Strep Throat and Tonsils

[Andy]

difficult child's friend H is over right now. He has been here all afternoon. He just said that he needs to go home about 6:30 so his mom can look at his throat.

I said, "Why? To see if you have strep again?" (He pretty much is a living strep throat case)

"Yes"

"Then why are you over here?"

"Because difficult child doesn't have his tonsils - he can't get strep."

I am not happy with this! If he is sick, he is sick! You don't take a survey of those friends without tonsils and go play with them.

Has anyone else heard that if you don't have tonsils you can't get sick if someone has strep?

I doubt this kid has strep. He is way to alert, active, ect. If there is a possibility, then he should be kept home. Or atleast his mom should have called me to tell me, "Hey, H is under strep throat watch this weekend/week. He is not showing signs of it but since he gets it so much lately I wanted to let you know. Is it still o.k. if he goes to your house to play with difficult child?"

But then again, I am kicking them off the X-Box and without that to do, he probably is just using that as an excuse to leave?

 

[Wiped Out]

I think you can get strep even if you don't have tonsils. I agree the mom should have called you!

 

[DDD]

I agree. on the other hand I have been shocked many times that other Moms just don't think like I do. What seems totally obvious just went over their heads. DDD

 

[Hound dog]

You can get strep with or without tonsils. omg lol Ok, so it's not funny really but some things that people believe just boggle the mind.

If it's possible he has strep he needs sent home and his mom needs to be told to stop exposing her child to well children if he does indeed have strep throat. geez

Now I will say that when easy child was a young child she went back and forth from ear infections to strep throat, regardless of any precautions I took. By the time she was 8 there wasn't even a space of time between infections, poor kid. Fed up, I hunted down a pediatrician doctor who would remove her tonsils. Why? Because her tonsils were ALWAYS swollen so severely she had at best a pencil size opening into her throat, at worst a pin size hole, neither normal. She had developed sleep apnea as well.

Once her tonsils were removed, I think she had one case of strep throat. Ear infections stopped completely. Why? doctor said the infection had settled in her tonsils and she never really got over it. Swollen tonsils caused drainage from the nose to back up into the inner ear causing the ear infections. Hence the never ending cycle.

So I can see how the woman "assumed" her conclusion I suppose, but still.......... ugh

 

[HaoZi]

My ex used to get strep so often that if he got them once more a year his doctor wanted to remove his tonsils. Because of the cycle that Hound Dog mentioned and because the swelling can occur so fast and impede breathing. I've never heard a doctor claim he would NOT get it if he didn't have tonsils, just that he would have less complications from it. I swear, every time I went to the dentist, he came down with strep. But I didn't. Go figure.

 

[witzend]

OMG - The only sillier childhood illness thing I've heard is when people used to send their children over to play the kid with chicken pox "so they'd be exposed."

 

[DammitJanet]

I can beat this little illness thing. Hands down.

I called Jamie just a week or two ago because I heard something on the Dr. Oz show about how if a man ejaculates frequently that it will keep the fluid moving through the prostate and hence reduce prostate cancer. (He constantly complains about his lack of a sex life with his wife and she bemoans the fact that should even have to perform wifely duties...sigh) I thought I was giving him some info to use to his advantage as in...honey you want to keep me healthy dont you? LOL.'

Well...he has had a vasectomy. He tells me. Mom...thats interesting but me who have been cut cant get nut cancer.

HUH?

First of all..."nut" cancer would be testicular cancer not prostate cancer. Not the same thing. And why would a vasectomy cure either one?

 

[witzend]

too much information, Birthday girl!

 

[susiestar]

This woman is an idiot. Send/take the kid home and before he can come over again his mother must tell you if he is under watch for strep or other infections. If you don't speak to her and get an honest answer to this question then don't let the kid in the house. NOT because you are mad at the kid but because you have every right to protect your home from someone who brings infections in with-o even asking you if it is okay or if anyone else in the house might get the infection. Just because one person has had tonsils out doesn't mean that the rest of you have! Even if her idiotic idea that tonsil removal means you are immune to bacteria WAS true, it would still not be a responsible adult who would send a child at risk of having strep to your house to play with-o warning you. What if you had an elderly relative or friend or someone with a bad immune system visit while her kid was at your house!

by the way, our docs always say that you are contagious from about a week before you start seeing symptoms until you have been on antibiotics for a full 24 hours. So the kid might not have symptoms but might be contagious and if they are "watching" him then he needs to stay HOME. It could be an excuse to leave because you won't let them play longer, so I would ask his mom. I would also make sure she realizes that strep is a bacteria that can infect many parts of the body, not just the tonsils!

Janet, tell the boy that his operation had NOTHING to do with cancer prevention unless they REMOVED either his prostate or nuts. If he has them he needs to be checking them regularly (esp the self test for testicular cancer).

 

[DammitJanet]

But Witz...I used all the anatomically correct terms and they are so big on letting it all hang out...no problem.

 

[svengandhi]

My oldest son has PANDAS (diagnosed at NIMH) and we had his tonsils out to reduce strep. It did greatly reduce the amount of strep he got but it did not completely eradicate it. I would be annoyed at this mom unless the kid was on antibiotics.

