Medical Treatment

Care of a sore throat involves treatment of pain, dehydration, or difficulty breathing (airway problems are common with croup or epiglottitis).

• Antibiotics

• Antibiotics are not helpful when a virus causes a sore throat.
  
  
• Sometimes it is difficult to determine whether the cause is viral or bacterial, so antibiotics may be prescribed as a precaution.
  
  
• Antibiotics speed the resolution of a strep throat by an average of only 1.5 days.
  
  
• Antibiotics are helpful in preventing rheumatic fever (an uncommon but severe complication of a streptococcal infection, which may cause severe inflammation of the heart muscle and heart valves).

• Corticosteroids can be helpful in the treatment of a few select types of sore throats. Although they impair immune function, the anti-inflammatory effect can be very useful. They are mostly used in cases of severe tonsillitis or in cases of croup.