CHILDREN’S HEALTH: SORE THROAT
Symptoms: pain; swollen neck glands; difficulty in swallowing
Home care:
Have the child gargle with salt water and drink extra fluids.
Give aspirin or paracetamol to relieve pain.
Keep the child isolated until the cause of the sore throat is diagnosed.
Precautions
- A child with a sore throat accompanied by any of the following symptoms should be seen by a doctor:
swollen or tender neck glands
persistent difficulty swallowing
pus-like discharge from eyes or nose
earache
breathing difficulty
chest pain
rash
stiff neck
weakness or exhaustion
confusion
prolonged vomiting
- Any child with a sore throat and fever that are still getting worse after 24 to 36 hours should be seen by a doctor.
- A child with a sore throat should be kept away from other children, particularly infants, until a diagnosis has been made.
In theory, and in the medical school classroom, a sore throat is one of the simplest childhood problems to diagnose and to treat. Medical textbooks state that a sore throat is usually caused by a virus and, therefore, does not require treatment with antibiotics because viruses do not respond to medication. A sore throat that is not caused by a virus is generally due to streptococcus bacteria. These organisms can be identified by culturing throat secretions, and a strep throat can be treated with penicillin or, if the child is allergic to penicillin, with erythromycin.
In practice, however, the diagnosis and treatment of a sore throat is not so straightforward. Viral infections sometimes are complicated by streptococcal infections. A throat culture may isolate streptococci organisms even though the illness is not being caused by these organisms, and about 5 percent of throat cultures will not show streptococci even when they are present and are, in fact, the cause of the sore throat. Some bacterial illnesses that cause a sore throat will respond to antibiotics, but the infecting bacteria cannot be identified through an ordinary throat culture.
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Tags: General health