Hello, my son has strep throat and i wanted to treat it without antibiotics. he's 3 and were on our 4th day of strep and with natural treatment he has not gotten worse, or better. i have an appt. tomorrow morning with his pediatrician.

Since : Since it has been 4 days, you have probably seen his pediatrician by now. Hopefully, he is on treatment. Just for future reference, anyone with strep should be treated with antibiotics. Even though 90% of people with a strep throat infection will get better on their own, 10% of those people (usually kids) will go on to develop rheumatic fever - a serious complication of strep. 40% of those folks will go on to have inflammation of the heart and permanent damage to the valves. Luckily, we rarely see this anymore because most strep is treated with antibiotics before it gets to this point, but before antibiotics, this was a common occurance and many kids died. For that reason, i cannot recommend "natural" treatments for strep since they put your child at risk for permanent and serious heart damage.

Strep : Strep throat. I know that the use of antibiotics has been treated as a negative thing in the press. This negativism should not apply for the use of antibiotics in the treatment of strep throat. Before the the discovery of penicillin, strep throat and its cousin scarlet fever were in large part the cause of rheumatic fever. This resulted in rheumatic heart disease with patient developing damaged heart valves. It was also the number 1 cause of lung abscesses and pneumonia. Of course, not all sore throat is caused by strep. A visit to your physician and testing is necessary to determine an accurate diagnosis. Antibiotic treatment is appropriate for all patients who have been diagnosed with strep throat. I hope things have gone well for your son. Please be safe. Best wishes.

You have time: If this is really strep you have 9-10 days from the beginning of symptoms to start the antibiotics that will prevent rheumatic fever. If it is not really strep, antibiotics wouldn't help anyway.There is no "natural" treatment that removes the risk of heart/brain or kidney damage from strep.