From Eaton Rapids Joe’s eponymous blog, a thought for all of us sick folks out and about:
Sunday, January 8, 2023
Strep Throat
Anecdotal evidence suggests that there is a lot of Strep Throat locally right now.
Strep Throat often follows colds and other viral infections. It is primarily an opportunistic infection that takes advantage of the fact that frequent coughing and throat clearing irritates the throat and removes some of the protective layer of mucous.
If you read “symptoms” on the internet you will find countless repetitions of the words “…the back of the throat looks beefy…” While this may be totally clear to medical students it was not clear to me. I am made of meat. All of my inside parts look “beefy”.
After way too much digging, what they mean is that the normal, whitish, filmy covering over the back of your tongue, upper mouth and throat is gone. The Strep bacteria displaced it.
Strep is nothing to screw around with if it doesn’t clear up in a day or two. It can infect your heart valves and/or kidneys.
Posted by Eaton Rapids Joe at 8:12 AM
MY COMMENT:
Simply to make things more interesting, technically, the strep does not, itself, “infect” kidneys or heart. Some varieties of strep B produce a toxin that elicits a sort of autoimmune response, “rheumatic fever”, which is readily prevented by antibiotics. Take note! The abx really do NOTHING for the sore throat (which, of course, is why we all see our doctors in the first place), rather, they protect us against a potential consequence of infection with certain varieties of Strep B which may trigger that response.
Should one develop rheumatic fever, (which itself may be life changing), that may be followed by rheumatic heart disease, which can be a BFD (Big Freaking Deal), with scarring of the valves, leading to narrowing thereof, and requiring increased effort from your heart to force blood through them, leading to heart failure. This, also, is generally prevented by antibiotics (abx).
Musings of A Stretcher Ape 
Strep sux. Sequelae suck. Why aren’t abx effective for the initial bacterial infection? Childhood friend landed in the hospital with heart valve damage due to strep. Let’s hope the medical system doesn’t collapse in the foreseeable future.
Woke up this morning to my first-ever toothache. Dentist is closed the next three days, of course. If I had abx, I’d be temptedto take ’em despite my massive ignorance of the subject. The human body could be designed better.
Landlord has, “just in case”, a six-year-old half-full bottle of penicillin tabs that was prescribed for his non-compliant sibling . It is stored on the shelf above the clothes dryer. Insert eye-roll emoji here. I am not even remotely tempted to use them.
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Thanks for linking to the original post.
Much of this “getting older” gig involves being reminded how important the basic blocking-and-tackling are.
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