Strep Throat - Symptoms

The first symptoms of strep throat appear one to five days after a person is infected. The symptoms are no different from any other kind of sore throat (see sore throat entry). They include fever, chills, headache, muscle aches, nausea, a feeling of tiredness, and swollen lymph glands. (Lymph nodes are small round or oval bodies that are part of the body's immune system.) The patient's tonsils will be swollen and have bright red with white or yellow patches on them. A person with strep throat often has bad breath. Strep throat can often spread and cause an infection to the tonsils (see tonsillitis entry).

Some people with the disease may have few or no symptoms of strep throat. Many young children may get a headache or stomachache, but show no signs of having a sore throat. Other patients develop a high fever along with a sunburn-like rash on the face and upper body, and their tongues may become right red. This form of the infection is known as scarlet fever (see scarlet fever entry). Scarlet fever is no more dangerous than strep throat and both illnesses are treated the same way.

A serious complication of strep throat is rheumatic fever. Rheumatic fever (pronounced roo-MAT-ick FEE-vur) occurs most often in children between the ages of five and fifteen. However, rheumatic fever is relatively rare and is seldom a problem if strep throat is treated properly and quickly.