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 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????!!!!!!