All my life, watching America

[venta]

Yesterday, I was reading a blog post by an American mum-of-five, and it was mentioned in passing that one of her daughters was really ill with strep.

Strep, you say?

I'm aware that American kids get strep throat. I'm even vaguely aware that that's short for streptococcus. What I'm not aware of is why us British kids don't get it. Is it one of those bizarre geographically-localised conditions? Is it something they make a fuss about that we don't?

So I took myself off to Wikipedia, and read up on Streptococcal pharyngitis. And it sounded dreadfully familiar. In fact, I had it when I was a kid. Repeatedly.

It's just that we call it by its more generic name of tonsilitis.

So there you go. Maybe you knew that anyway. I didn't, and I shall add a new word to my English/US dictionary (along with the recently-added fava beans, lima beans and garbanzo beans).

Edit for accuracy: it seems the most common cause of tonsilitis is viral, not bacterial. So strep throat is tonsilitis, but tonsilitis is not necessarily strep throat.

Comments

[venta.livejournal.com]

I'm confused. Streptococcus is a bacterium, right? According to Wikipedia:

The typical symptoms of streptococcal pharyngitis are a sore throat, fever of greater than 38 °C (100 °F), tonsillar exudates (pus on the tonsils), and large cervical lymph nodes.

Other symptoms include: headache, nausea and vomiting, abdominal pain,[5] muscle pain,[6] or a scarlatiniform rash or palatal petechiae.


... which sounds a lot like tonsillitis to me.

Unless you're saying that USians use the phrase "strep throat" to mean any old sore throat?

[zotz]

I believe so, yes, unless the continuing moanings of medical pedants have actually worked in the last few years.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ah, ok. See also "I was off work yesterday with 'flu".

Since the blog post I originally referred to involved quite a lot of projectile vomiting and ultimately a lab test, I'm willing to believe her that it really was strep ;)

[zotz]

Absolutely - it's not actually that rare for it to be streptococcal. It's just not the leading cause.

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

See also "I was off work yesterday with 'flu".

Or referring to any chest infection as pneumonia.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Oh, I don't think I've encountered people doing that. In my world that's still something that's pretty serious, and probably means you've been in hospital at the very least.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

USians use the phrase "strep throat" to mean any old sore throat

I worked with one once who did. A colleague (also American but over here longer) warned her that it was crying wolf. They had a heated argument broken only by her vomiting at his feet.
Taught me not to critique other people's self-diagnoses, however implausible.
(And not to wear sandals to work.)