SORE THROAT. Is it a virus or is it STREP?

Your child gets sent home from school complaining of a sore throat.  Yesterday She was feeling fine with no symptoms at all.  You look inside her mouth and see red spots like this:

Your next step is to call the office for an evaluation.  A throat that looks like this is most likely STREP. But what if your child's throat looks like this:

This is a  normal looking throat which is more often seen with a viral cause of sore throat.  Sometimes the physical exam is not so obvious for STREP and a rapid STREP test is performed in the office. This office based test is highly accurate and sometimes a follow up throat culture is sent to a laboratory for confirmation.

STREP THROAT usually presents with a sore throat, fever , headache and stomach ache. The throat pain usually persists throughout the day.  The symptoms usually come on rather quickly with the child often feeling fine the day before the main symptoms start.

A VIRAL SORE THROAT usually presents with runny nose, posterior drainage and sometimes a cough. The sore throat often is worse in the am and gets better as the day goes on.  Viral symptoms tend to creep up on a patient with each day adding a new symptom.

Another cause of sore throat can be MONO. This is usually associated with extreme fatigue but not always. Usually there are also upper respiratory symptoms and aches.  MONO tends to look like this:

We recommend coming in to the office for an evaluation to differentiate between the different causes of sore throat.

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