In this article, we will tell you why there is acute and chronic pharyngitis in children, what are its symptoms, and what does the treatment for this ailment involve.
Causes of inflammation
Pharyngitis is caused by a huge number of different causes. Most often, this ailment is provoked by the following factors:
- bacteria, mainly streptococci and pneumococci;
- influenza virus or adenovirus;
- pathogenic fungi of the genus Candida;
- complications of other diseases, such as sinusitis, rhinitis, caries and others;
- high content of chemical irritants in the inspired air;
- allergic reactions.
Under the influence of the above unfavorable factors, the child, as a rule, develops an acute pharyngitis. If the symptoms of the disease are ignored for a long time, and the baby does not receive proper treatment, this ailment often changes into a chronic form. To prevent this from happening, you need to pay attention to the health of the crumbs, and immediately get medical attention if you feel unwell.
Symptoms of pharyngitis in children
The main signs of this ailment include the following:
- sore throat, which is especially noticeable when swallowing;
- high temperature, usually in the range of 38 to 40 degrees;
- sore throat;
- decrease or total absence of appetite;
- capriciousness, tearfulness, lethargy and apathy of the baby.
In addition, with a granular form of the disease, when not only the mucous membranes but also the lymphoid tissue are affected, on the posterior wall of the pharynx the nodules of bright red color are characteristic for this ailment.
How to treat pharyngitis in a child?
To ease the feeling of crumbs in the shortest possible time, it is necessary to constantly ventilate the room in which the child is in, and maintain the optimum level of humidity in it, give the patient as much warm liquid as possible, and also do inhalations with a nebulizer with saline or mineral water.
To get rid of the pain and discomfort in the throat in children older than 6 years, the most often used antiseptic drugs in the form of sprays, like Jox or Givalex, and for children older than 4 years - tablets for resorption Septhote. For the treatment of the smallest crumbs, which do not yet know how to dissolve tablets, you can use the well-known medicinal product Faringosept. To do this, it is necessary to grind one tablet of this drug into the dust, dipping the nipple into it and letting the baby suck. You can do this no more than 3 times a day.
If this ailment is accompanied by any complications and the child's well-being does not improve in a few days, antibiotics will most likely be required. In this case, for the treatment of pharyngitis in children, the most commonly used drugs are Biseptol and Bioparox. These medicines have rather serious contraindications and can cause a number of side effects, therefore they are used exclusively for the doctor's prescription.
Treatment of pharyngitis in children with folk remedies
In the treatment of pharyngitis in small patients, both medicines and folk remedies are used, the latter often being even more effective than traditional medicines. Most often in this case, the following treatment methods are used:
- gargle with warm decoction of sage, calendula or chamomile, as well as soda-salt solution or propolis solution;
- inhalation in pairs of decoctions of cones of pine, eucalyptus, chamomile and St. John's wort;
- drinking hot tea with lemon, warm milk with honey or chamomile broth;
- use of tincture of echinacea in order to strengthen immunity;
- Finally, quite often mothers and grandmothers use honey-mustard compresses to treat their children. To make it, you need to mix the mustard powder, honey, vodka, vegetable oil and flour in the same proportions, then divide the mass thus obtained into 2 equal parts, lay it on a dense fabric, attach it to the breast and back of the patient and fix it with a bandage, on crumbs warm cotton pajamas. Compress is best left for the whole night, and if the young patient is not even a year old, for 2 hours.