Never really thought about strep much. As a kid I had strep throat. Normal kid-in-classroom type illness, right?
Before I gave birth, they tested for “strep” and I came back positive, so they gave me a special IV drip to help prevent it passing along to my baby during the birthing process. Hmm… okay? I had no idea strep behaved like that.
Now tonight, many years after the birth of my child, my mother explains to me that her mom (my grandmother) actually died slowly from complications of strep, causing my grandmother’s organs to gradually fail over time first in the hospital, then the ICU.
My grandma’s slow death is a core memory, but at the time my mother didn’t give much explanation for what was happening. She probably assumed I was too young. She wanted to protect me.
But now I’m concerned. How does strep migrate from some childhood disease of the throat to something passed along the vaginal canal to (in the case of my grandmother) heart and kidney failure, leading to death? Should I be concerned for my family’s health?
I thought it was just a sore throat. ELI5.
In: Biology
Group A strep also have an unusual pathophysiology where they can trigger what is essentially an autoimmune disorder. Common sites affected are heart valves, kidneys and also apparently brain although that is very rare. All of these affect children though; it rare but not unheard of affect adults. That being said, the long term consequences of acute rheumatic fever (rheumatic heart disease) can cause disease in adults. Your grandmother is unlikey to have had the acute version (ARF) as adult, but might have had it as a child amd then RHD as an adult.
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/rheumatic-heart-disease
https://www.cdc.gov/groupastrep/diseases-public/post-streptococcal.html
https://www.webmd.com/children/what-is-pandas-syndrome
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