How to Prevent Strap Throat

Strap throat is very common among kids and teens. Symptoms of strap throat include fever, stomach pain, and red, swollen tonsils. Strap throat usually requires treatment with antibiotics. With the proper medical care — along with plenty of rest and fluids — your child should be back to school and play within a few days.

If a kid has strap throat, the doctor will probably give him or her medicine called antibiotics. These kill the strap bacteria. That's good news because sometimes strap throat can get worse and cause problems with other parts of a kid's body. In rare cases, untreated strap can cause arthritis (say: arth-rye-tus) or heart problems from a disease called rheumatic (say: roo-mah-tik) fever.

How is Strap Throat Transmitted?

Strap Throat is transmitted directly from person to person by coughing, sneezing, and close contact. Very occasionally strap throat is passed through food, when a food handler infected with strap throat accidentally contaminates food by coughing or sneezing.

How Can I Prevent Strap Throat?

The best way to avoid strap throat is to reduce stress, get plenty of rest, and fortify your body's natural defenses. Frequent hand-washing can greatly prevent infection. The bacteria are spread by sneezing, coughing, and shaking hands or close contact with people who are infected. You can also pick up strap by touching objects such as books, doorknobs, tables, or other hard surfaces that were touched by a contaminated person and then touching your nose or mouth -- hand-washing can help prevent this.

Causes: Breathing through the mouth (can cause drying and irritation of the throat), Common cold, Viral pharyngitis, Influenza, Strep throat (caused by streptococcal bacteria), Infectious mononucleosis, Fish, chicken bone, or other foreign substance stuck in the throat. (For emergency actions, see choking child or adult or CPR.), Endotracheal intubation (tube insertion), Surgery such as tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy
Strap throat occurs most frequently from November to April. The disease passes directly from person to person by coughing, sneezing, and close contact. Very occasionally the disease is passed through food, when a food handler infected with strap throat accidentally contaminates food by coughing or sneezing. Statistically, if someone in the household is infected, one out of every four other household members may get strap throat within two to seven days.

Prevention methods for sore throat

The chief method of preventing sore throats is to keep hands free of germs that may cause viral or bacterial infection. Regular handwashing is important to achieving this goal. Children should always wash their hands before eating and after using the bathroom. They also should wash after spending time in public spaces or after touching animals. It is important to wash the front and backs of the hands and to get in-between the fingers. Keep your mouth covered, so that the bacteria from a sick person do not enter your system. Do not come in contact with a sick person’s used tissues. Wash your hands thoroughly, as they carry a large percentage of the strap throat .