations in which no treatment is administered because the inflammations seem not to be generated by streptococcus bacteria. Persistent and gradually worsening symptoms demand immediately penicillin or amoxicillin treatments.

For the complete eradication of the infection, antibiotics must be taken for 10 days or even longer. Take your medicines exactly the way they were prescribed and do not interrupt the treatment, because such action will determine recidivation of the infection.

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