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My son has had a sore throat. I called to tell his teacher at swim lessons that he wouldn’t make it. She told me other kids were out with strep, so I took him to urgent care. He tested negative for strep, but she said his tonsils were very red and swollen. Do you think an antibiotic should be taken? I’m going to call his regular doctor to see what they say too.

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I'm really conservative with meds, but I'd lean towards taking the antibiotics if other kids my dc were in contact with had strep throat.  Strep is so miserable and it would be nice to get something in him right away and also protect the rest of your family from getting it.  Let us know what the doctor says.

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15 minutes ago, Kassia said:

I'm really conservative with meds, but I'd lean towards taking the antibiotics if other kids my dc were in contact with had strep throat.  Strep is so miserable and it would be nice to get something in him right away and also protect the rest of your family from getting it.  Let us know what the doctor says.

The doctor said in the urgent care notes they were saying tonsillitis and they suggested I give the antibiotics to him.

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The rapid strep test is only right half the time. If it looks like strep, I ask for the doctor for antibiotics and we go ahead and do the course.  Strep is miserable. And potentially dangerous if left untreated. 

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40 minutes ago, Bambam said:

The rapid strep test is only right half the time. If it looks like strep, I ask for the doctor for antibiotics and we go ahead and do the course.  Strep is miserable. And potentially dangerous if left untreated. 

A couple of weeks ago Dd had a negative on a rapid strep test, but then a positive on the culture. She regretted not taking the antibiotic prescription they offered when they did the rapid - she called it a "rookie mistake" on her part.  Won't happen again.

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2 hours ago, Elizabeth86 said:

The doctor said in the urgent care notes they were saying tonsillitis and they suggested I give the antibiotics to him.

About six weeks ago my ds15 went to urgent care and had this exact diagnosis. The doctor looked at his throat, basically said yep, that’s definitely strep-I’ll prescribe an antibiotic. Then the rapid came back negative. So he was diagnosed with tonsillitis and was told to still take the antibiotic. (FWIW, he did take it, but after a few more days developed a bit of cough and congestion which is definitely not strep, so who knows what was going on. Could have been bacterial still, could have been strep and something viral too, who knows)

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I don’t mess with strep. If there’s any suspicion — we take the antibiotics. I really don’t see why not, the risk from undiagnosed strep is ugly. 

Extended family member ended up in the ICU from riding out her sore throat. Nearly died. She’s never been the same. And she’s a nurse, should have known better.

 

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Your tonsils can be infected with other things besides strep.  I wouldn't hesitate to use antibiotics.  Our dd used to get tonsillitis occasionally and it was bad.  Antibiotics always cleared it up.  She eventually had to have her tonsils removed.

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