Streptococcus groups of bacteria are commonly known as the harmful bacteria which will cause you some problems if these bacteria invade your body. Before we talk about the symptoms or causes that these bacteria could do, first we need to know that there are two groups of Streptococcus, which are Group A and Group B
- Group A strep are commonly found on the surface of our skin and also in our throat. These bacteria could be very harmful for our body since these bacteria will lead you to several infections in your body.
- Group B strep are commonly lives harmlessly in your digestive tract and also in the vagina. These bacteria are less harmful compared to the Group A, but these bacteria actually sometimes could do some damages too in our body through an infection.
So, now you must be curious about the symptoms and damages that the Streptococcus bacteria could do in your body. Here are the symptoms of Streptococcus bacteria in your body.
- Sudden Fever
Same withSymptoms of Listeria Monocytogenes Infections, First symptoms of streptococcus bacteria infections you will feel sudden fever. Fever is one of the most common symptoms that you will get when you’re infected by Streptococcus. Fever could happen to your body as the response from your immune system when there are some invaders coming into your body. These invaders could be the form of bacteria, fungi, viruses, or other toxins.
Like any other bacteria or viruses, when Streptococcus invades your body, your immune system could respond these bacteria by triggering the pyrogens, which is fever producing substances, to tell the hypothalamus to increase the body temperature. This incident will make your body begin to shiver, but you shouldn’t worry about it since your body will increase the temperature to allow your body to fight against these bacteria.
- Headache
There are some studies that already proven that there are some links between the infections of bacteria with the headaches (read :Symptoms of Inner Ear Infection). Most of bacteria, including Streptococcus, when they invade your body, they will be most likely to make you suffer from headache. This headache could happen when the Streptococcus invades the pain sensing area in your head.
When the Streptococcus already invades your pain sensing area in the head, these bacteria will be more likely to cause the inflammation and irritation around those areas and as the result, you will feel some headaches. If you suffer from prolonged headaches, you need to go to the doctor immediately since your headaches may caused by the bacterial infections.
- Abdominal Pain
This is one of the common symptoms that you will get when Streptococcus invades your body. Streptococcus are the type of bacteria that could inflame and infected the throat. So, when the throat is already infected, Streptococcus could coming into your digestive tract, they will cause some inflammation around your stomach, which make you will some discomforts around the stomach afterwards. In the matter of fact, the step throat, which is caused by the Streptococcus, played an important role to make you suffer from an abdominal pain, about 10% of the abdominal pain caused by the strep throat.
To relieve yourself from this symptom of Streptococcus, you need to start drinking sufficient amount of water, as well as eating a healthy foods, exercise regularly, and you need to consider to eating at the small portion rather than the bif portion.
- Nausea and Vomiting
Like any other bacterial infections, one of the most common symptoms that will appear when the bacteria invade your body is nausea and follow up with the vomiting. As the follow up in the section above, when the Streptococcus coming into your digestive tract, you will feel some discomforts and this is could lead you to sore throat and also nausea. In the matter of fact, many health experts already confirm that the bacterial infections could lead you to nausea and vomiting.
If you feel this nausea symptom and accompanied with other symptoms like headache, excessive sweating, and stiff neck, you should go to the doctor immediately since it could be the sign of the bacterial infections that affect the digestive tract’s health in your body. When you’re suffering from nausea, you should also prevent spicy foods and greasy food.
- Sore Throat
Sore throat is one of the most common symptoms as the sign that the Streptoccocus pyogenes bacteria invade to your body and inflamme around the area of your throat. So, sore throat is commonly related to the itchiness and pain in your throat. When you’re suffering from this shore throat, you may find it really difficult to swallow the foods.
So, whenever you feel that the Streptococcus pyogenes bacteria is the main cause of the sore throat that you feel, you need to take a glass of water with the addition of salt, or taking any other fluids such as water or soup as the very first treatment. When you want to avoid these bacteria infected your throat, please take care of the cleanliness of your hand.
- Chills
Whenever the Streptococcus pyogenes already infected your throat which will lead you to sore throat, there is another further condition that will happen to you, which is chills.
The term of chills refers to the feeling of cold without you know what’s going on in your body. In the matter of fact, chills is commonly occurs because of many reasons, and the bacterial infections that can cause the sore throat like Streptococcus pyogenes is one of the reasons.
Whenever you already suffer from this symptom, you need to take an extra blanket when you’re about to sleep. Also, you need to take a shower with the cold water to reduce the symptom of chills since the warm water could stimulate you to feel more chills right after you’re taking a bath.
