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

[sesquipedality.livejournal.com]

Cf mono(nucleosis)/glandular fever

[zotz]

Not tonsilitis, no - just a sore throat. Throat infection. More commonly viral than streptococcal.

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

What I'm not aware of is why us British kids don't get it.

Actually, I got rather ill* in one or other of my finals years with strep throat.

*Not hospital ill, just regular kind of ill only with oral steroids for my lungs and lasting for several months. Because GPs kept assuming it was viral, and me not getting better was "proof" of how it was viral, so they didn't need to swab to test for bacteria because it was clearly viral. Got to love the circular logic.

Now I come to think about it, I seem to do well for having doctors jump immediately from six-eight weeks worth of "It's viral, have paracetamol and take these oral steroids" to an emergency phone call going "Lab results are back. We need you to come to the surgery TODAY to get these very specific antibiotics, no it REALLY can't wait".

[satyrica.livejournal.com]

Wow, Razorlight?

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

...it seems the most common cause of tonsillitis is viral, not bacterial

Unless you're me, in which case it's always sodding bacterial.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

There's a similar thing going on where some people say they have had norovirus when they've had a bout of D&V. It's possible that norovirus was the cause (it is a pretty common one), but there are a bajillion things that can cause similar D&V and you really can't tell them apart from the symptoms alone. Some of them are transmissible in very similar ways too.

The first few times I met this it really bothered me. Now it just seems like a perfectly reasonable attempt to enlist sympathy by making it sound more serious, so I can just be sympathetic back. (Unless I think they'd be happier if I explain.)