Question

Lily is a 20 Year old student at the local community college. when one of her friends and classmates told her about an outbreak of flu-like symptoms sweeping her campus over the past two weeks, Lily figured she shouldn't take her three-day sore throat lightly. your clinic has treated a few cases similar to Lilys. all the patients reported decreased appetite, headaches, and pain with swallowing. As Lily recounts these symptoms to you, you notice that she has a runny nose and a slight hoarseness in her voice but doesn't sound congested. What are the possible causes of her symptoms?

Answer 1

The possible causes of Lily's symptoms (i.e. a sore throat, runny nose, slight hoarseness in voice) include the common cold, viral pharyngitis, strep throat, or Hay fever.  

Strep throat is caused by Streptococcus bacteria. These bacteria infect the upper respiratory tract and cause fever, sore throat, abdominal pain, fatigue, vomiting, body aches. Throat infections caused by streptococcal bacteria may cause "post-streptococcal glomerulonephritis" if left untreated. The bacteria cause inflammation of the blood vessels supplying glomeruli, which impairs the glomerular filtration. Decreased urine filtration causes edema (swelling of body organs).