Symptoms: Sore, red throat; inflamed tonsils, often with spots; fever.
Home care:
Treat as you would treat a cold or sore throat.
Give aspirin or paracetamol for fever and pain
Give the child plenty of fluids.
Precautions
- Drooling accompanying a sore throat should be brought to the attention of your doctor immediately.
- White, cheesy material on the tonsils is normal and does not indicate infection.
- If a child is eating poorly, the cause is something other than enlarged tonsils.
- A quinsy sore throat always requires medical treatment.
The tonsils (in the throat) and the adenoids (in the back of the nose) are part of the lymphatic system, and their function is to destroy disease-causing germs. They may become infected with disease-causing germs from a common cold, strep throat, infectious mononucleosis, diphtheria, or tuberculosis.
Signs and symptoms
The child will complain of a sore throat and will have a fever. The throat will appear red and sometimes there are spots on the tonsils. Acute infection of the tonsils is diagnosed from the appearance of the throat and the results of a throat culture or blood count. This enlargement of the tonsils rarely produces symptoms by itself but, in extreme cases, can make it hard for the child to swallow. Enlargement of the adenoids can result in mouth breathing, hearing loss and middle ear infection, snoring, nasal speech, and bad breath. Adenoids can be examined with special instruments or seen on an X ray.
A unique infection of the tonsils is quinsy sore throat (peritonsillar abscess). In quinsy a large abscess forms behind a tonsil, producing intense pain and a high fever (39.4°C or 40°C). The abscess eventually pushes the tonsil across the midline of the throat. The child will have difficulty speaking (“hot potato speech”) and swallowing and will drool.
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