Do antibiotics work as a treatment of sore throat? I often get asked by patients if they can just have antibiotics for their painful sore throat. In this video, we discuss why this can be dangerous. I will also share with you a scoring system that I use to decide if antibiotics will work on a sore throat (tonsillitis).

The age-old - "It's viral, you'll be fine" has been said many times. But perhaps one thing that isn't that clear is why antibiotics can be harmful. Not only do they have side effects like causing headaches, diarrhoea and nausea, . But you'd be surprised to know that the majority of sore throats are not bacterial. Therefore antibiotics will not touch them as it'll literally be like throwing some skittles in (or any sweets you like).

More importantly, using antibiotics unnecessarily can also promote bacterial antibiotic resistance. Meaning that bacteria can get used to antibiotics and find a way to defeat them. Breeding and creating more bacteria with the same ability. Eventually, we will struggle to have antibiotics that will work on any of them which could put a lot of people's health at risk.

One of the ways we try and work out if antibiotics will be needed for a sore throat is to do a scoring system like the one below:

FeverPAIN criteria

• Fever (during previous 24 hours)

• Purulence (pus on tonsils)

• Attend rapidly (within 3 days after onset of symptoms)

• Severely Inflamed tonsils (tonsillitis)

• No cough or coryza (inflammation of mucus membranes in the nose)

Each of the FeverPAIN criteria scores 1 point (maximum score of 5)
Higher scores suggest more severe symptoms and likely bacterial (streptococcal) cause
A score of 0 or 1 is thought to be associated with a 13 to 18% likelihood of isolating streptococcus
A score of 2 or 3 is thought to be associated with a 34 to 40% likelihood of isolating strep
A score of 4 or 5 is thought to be associated with a 62 to 65% likelihood of isolating strep

With this scoring system, we can have a better estimate at your chance of having a bacterial sore throat and treat you more appropriately.

0:00 - Intro
0:27 - Do antibiotics work on all sore throats?
0:55 - Dangers of giving antibiotics for viral sore throats
2:08 - FeverPain Score Explained
3:12 - Fever Pain Score Results Explained
4:30 - Importance of clinical judgement

Source:
NICE (January 2018).Sore throat (acute): antimicrobial prescribing

#sorethroat #sorethroatreatment #tonsillits

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DISCLAIMER: This video and content on this channel are not for personal medical advice. These are for educational use only and please consult your own physician.

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