Witzend - I am turning 52 this year. My mom has told me that when I was a toddler and had German measles, many of her friends and neighbors who had teenaged daughters who had never had the German measles were sent over to play with me so they could get it before they got married and pregnant. In the early 60's, people knew that GM could cause birth defects if a woman had it while pregnant and since there was no vaccine yet and abortion was not easily available, parents deliberately tried to get their kids exposed before they were child-bearing. I apparently infected 13 young women myself.

With regard to chicken pox, some people don't believe in the vaccine and would possibly rather their kids have the disease. My oldest son had chicken pox so badly I was afraid he'd die - he had pox on the inside of his not quite yet toilet trained 2 year old penis; I cried cleaning him up. My daughter caught it from him because she was exposed before he showed symptoms. difficult child and easy child had the shot, which wasn't yet available when the 2 oldest were sick, and have recently had boosters (they are 14 and 16 now). The youngest got chicken pox when he was too young (9 months) to have the shot or he'd have had it because I could not stand to see another child suffer the way my oldest did.

Don't know anything about prostate or testicular and the vasectomy link, but it could be since women who've had hysterectomies can't get ovarian cancer.

 

[smallworld]

Andy, my son had chronic tonsillitis with high fevers (never strep) from ages 2 to 4 and then finally had his tonsils out. Two months later he developed a fever of 102 and a sore throat. I called his pediatrician, who told me that I had to bring him in for a strep test. Much to our surprise, his strep test was positive. This was his very first case of strep -- with no tonsils! And he's gone on to have strep many times more.

Yes, this mom doesn't know anything about strep or tonsils. And she should keep her germy son away from your healthy one.

 

[susiestar]

The reason women who have had hysterectomies don't get ovarian cancer is because they ahd total or complete hysterectomies and their ovaries were removed. Those who have had one or both ovaries left CAN get ovarian cancer - it is one thing I researched and spoke to the OB/GYN about before my hysterectomy.

 

[donna723]

When I was a kid, before they had immuniations against all those things, I remember that people would purposely expose their pre-school age kids to children who had measles and chickenpox so they would get it before they started school!

Having the tonsils out may not protect against getting strep but bad tonsils can seem to harbor it and make it come back over and over again. When my daughter was about four, she had tubes put in to her ears and her adenoids removed, which stopped her constant ear infections. I really wanted them to take out her tonsils at the same time but the doctor didn't want to do it then. She did OK for a while but then started getting strep - it was constanty going around in the schools. She got it over and over again ... every time we went through the doctors visits, testing, and rounds of antibiotics which I always made sure she finished. It would seem to clear up and then in a few weeks she had it right back again. Poor kid was sick all the time. They FINALLY agreed to take out her tonsils when she was 15 and it was quite an ordeal and ended up requiring an overnight hospital stay. So much rougher on her than if they had just taken them out when she was four!

 

[Andy]

Thank you everyone! That is what I thought - having tonsils remove may help lesson the severity but you still can get strep.

This family has it every time you turn around. Can't figure out how - and when one gets it, they all go on antibiotics to prevent and/or treat something there but not yet showing. The mom went as far as to track down another mom from our kid's neighborhood Christmas party over a week after the party just to let her know H and a neighbor girl A who did not go to the party both had strep and that L was the only common denominator (She went to A's home after the party) so I know she keeps close tabs on it. She wanted to know if the other kid had it and to let all us parents know H came down with strep so we can watch for it in our kids.

I think H overheard and misunderstood something. She may have told him that having his tonsils out will stop this. He is 14 years old and the older you are I think the harder it is to recover from having tonsils out?

 

[donna723]

Something that never crossed my mind when we were going through all that with my daughter ... now they say that if you have strep, once you're on antibiotics and not contagious anymore, you should get a new tooth brush and throw away the old one! That makes a lot of sense, if you use the same old germy tooth brush you could get it right back again!

 

[HaoZi]

Yes, for anything contagious like that, including all respiratory and mouth infections.

 

[Hound dog]

I've never understood parents who deliberately expose their child to anything. However the German Measles one I do understand, and in that day in time......it at least made some amount of sense. Not saying I agree with it. All 3 of my kids had chicken pox as easy child brought it home from kindergarden........Nichole was 18 months old an no it wasn't fun, but was far better than the german measles she had a 9 months contracted by the vaccine. (we nearly lost her with those) I'm not for the chicken pox vaccine....but I'm not necessarily against it either.

Janet I had to LOL at Jamie's reponse. At his age if he has lack of sex drive he might want to have his hormone levels checked. And he most certainly needs to do the cancer checks! omg LOL

 

[DammitJanet]

Lisa, Jamie has a perfectly healthy sex drive, its his wife who doesnt...lol. She thinks that since she has now married him she can forget about it. Especially now that they have the two kids and dont want anymore. All I hear is how he wants it, she doesnt and I should somehow fix this situation. Trust me, I have tried. Personally, I think the woman is insane. I realize that two kids at those ages are hard but really, he is 3 years younger than her and she knew that when she married him!

 

[smallworld]

Our pediatrician is the one who told us about changing toothbrushes after my son had four back-to-back strep infections -- and it stopped the strep in its tracks.