Parents can prevent the spread of strep throat at home if someone in the house has already been diagnosed with a strep infection. Be certain that all your family members thoroughly wash their hands after wiping noses and before eating or preparing food. Make sure you wash all dishes, cups and utensils thoroughly in hot soapy water or in a dishwasher. Also do not allow the sharing of food or eating utensils.
When Can A Child Infected With Strep Throat Return To School?
Children with strep infections may return to school after taking the prescribed medicine for at least 24 hours and there is no fever.
Step Throat Treatment
It is important that your child receive treatment if diagnosed with strep throat. Treatment with antibiotics usually can prevent rheumatic fever. Although it is rare, some children with strep develop rheumatic fever, which causes abnormality of the heart valves and inflammation of the joints. Treatment also will prevent other rare, but possibly serious complications from a strep infection. Also if your child is not treated, or not treated long enough, they may continue to spread the infection to other members of your family and to other children.
Strep Throat & Children
Strep throat is a sore throat caused by Streptococcus bacteria. These bacteria are spread through nose and mouth droplets. It is a common illness in children. Most sore throats are caused by viruses and are not treated with antibiotics.
The most important thing to remember though (other then wanting to make your child better), is that your child might affect other children, so the best thing to do is to try and take precautions if you can.
These are the precautions to take in an effort to control the spread of this illness in the school environment:
1. Watch your child for signs of a sore throat and other signs of strep, which are headache, fever, stomach ache, swollen and tender neck glands.
2. Ask your doctor to have your child tested for strep throat. If strep is found, your child should receive treatment immediately.
Fight Colds? Sleep!
People who averaged less than 7 hours of sleep a night were about 3 times more likely to develop cold symptoms than those who got 8 or more hours of sleep when exposed to the virus that causes colds.
Keep Your Child Home From School When Sick
If your child unfortunately does get sick, you must keep them home from school if s/he has:
A fever over 100 degrees Fahrenheit during the past 24 hours (or has taken a fever reducing medication within the past 24 hours).
A cold in the active stages: coughing, running nose, sneezing.
A sore throat and/or swollen neck glands.
An undiagnosed rash or skin eruption.
Vomiting or diarrhea during the past 24 hours.
Head lice that have not been treated.
If you are uncertain if your child might make the other children sick, you should contact the school nurse or your doctor before sending to school. It would be wrong to infect the rest of the students and teachers with your child’s illness.
Preventing Colds and Flu
As you have probably heard, there are a lot of colds and flu around this year. Both respiratory and gastrointestinal illnesses have been especially circulating within the schools. This is due to the fact that children tend to spread germs easily and lack of fresh outdoor air. Remember all of these stay healthy tips:
1. Hand washing is one of the best ways to prevent the spread of illness. Wash your hands often — when they are dirty, before eating, after using the restroom, and after sneezing into a tissue.
2. Cough Etiquette. Avoid coughing or sneezing into your hands – use a tissue or your elbow. After sneezing, try and wash your hands as soon as possible. This will ensure that any bacteria or germs from your sneeze don’t remain on your hands all day, preventing you from spreading any germs.
3. Avoid touching your eyes, nose, and mouth. Germs spread this way. If you do have to touch these areas, try and clean your hands before and after to ensure no germs are being spread around your body.
4. MOST IMPORTANTLY stay away from people who are sick and stay home when you are sick to avoid spreading the flu around.
Cold vs Flu
Here is how to tell the difference between a cold and the flu:
Cold
Gradual onset of symptoms
No fever
Slight body aches
Headache uncommon
Runny nose, sneezing
Sore throat common
Hacking cough
Flu
Sudden onset of symptoms
High fever
Often severe body aches
Headache common
Sometimes runny nose, no sneezing
Sore throat uncommon
Dry cough
Doctors Turning Away Unvaccinated Children
Some doctors will turn away patients that refuse to be vaccinated to protect their other patients. The biggest concern doctors have with people not being vaccinated is that an unvaccinated child could expose other patients, especially newborns and children too young to be vaccinated yet, to potentially deadly diseases.
Immunization Schedule Safer Than Delaying Vaccinations?
Vaccination Myth: “Delaying vaccines is safer than following the standard immunization schedule.”
Some parents worry that giving too many vaccines at once can lead to developmental problems. Recently researchers compared kids who received their shots on time with kids whose parents spread them out. They found that those who followed delayed schedules fared the same or not as well on cognitive tests as those who followed the standard schedule. In addition by delaying vaccines, you are giving potentially serious infections a window of opportunity to take hold. Some diseases like tetanus don’t provide any natural immunity. The only way to protect yourself is to get vaccinated.
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