Which antibiotic is best for rheumatic fever?

Which antibiotic is best for rheumatic fever?

For individuals diagnosed with acute rheumatic fever, the recommended treatment to prevent recurrences and development of rheumatic heart disease is benzathine penicillin G administered as an intramuscular injection every four weeks.

What is rheumatic fever and how is it treated?

Treatment Focuses on Managing Inflammation, Symptoms Doctors treat symptoms of rheumatic fever with medicines like aspirin to reduce fever, pain, and general inflammation. In addition, all patients with rheumatic fever should get antibiotics that treat group A strep infections.

What are the symptoms of rheumatic fever in a child?

Symptoms

• Fever.
• Painful and tender joints — most often in the knees, ankles, elbows and wrists.
• Pain in one joint that migrates to another joint.
• Red, hot or swollen joints.
• Small, painless bumps beneath the skin.
• Chest pain.
• Heart murmur.
• Fatigue.

Can rheumatic fever be completely cured?

Rheumatic fever doesn’t have a cure, but treatments can manage the condition. Getting a precise diagnosis soon after symptoms show up can prevent the disease from causing permanent damage. Severe complications are rare. When they occur, they may affect the heart, joints, nervous system or skin.

Does amoxicillin treat rheumatic fever?

Proper diagnosis and adequate antibiotic treatment of GAS infections can prevent acute rheumatic fever in most cases….Primary Prevention of Rheumatic Fever.

How long are antibiotics given for rheumatic fever?

Rheumatic fever without carditis requires antibiotic treatment for 5 years or until the patient is aged 18-21 years (whichever is longer).

Do antibiotics prevent rheumatic fever?

Proper diagnosis and adequate antibiotic treatment of GAS infections can prevent acute rheumatic fever in most cases.

What does rheumatic fever do to the brain?

In many cases of patients who had rheumatic fever–at times undiagnosed–there is a chronic involvement of the brain as a result of disseminated recurrent obliterating arteritis or emboli in the small blood vessels, especially in the brain membranes or the cortex.

Can rheumatic fever stunt growth?

This disorder, which tends to affect girls more than boys, may begin abruptly with high fever, joint pain, and a variety of skin rashes. Normal growth may be diminished and the spleen and/or liver may become enlarged. The exact cause is not known.

Does azithromycin treat rheumatic fever?

With regard to treatment of RF/RHD, we need a drug which is highly efficacious against Group A Beta Hemolytic Streptococcus (GABHS), which is the causative agent for pri- mary prevention and treatment and secondary prophylaxis. The best drug discovered, to date, for GABHS is azithromycin.