Ever had fever, diffuculty in swallowing, rash and a sore throat? Chances are, you experienced a mild strep throat. Strep throat is an infection caused by a group A bacteria. This bacterial infection causes you to feel pain in your throat and a mild inflammation in the throat area.Because of the inflammation, patients experience diffuculty while eating foods, drinking water or beverages and swallowing. All of these symptoms usually start to show within 2 to 5 days of infection. After that time period, infection slows down and goes away after 7 to 10 days.
Between this period, patient should see a doctor and after the diagnosis, he/she should isolate himself/herself from the crowd. You can still go out to public but you need to use a highly protective mask. The reason for this is to ensure nobody else gets this infection.
As you guessed it already, strep throat is a highly contagius infection. Just like the covid-19(although less contagius), when a strep throat positive patient coughs or sneezes, bacteria spreads to the surroundings of the patient and particles stay at air for couple of hours. This makes the infection an airborne one.
If, by any chance, you make contact with these particles and touch your nose,eyes,mouth, you might get the strep throat infection. You can also get infected if you kiss another person who is positive and if you share your food/beverage with a strep throat positive person.You can still be contagius even before you show the symptomps as it takes a few days to develop the symptomps. After that, once you start your antibiotic treatment, you will stop being contagius after 2 days. If you don’t use them, you will stay contagius for up to 3 weeks.
You don’t necessarily need to use antibiotics to beat this infection. Our body, can naturally overcome this illness in approximately 7 to 10 days. However, not taking medicine greatly extends the lifetime of the infection. You will stay contagius for 3 weeks if you don’t take antibiotics.Compared to 3 weeks, if you decide to take the medicine, you will stop being contagius after just a couple of days. Not to mention that you are gonna feel better in a shorter amount of time. Because of these factors, its advised to take the healthier option and use antibiotics.
This is something that we know deeply because of the whole covid 19 issue. Even though strep throat infection is not lethal like the covid, we should still take some precautions. Some of these are;
If you pay attention to these little details, you will be doing yourself and to the general public a favour.
Since we pass over the contagius and recovery parts of the infection, we can give more detailed information about the signs of strep throat. If you check the multiple factors below, you will know more about the symptoms and what to do if you think you have it.NOTE: Strep throat symptoms in kids is the same with every other age group.
If you experience more than one of these symptoms, you should visit a doctor immediately. Your doctor will check your throat for inflammation and other signs of strep throat infection. Once you are diagnosed, your doctor will prescribe antibiotics and will give you a 2 day home rest.
In the meantime, you can drink tea or other soothing variations of it. Some of these are honey,garlic,lemon,ginger,peppermint and lavender. These can help your throat pain and swallowing problems to an extent. You should also drink lots of water as your body will need lots of liquids.If you feel too much pain or extreme headaches, you can take a pain reliever. But, before taking the pain reliever, you should check in with your doctor.
Common cold also shows similar signs and it might be confusing for someone to know which one they really have. In this case, there is a small trick that shows the difference between the two. If you have a runny nose that gets blocked every minute, it means you have a cold.A runny nose is not a symptom of strep throat. Most obvious signs of common cold are having a runny nose, coughing and sneezing regulary, feeling down and extreme fever. You don’t really cough and have nasal blockage while dealing with the strep throat.
If you pay attention to these two small factors, you will have a much better clue about what you are dealing with. In any case, its best to go to a doctor and take treatment as soon as possible to prevent this infections contagius characteristic.
Just like with every infection or virus, there are always severe cases that face dangerous situations. If, you don’t take medication and your body can’t fight with the infection, there will be some complications. Some of these complications are rheumatic fever and scarlet fever.Rheumatic fever affects our entire joints, some parts of the skin and the heart. If left untreated, can potentially cause high levels of damage. Scarlet fever also causes are skin to create strep throat like rashes on all of our body. These two are obviously extreme cases and only happens under extreme conditions.
If you don’t respond well to your antibiotics or if you are dealing with another sickness at the same time, always tell these details to your doctor and take your medication without missing a portion. That way, you can get over this mild infection without causing any harm to your body.
Strep throat is a highly contagius infection that affects every age group. It creates problems that occur at the upper side of the body, mainly at the mouth area. However, it can travel to other body parts via multiple ways. Strep throat is not deadly.It’s an infection that our body can fight off. Antibotics are recommended for a quicker and safer treatment plan. The average strep throat goes after a week of antibiotic use. The patient should only go out after he/she is fully healed and no longer infectious.