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Home Remedies Strep Throat

Strep Throat or Bacterial Throat Infection


Only 15% of the throat infections are bacterial infection associated normally with Streptococcus infection. The condition is called strep throat. There are other bacteria that may cause sore throat but their incidences are very low. Most of the other throat infections are viral.

The incidences of strep throat are highest among the children between the age of 5-18.

In a typical sore throat due to bacterial infection, the sufferer will find it difficult to swallow. The throat may appear puffy or swollen and red.

Untreated strep throat may lead to serious complications including rheumatic fever or inflammation of connective tissue and joint pain, tonsil abscess, fever with body rash, and kidney diseases. Home remedies for strep throat help reduce symptoms, pain and fever but a full blown strep throat requires medicines.

Because of the similar symptoms of the viral and bacterial throat infections the strep throat appears similar to the viral sore throat. Therefore, the throat culture is often used to find the presence of bacteria.

Though a rapid strep test can be conducted by the physician and the results can be obtained in 15 minutes, there is a problem with this test that the negative reading is not reliable. Therefore, another test is done by swabbing the throat by cotton and sending the sample to the lab for testing. The results are available in 24 hours.

Interestingly people use the terminologies such as tonsillitis, sore throat and strep throat for the same symptoms, though all three are different conditions. Strep throat normally affects teenagers and preteens than adults. However any one can get strep throat at any age but the probabilities lower with rising age.

Streptococcus bacteria are generally grouped in a chain structure. The chains can be seen under the microscope.  There are many families of the grouped streptococcus bacteria out of which the Group A Streptococcus (GAS) bacteria is responsible for causing bacterial sore throat.

People catch strep throat infection by coming in contact with another infected person. This is contagious. So take precautions when you come near some one with throat infection!

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