Rheumatic Fever

Etymologically, the word rheumatism is derived from the Greek work rheuma which means swelling. In fact the main symptom rheumatic fever is swelling and sore throat with terrible pain and in later stage it may affects the muscles and joints of the body making the affected person almost cripple by damaging the capacity of the normal movement.

In fact rheumatic fever may affect any part of the body. This problem may be initiated by a bacterial infection in throat caused by Streptococcal Pharyngitis.

Severe incident of rheumatic fever or frequent occurrence of rheumatic fever may lead to the problem of rheumatic heart problem. Generally, the signs and symptoms of rheumatic fever stars after 2-3 weeks of the infection, however, it may start within one week of the infection at the early occurrence or in case of 5 weeks after the infection.

The acute effect of rheumatic fever is carditis which is heart inflammation. This is seen in the case history of the half of the affected patients of rheumatic fever. Even the problem of rheumatic fever is prevalent in the children. In some cases carditis may tend to heart failure.

The immediate effect of rheumatic fever is damage in heart valves; it may damage some other intricate functioning of heart and its related muscles.

In some cases proper administration of medicines and supportive therapies permanent heart damage can be prevented, however, in some case permanent hear disease may set due to rheumatic fever, this kind of heart damage is termed as rheumatic heart disease.

In 75% of patients who is affected by rheumatic fever may suffer from rheumatic arthritis that may affect the flexibility of the joints due to terrible pain and abnormal inflammation.

In very few cases the patients of rheumatic fever may develop tiny painless lumps on visible bones like elbow, knees, spine, and ankles or in some cases a typical rash may appear on skin tone in ring shape. Prevalently these problems get resolved by proper treatment.

There is no specific treatment to treat the rheumatic fever. Streptococcus infection can be neutralized by penicillin treatment or by erythromycin. Treatment of the disease itself is the only solution to fight the disease.