How long after sore throat onset until swab?

[TracyRee]

How long do you wait after your child says they have a sore throat until he get them swabbed for strep? I generally go right away, but have been told it may be too soon for an accurate test.

 

Ds just woke up with sore throat, when should I go?

[airial95]

Personally, I go in immediately. But we also have a PANDAS friendly pediatrician. There are other clinical signs of strep that the doctor can identify - including elevated heartrate, perioral pallor, discoloration in the eyes that are all indicative of strep.

 

The rule of thumb in our house is this: straight to the pediatrician (or after hours) for sore throat, fever, or bedwetting (our most reliable strep symptom!) or to the pediatrician within 48-72 hours of seeing suspicious behavior (if it's an exposure flare, it usually improves within 2 days) if there is no other reason to suspect strep.

 

This action plan has served us well - we're batting about 85% accuracy on confirmed strep when we follow this rule of thumb.

[TracyRee]

Thanks. It's tricky as he has a t&a a year ago and our local doctor isn't pandas friendly. He's had strep once since t&a and many strep tests as I run to doc immediately.

 

I'm expecting them to stop agreeing to tests soon.

[airial95]

Sorry to hear you don't have a PANDAS friendly ped - that has made all the difference for us.

 

As for infections post-T&A - we've had 6 for my son (most recent two weeks ago!) and 5 for my daughter post T&A last November.

 

Turns out we think my hubby is the carrier - hopefully that will settle things down on our end.

[TracyRee]

Well, it wasn't too soon. Positive

[TracyRee]

Thanks. We do have a pandas doc, but not local, so these quick strep tests have to be at the walk in.

[airial95]

Have you looked into ordering the strep tests? Amazon has them online that you can order. We have them at home - mostly to swab my husband and I quickly if needed. But we've used them on the kids before. Our PANDAS friendly ped even showed us the tricks to getting a good swab on ourselves. The kit was reasonably priced - something like $30 or so for 25 tests.

 

If anything - it's given us a peace of mind if we can't get in for a swab quickly.