- Loss of Appetite
Other common symptoms that you will likely to get whenever you have the Streptococcus bacteria invade into your body is that you will loss of appetite. Loss of appetite is the condition whenever you suffer from a reduced desire to eat anything, even the foods that you really like. According to many experts, the most common cause why you have loss your appetite is because of the bacterial or viral infection. including the Streptococcus pyogenes.
You could lose the appetite when you feel some discomforts whenever you’re trying to swallow the foods, and the difficulty of swallowing the foods could be caused by sore throat, which is caused by Streptococcus. So, how to cure this loss of appetite? Some health experts say that whenever the loss of appetite is caused by bacterial or viral infection, there is no need for treatment as your appetite will return as the time goes by.
- Swollen Lymph
When the Streptococcus already invades your body, you could also possibly suffer from the swollen lymphs. So, the lymph, which is the fluids that circulate through the lympathic system, is commonly coming into the lymph nodes, which then the lymph nodes will filter the lymph. In the case of swollen lymph, the lymph nodes become swollen as the response of the bacteria or virus infection.
So, whenever you feel the pain when you’re bending or walking, accompanied with the symptoms that already stated above such as fever, chills, or excessive sweating, you’ll be more likely to suffer from the swollen lymph. But, you don’t need to worry since the swollen lymph in the lymph nodes would be cured as the time goes by and not needed special treatment.
- Dysphagia
Symptoms of Streptococcus Bacteria Infections will be main cause of dysphagia. Dysphagia is also commonly known as the difficulty of swallowing. As already mentioned above, the Streptococcus pyogenes could make you suffer from the sore throat, which then will lead to the loss of appetite. The loss of appetite from the people who have a sore throat is commonly linked with the difficulty of swallowing. So, whenever you’re suffering from the difficulty of swallowing, first you need to kill the strep bacteria that causing it by taking the prescription of antibiotics from your doctor immediately.
- Sinusitis
Another symptoms that you would get whenever you’re suspected to have the Streptococcus that invade your body is sinusitis. Yes, most of you surely thought that the common cause of sinusitis is come from the viruses. But, in fact, bacteria and other toxins could also lead you to sinusitis. Sinusitis is a disease when the cavities around your nose become inflamed.
The inflammation in the cavities around the nose could be caused by the sore throat when you’re left it untreated. So, whenever you’re already suffering from the sore throat, you need to take a full attention to the disease. But, if you’re already having sinusitis, you need to go to the doctor to get the proper antibiotics, or if the sinusitis is already acute, you need to take on surgery.
- Rheumatic Fever
Other damage that the Streptococcus could make to your body once they invade your body is that these bacteria could make you suffers from rheumatic fever. So, rheumatic fever is the disease that mainly occurs because of the Streptococcus pyogenes infections. This rheumatic fever could also possibly happen as the further complication of the sore throat, if you left that disease untreated.
So, if you feel the sore throat, accompanied with other symptoms that already stated above such as difficulty on swallowing, nausea and vomiting, headache, or tonsils, you may suffer from this rheumatic fever. If you left the rheumatic fever untreated, it will lead you to the life threatening diseases such as stroke, or permanent damage to your heart. To prevent this disease, you need to keep sanitize yourself.
- Poststreptococcal Disorder
Well, this is another hazardous effect for your body whenever the Streptococcus pyogenes invade into your body. So, poststreptococcal disorder is the disorder that will attack your autoimmune because of the infection of Streptococcus pyogenes. In this case, your immune system will mistakenly identify your healthy cells as the foreign cells and thus, your immune system will attack your healthy cells.
The most common thing why you can suffer from this hazardous disorder is because of the complication of the various symptoms that already mentioned above like sore throat, swollen lymph, fever, and headache. So, if you feel the symptoms of the infection of the Streptococcus pyogenes, you need to find the best treatment immediately. The doctor will be most likely to give you the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs to sure this disorder.
- Mastoidis
Before we talk about what the mastoidis is, first you need to know what mastoid bones are. So, mastoid bones are the important structure in the inner side of your ear. While these bones are called ‘bones’, but the mastoid bones are really soft, rather than rigid like the actual bone. So, the mastoid bone need the air supply from the Eustachian tube, which connects your middle ear to the back of your throat. When the infections occur in the middle of your ear, this will also infect the mastoid bone, which is also known as mastoidis.
So, you already know that the Eustachian tube connects the middle ear to the back of your throat. The Streptococcus pyogenes could make a damage and infection in the middle ear through this Eustachian tube, because commonly, these bacteria are the common cause of the sore in your throat.
