Dr. Ashley Alker

But before we had antibiotics, this is something that a lot of people, especially children, would die from.

And there's a lot of complicated diseases that can result from untreated strep throat.

So strep throat itself isn't helped very much by the antibiotics.

It shortens the course a little bit, but that's not why we're treating the disease.

We treat the disease to prevent the complications, which include things like an abscess of the throat called a peritonsillar abscess.

Post strep glomular nephritis, which is a kidney disease that can result in kidney failure.

And then some things that you might have heard before, rheumatic fever.

And lastly, scarlet fever.

So these are all diseases related to strep throat that we don't really see that much anymore because we treat strep throat.

Sometimes we take for granted the places that science and medicine have taken us and the safety that those things afford us these days from things like strep throat.

I work at a trauma center, so obviously I see a lot of trauma.

It depends.

If you're in a city, you'll see more, we call it, knife and gun club versus seeing trauma coming in from the freeway.

And I live in an area that's a bit rural, so I have the farm injuries.

And the farmers are kind of almost famously resistant to violence.

first of all, getting hurt, but then also once they're hurt, they're like, I'm fine.

And I'm like, you know, Bob, you lost a hand.

So we're going to have to do something about this.

So, you know, you do see a lot of that.

You see a lot of heart attacks and strokes.