When do you take your child to the dr. for a sore throat?

[ang79]

Well, my 7 year old was just diagnosed with strep. But it was weird symptoms. A mystery low grade fever and chills on a Thursday night before bed that was gone by morning. Then she started with a cough on Sunday evening. I thought it was allergy related (we had been outside at a girl scout camp in the woods all afternoon in drizzly weather). Nose was a bit sniffly too, and throat only hurt when she coughed a lot. Cough persisted all week so I took her in on Friday. It was strep. Doctor said she had diagnosed a child earlier that day with strep and he only had a cough. But sister had a sore throat. Both were strep. My Dd1 came down with a hoarse voice and sore throat on Saturday. Called the after hours ped. and he prescribed antibiotics since one already had strep. Both girls had red throat with some bumps when we looked inside with a flashlight.

[gatorsmom]

It's so hard to know when mine have strep. Unusually, a couple of them have had it twice this spring. Normally attribute a sore throat to seasonal allergies and runny nose causing the sore throat until some other odd symptom pops up. We've had runny noses all spring but one of the kids in February was kind of lethargic ad felt warm so we had him tested. He was positive for strep. So I had the other three kids swabbed and another one had it too. Same thing happened end of April. One kid was acting so odd and had a sore throat. He had strep and so did another kid, a different one this time. Both times the second kid had no symptoms.

Because there is an express care in the grocery store next to our house, it's easy and very fast to get them swabbed. If one has it, I usually take the other three because they often share drinks.