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 interested that the current NHS page on the topic (http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Tonsillitis/Pages/Introduction.aspx) agrees that it's most commonly viral (ie antibiotics won't help), and says only to go to the doctor if your child has been ill for more than 4 days, or is unable to eat/sleep.

I don't remember them ever testing to see if I had bacterial tonsilitis - did they? Or did they just dole out antibiotics and hope I'd go away?

[exspelunca.livejournal.com]

More or less, and you were never tested for anything,. It was always (until I said stop) antibiotics. When you were about 13 with a monumental bout we saw another doc in the practice who gave you a fortnight's blockbuster (remember going out of class to matron's fridge?) and threatened extraction if it happened again. It didn't.