Ot~Has this ever happend to anyone before with kids and strep?

[SueM in MN]

I would bring her in to the Dr and get her ears checked etc.. You never know.

I think I need to bring my dd back to the DR again too, her cough isn't any better (the medicine they gave her did nothing for it)and she still has a fever and her throat STILL looks yucky. She has been on the anti meds since thursday... Shouldn't her throat look better by now?

The antibiotics probably won't do much for the cough; most coughs are due to irritation, which the antibiotics won't really do much for.
When they do the culture, they usually also do sensitivities, which means checking which antibiotics the germs are sensitive to. They want to choose the antibiotics it is most sensitive too because those will do the best job of killing the Strep. When they start antibiotics without a culture or before the sensitivities are complete, they are just guessing which antibiotics will work. Usually the guess is right, but sometimes they need to change once they have the sensitivities.
You might not need to bring her back in to the doctor. I would probably call and talk to the nurse or doctor with her symptoms. If the Strep is not very sensitive to the antibiotics she was given, they might just call in a change of antibiotics to the pharmacy without seeling her. If the Strep is sensitive to the antibiotics she's on or they feel the symptoms are too bad, they will want to see her.

 

[delilah]

I am a family physician. I haven't read the entire thread yet, so I apologize if somebody has already given this infomation. The rapid strept test we use has about a 90% positive predictive value, which means that we will miss about 10% of people who have strept throat. I don't routinely do the send away test, but, I have been seeing patients for strept throat for about 20 years now. There is a clinical point scale for predicting likelihood of strept throat on the basis of clinical presentation, which I use in my head when I see a patient for strept throat. There is also other clinical information that I have that is largely experiential. For example, strept infections are more prevelant some times of the year than others (late fall and early spring are two peak times; the middle of winter and middle of summer are low times). Also, if I've seen 4 kids already from a particular school with strept throat today, then, if your child attends that school, and has symptoms consistent with strept, I will treat him. Occasionally, I will send a culture or rapid strept on patients that I think clinically have a better than 90% probability of strept. In my recollection, my percentage rate, using the clinical scale plus my knowledge of the epidemology of strept and the trends in the community, I have very seldom been wrong. That is, I am correct over 95% of the time. So, I usually save my patients the $60-100 the labs cost, and just treat patients that I think have strept throat. As it's been said, if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it's probably a duck and not a finch.