@JLeslie My son started with cold symptoms along with a severe sore throat. He had a headache, fever, and no appetite. Because he was congested, I didn’t take him to the doctor right away. I thought it was nothing but a cold. After three days of that, my daughter started complaining of a sore throat. She was also congested. She then said she had a headache and was throwing up. For one day she couldn’t keep anything down. She also had a fever, and her sore throat kept getting worse. I got a flashlight to look at her throat, and it was disgusting. Spotted red with large white patches. I called my son into the room and took a look at his throat: the same. Yuck.
The doctor did an exam and a strep test on both of them. Both were positive. I know congestion isn’t usually associated with strep, so either this was an unusual case or they happened to get colds as they got got strep. Strep has been going around at both of their schools. My youngest has a cold right now but never caught strep. As you probably know, illnesses don’t always follow their normal patterns. My daughter once had a mysterious rash that turned out to be from scarlet fever—she had a strep infection that had gone unnoticed because she had no symptoms. Not even a slight sore throat. I once was sick as a kid with a fever and headache. My mom thought it was a virus, but took me to the doctor anyway. Even though I had no sore throat, the doctor said my throat looked awful and it turned out I had strep. I remember it because the doctor’s amazement that my throat didn’t hurt made such an impression on me!