18-Month Old with Really Sore Throat!

My 3 year old, 1 year old and my husband all came down with herpes angina (went to the doc). It is a virus that is super contagious and there is no treatment besides tylenol for the fever/pain. It just runs it's course for a week or 10 days. You get fever, headache and EXTREMELY sore throat You can diagnose it yourself to see if it is. When I took a flashlight to my hubby's throat, it had a bunch of red ulcer looking patches and was white and gray around it. My 1 year would only eat grapes, frozen go gurts, drink cold water for a week. My 3 year old drank only milk, go gurts. and ate cereal once in a while. My husband ate a ton of frozen go gurts and sucrets. He seemed really uncomfortable.

Just FYI when my son had Hand Foot and Mouth, the ONLY symptoms were his sore throat and fever. Has there been a notice about exposure at his daycare or anything?

Hope he feels better soon. It's so hard to see our babies hurting :-(

Warm liquids: broth, weak decaf tea with honey, etc.
Run a cool mist humidifier in this room at night, all night.

Have you looked at the roof of his mouth? Maybe HF&M?

Don't wait for a call -- take him in person to the doctor today. This could be anything or nothing. If it's strep throat (which only a test can tell) he needs antibiotics and the sooner, the better; leaving strep too long is dangerous -- my friend's son ended up with scarlet fever, which is what happens if strep goes untreated. Scarlet fever's not as scary as it once was, but it requires much more work than if a kid is seen, diagnosed and starts on antibiotics in time. An 18-month-old can't tell you anything about how he really feels so please have a doctor see him and don't rely on us here. I hope it's not strep (or anything else that bad) but you can't know until he's seen. Also - check him all over for rashes. If he has fever, sore throat and a rash it could be any of several things, from mild to very serious.

does he like honey at all? I'm not sure that watered down honey would be as effective. I always use a teaspoon of BUCKWHEAT honey, it's the best for sore throat and coughs. You can find it in health-food stores. I hope your LO gets better soon.

Did you take him in? Did they swap his throat for a test?