Rheumatic Fever Symptoms
Rheumatic Fever Symptoms
People tend to have different rheumatic fever symptoms while some people only experience a few and the symptoms can change during the course of having it. Rheumatic fever is common all over the world (except in the United States) and has been responsible for damaging many heart valves. The last outbreak was recorded back in the 1980’s.
This disease will mainly affect children between the ages of 6-15 and is usually noticeable almost 20 days after there has been a case of scarlet fever or strep throat.
Rheumatic fever is a result of inflammation of the joints, heart, central nervous system, or the skin and here are the signs and symptoms:
Fever
Pain and tenderness in the joints – usually in the knees, ankles, elbows, or wrists but less often in the shoulders, hips, hands, and feet.
Pain moves from one joint to the other
Swollen, red, or hot joints
Chest pain
Shortness of breath
Fatigue (tired)
Palpitations of the heart – rapid, fluttering, or pounding heartbeats
Uncontrollable body movements – often in the face, hands, and/or feet
Unusual behavior – crying or laughing inappropriately
Abdominal pain
Nosebleeds (epistaxis)
Skin rash – (on the upper and lower parts of the arms or legs; looks ring shaped or snake like)
Rheumatic fever is treated with antibiotics and other medicines like aspirin or corticosteroids (mimics cortisol, a hormone that your adrenal glands produces naturally) to help reduce inflammation and manage acute rheumatic fever. To help prevent the strep throat from coming back, low doses of regular antibiotics are used such as penicillin, sulfadiazine, or erythromycin are used over a longer period of time.
If you don’t take the low doses of antibiotics continually, most importantly during the first 3 to 5 years after the first bout with rheumatic fever, it’s possible to come back and that could make heart complications even more severe.
Something I’d like to talk about is Rheumatic Carditis, it involves the heart and is the worst part of rheumatic fever and is present in 40-60% of the cases. This usually occurs in the first two attacks and between the 5th and 15th day after the onset of arthritis. Carditis can have a sudden intensity having mild to fatal inflammation, or even unsuspected and sudden heart failure.
Treatment of Rheumatic Fever
- Mandatory (at the hospital) bed rest for at least three weeks. This is usually when the carditis will occur and your amount of physical activity will depend on the severity of the carditis.
- Treatment with antibiotics is one of the essentials for Rheumatic fever and is aimed at getting rid of the strep throat and usually by penicillin. If allergic to penicillin, either erythromycin or other replacement will be used.
- Anti inflammatory medications will be given to obviously help fight inflammation. This could also mean being treated with aspirin or corticosteroids like prednisone.
Rheumatic fever symptoms can vary from person to person but the most important thing is to be on the lookout for any of the above symptoms and don’t wait until the last minute to get checked out.