Since this condition is considered as the life-threatening condition, you need to go to the hospital when you feel the symptoms that already mentioned in the previous section like fever, headache, sore throat, and many more. Your doctor will give you the antibiotics first, but when the disease is still occurring, surgery will be the last way to fix it.
- Scarlet Fever
The other disease that can be caused from the complications of the Streptococcus pyogenes infections that already invade into your body is the disease called scarlet fever. This disease called scarlet fever because this disease commonly occurs whenever the Streptococcus bacteria release their poison, which then cause the big red rash on the body.
So, since the Streptococcus are commonly lives in people’s mouth, this disease could be infected to the other people from the sneeze or coughs from the other people. So, whenever you want to avoid this disease at all cost, first thing that you need to do is always wearing the mask to keep the hygiene of yourself. This scarlet fever is usually treated with the antibiotics that prescribed by the doctor.
- Peritonsillar Abscess
This is another disease that could occur to the people who left the sore throat untreated. As you already know, the sore throat is mainly caused by the infection of Streptococcus pyogenes. This disease is commonly occuring as the complication of tonsililitis.
So, if you feel the symptoms of sore throat alongside with the other symptoms that already mentioned above such as fever, headaches, and difficulty of swallowing, you need to go the doctor immediately since this disease could be treated with some antibiotics. There is no obvious thing that you can do if you want to avoid this disease other than taking the sore throat seriously.
- Glomerulonephritis
This is also another complication disease that could happen to you whenever you left the sore throat untreated well, since indeed the sore throat that caused by Streptococcus pyogenes could stimulate the response of acute glomerulonephritis. So, glomerulonephritis is a disease that occurs because of the inflammation in the glomeruli, which then will lead you to the kidney failure when you don’t have a treatment as soon as possible.
So, whenever you feel all of the symptoms related to the sore throat as already mentioned above, you need to go to the hospital immediately, even if you not sure that you’re suffering from this disease. In the hospital, the doctor may prescribe you the blood pressure medication or inducing the plasmapheresis.
- Sepsis
This disease is not associated with the Streptococcus pyogenes, but associated with the Streptococcus agalactiae, which is the Group B strep that commonly doesn’t have any obvious symptoms. But, many health experts suggest that the Streptococcus agalactiae could lead you to the disease called sepsis.
The sepsis could occur when the chemicals from the immune system releases into the bloodstream to fight an infection caused by the bacteria, including Streptococcus agalactiae, which then will make the inflammation in the entire body. So when you suffer from fever, and rapid heartbeat, alongside with the rapid breath, you may suffer from sepsis and indeed you need to go to the doctor immediately.
- Meningitis
This disease also could be caused by the bacteria called Streptococcus pneumoniae, which are commonly found in the respiratory tract, sinuses, and nasal cavity. So, meningitis is the inflammation in the meninges, which is the membrane that covers the brain and spinal cord.
Whenever you’re suffering from the symptoms that already mentioned above, don’t be hesitated to go to the doctor because when you’re treating it late, you will suffer from the life threatening experience, since the bacterial meningitis could lead you to the brain damage and death.
How to Prevent Streptococcus Bacteria
Now you already know that the invade of Streptococcus bacteria in your body would cost you a lot of problems. So, you might wonder what should you do to protect yourself from the invasion of Streptococcus bacteria in your body. In the article below we already provide you some tips so that you can avoid this harmful bacteria.
- First, you need to make sure that the utensils, dishes, or glasses in the clean condition and don’t share these utensils with other people, especially the people who you don’t really know about.
- If it is possible, you should use handkerchiefs and towels on your own and don’t share it with the other person since these bacteria could transferred into your body via these objects.
- Always cover your mouth and nose whenever you coughs or sneeze.
- Keep your hands sanitized all the time, always wash your hand with the proper soap before you’re eating or doing some activities.
How to Treat Streptococcus Bacteria
After you know how to prevent it, you might also wonder how can you treat Streptococcus bacteria that already invade your body. Here are several tips for your treatment against these harmful bacteria in your body.
- Always drinking warm liquids.
- Turning on a cool-mist humidifier.
- Always add some salts in your drink. About a half of a teaspoon of salt in your mineral water would be enough to reduce the possibility of having the inflammation caused by these bacteria.
- You could also go to the doctor and taking some antibiotics that already prescribed by your doctor.
Now you already know everything that you need to know about the symptoms and diseases caused by the Streptococcus bacteria. Please make sure that you always keep yourself clean and have a healthy life so that these bacteria have absolutely no chance to cause the harmful damage in your body. Stay healthy!