I was raised in a household where we rarely went to the doctor. Most of the time, my siblings and I were encouraged to fight off illness on our own. My parents are not Christian Scientists, but didn’t have a lot of money for unnecessary doctor visits. As a rule, if we were sick for longer than a week and didn’t show gradual improvement after the third day, we were taken to the doctor. As a consequence of my upbringing, I react in a similar fashion when my kids get sick. Today I violated my regular criteria and took tiny person to the doctor for what has been a six-day illness. She seemed to be getting better, but since her fever came back up over 100 after it had been less than that for a day, we sought medical intervention. She has strep. It was a very faint positive, so she almost got over it on her own, but the doc is treating it anyway. I am so thankful that I took tiny person to the doctor.
Apparently, untreated strep can complicate into rheumatic fever, kidney injury, or Toxic Shock Syndrome, to name a few. I never knew that, which is surprising, since I am not a rookie mom. Honestly, I thought rheumatic fever was a thing of the past and TSS only happened from not changing tampons often enough. Well, I’ll be. Just goes to show that you CAN teach an old dog new tricks.
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