If you have strep throat or think you do, you should experience a feeling of fullness in your throat, a painful sore throat, swollen glands in your neck, and a fever as high as 102 degrees Fahrenheit. Then it’s time to see the doctor and make sure you get an appointment on the day your symptoms start or the next day at the latest. If this is not possible, go to an urgent care center or emergency room to be seen for treatment of symptoms.
At that time, the doctor will examine you and probably do a rapid strep test or throat culture. A Quick Strep test is a test that returns in about fifteen minutes and can detect the presence of group B strep on a cotton swab. After taking a sample of your tonsils, the doctor will send the sample to the laboratory and tests will be done. You can find out if you have strep throat fairly quickly and an antibiotic may be prescribed.
The antibiotics the doctor chooses will be an erythromycin-based antibiotic, like erythromycin itself, or azithromycin, which is Zithromax. Penicillin-based antibiotics can also be used. Cephalosporins are popular as they are not as resistant to these antibiotics. Tell your doctor if you are allergic to any antibiotics and the right antibiotic will be chosen for you.
You can expect to get better within a week or so, although the antibiotic is usually given over a period of ten days. It is vitally important to take the entire course of antibiotics even if you feel better after a period of one week because it takes time for the antibiotic to kill the bacteria that are harboring in the crypts or holes of the tonsils. These bacteria can, if left unchecked, start a case of strep throat all over again and you’ll be right back where you started. You should also take the entire course of antibiotics because resistant bacteria are the last to be killed and if you stop taking the antibiotics, the next case of strep throat you get (which will be shortly after the last one) will be much more difficult to treat and you will be sicker for longer next time.
One of the reasons you should see a doctor if you think you have strep throat is that it usually doesn’t get better on its own. You can get rheumatic fever, which is a complication of strep throat that causes heart valve problems and heart failure. Not all cases of strep throat will cause rheumatic fever. Other cases of strep throat can lead to strep glomerulonephritis, which is a kidney disease that can result from an untreated case of strep throat.
The most common complication of untreated strep throat is a peritonsillar abscess. This is a collection of bacteria that harbors at the back of the tonsils, causing inflammation of the space between the tonsil and neck tissues. Such an abscess needs to be treated by excision, which could mean having surgery to correct the abscess.