October 23, 2008
LIVESTRONG.COM
Rheumatic fever is an inflammatory disease that can develop as a rare complication of untreated or undertreated strep throat infection. Strep throat is caused by infection with group A streptococcus. Learn about the different causes, symptoms, and treatments for Rheumatic Fever in this video.
Dr. Davis is one of San Francisco's finest house call specialist physicians and has been providing house calls and office visits to the Bay Area since 2005. His practice is built upon the philosophy that excellent customer service and excellent patient care go together. Dr. Davis works out of a charming 100-year-old Victorian home, and he believes that healing should begin when you walk in the door. While trained in modern medicine, Dr. Davis also has a deep appreciation of cultural anthropology, the natural sciences, and philosophy all of which he integrates with his medical practice. Dr. Davis received his MD from the University of Florida and completed his Family Practice residency at Lehigh Valley Family Practice. He has also lived, studied, and traveled abroad extensively, including for one year in Beijing, China, where he studied and practiced the principles of Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture.
JUSTIN C.K. DAVIS, MD: Hi, my name is Dr. Justin Davis and today, we will be discussing rheumatic fever. Rheumatic fever is a rare complication that can arise from untreated strep throat infections. Strep throat is a disease caused by a bacteria called streptococcus group A that can affect various parts of the body, but is most typically associated with throat infections. Again, it's a very rare complication, but when a child in particular has strep throat and it goes untreated, a couple weeks later on occasion, the child may develop rheumatic fever. Rheumatic fever is not limited to children, although it's most commonly between ages to 5 to 15 years old. It can occur really at any age in adults. If one develops rheumatic fever, the symptoms are typically high fever or rash. You may have swollen lymph nodes - these are the little glands that are located around the body but particularly in the neck. There maybe abdominal symptoms such as pain and eventually this will go away, but a serious complication that can sometimes arise from rheumatic fever is rheumatic heart disease and this is when, again, not for clear reasons but there's some kind of autoimmune reaction that causes a deformity of the heart valves that can lead to, later on, complications with blood flow of the heart. Because rheumatic fever is caused by symptoms of untreated strep throat, it is important to recognize the symptoms of strep throat. Strep throat often occurs in children, although it can occur in adults. It's usually a sudden onset of a very sore throat with swollen lymph nodes - those glands located in this throat, difficulty swallowing, pus in the back of the throat, high fevers, body aches; usually people with strep throat feel pretty sick. The treatment for rheumatic heart disease is that there are really isn't a true treatment once these have developed, but to try to avoid this, you can treat the strep throat. Today, in the United States, this is a very rare complication as we have developed antibiotics and have treated strep throat in children much more aggressively. Prevention - well prevention with any kind of disease such as strep throat is always careful hand washing, but to prevent further complications such as rheumatic fever or rheumatic heart disease. If you have any suspicion that your child maybe sick with strep throat and make sure to take them to their physician right away. There are ways that we can test not only for only strep throat but we can also test for recent infections with strep throat and this will help us to diagnose properly and treat properly the underlying problem.
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