Strep Throat in 3 year old

[Jenn316]

I brought our 3 year old to the doctor because he was complaining about joint pain in his knees.   Our son also had a sore throat about 3 weeks earlier (for one day, with a moderate fever that went away the following day).  

Our pediatriacian thought maybe the joint pain may have been caused by strep throat.  So we had a strep culture, and there were still antibodies in his throat (Assuming because he had strep throat weeks before that was undetected).    The culture was positive, however our son had only had 1 day of sore throat with a short fever 4 weeks prior to this throat culture.  

The doctor then wanted our 3 yr old to give blood to look or Rheumatoid factor and Titre tests, so we did that today.  We will have to wait for the results.  But what can we expect giong down this road.   The doctor is scaring us saying that if the bloodwork shows inflamation (inflammation) then our 3 year old may have Rheumatoid Fever and need to go on antibiotics for the next 17 years (until he's about 20 years old).  This sounds absolutely insane to me.  There has to be another school of thought on this because I refuse to put my 3 year old on antibiotics for his entire childhood for fear he might get strep throat again and cause heart damage that may or may not have been diagnosed correctly in the first place.  Other than the sore throat and some minor join pain that lasted a couple of hours, our son is totally active plays in sports, runs, and swims constantly and hasn't had any other problems or symptoms at all!    

Please if anyone has any information on where we should be looking for information about this - we would be greatly appreciative to receive some help.  
Either way, I am refusing to put my kid on antibiotics for 17 years...IT's NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!

PLEASE HELP????!!!!!!

[Cherie762]

dormaint strep can cause erythema nodusum in children particularly white males..this condition cause joint pain usually presenting in the legs..often with nodules or granulomas..treatment of this disease is predisone. neaproxen and anitbiotics for an  extended time usually a month..not 17 years...Erythema nodosum is quite painful, but kids can be residulant to pain...I know all this because it happened to my son when he was 11...so I hope your problem is something other than what doctor is suggesting...and if he thinks his diagnosis is infact correct PLease get a second or third opinion....

[bombilla]

I understand that you don't want to put your child on antiboc. for 17 years.  Who would want to do that.  However, our son has high ASO's and now he has a heart murmer because of strep.  You think that because they are playing and running ( which by the way our son plays football for his jr high school, and basketball as well) that every thing is fine, but it may not be as we found out. After we found out that his ASO's were high the first time we put him on antiboc. for 5 months.  A 1000 mg of amox. 2 times a day.  He felt like **** but when all was said and done he was doing great and the ASO's came down to below 400.  Now he has gone to the doctor for a check up and the test results showed that his ASO's are back to 749 and he has not had strep in 6 months.  Our doctor has set up an appointment with St. Jude. The Infectious disease center.  You might want to try and take your child to a center near you, just to rule out any other possiblities.  I hope this helps and sorry you and your family are going through this.  

[swampcritter]

Rheumatic Fever is indeed treated with sometimes very long term antibiotic prophylaxis. A common method is a shot every 3 weeks of penicillin (if allergic, there are alternatives).

Pains in the knees in one child 3 weeks after an untreated strep infection in the other is an indicator of RF, your doctor made a very good call here.

As hard as it will be for you, if RF is the diagnosis its highly advisable to perform the recommended treatment. As bad as these injections will be, congestive heart failure is considerably worse.