Rheumatic fever - symptoms and how to test
Rheumatic fever (acute rheumatic fever) is an illness that can damage the heart, joints, brain, and skin. Inadequately handled strep throat, scarlet fever, or strep skin infections can lead to rheumatic fever. Rheumatic fever can affect anybody, although it most commonly affects youngsters in their school years (5 through 15 years old). Rheumatic fever is exceedingly infrequent in children younger than three years old and adults. Suppose your doctor believes you have rheumatic fever. In that case, they will first take a swab of your throat to look for group A streptococcus bacteria. A throat culture or quick strep test may be performed.