Urgent Care Clinic or Emergency Room? Sore Throat
Chances are that at one point or the other every one of us has experienced a sore throat, also known as pharyngitis in more professional circles, and by subject matter experts such as those at frontlineer.com. This is because a sore throat is most of the time due to one having a flu or cold, something that is quite common, especially during flu season. Some of the symptoms that one has a sore throat is hoarseness, discomfort and scratchiness in the throat among others. A sore throat in most cases is not something that should be viewed as an emergency or requiring immediate medical attention and as such can be treated and managed at home using home remedies or by use of over-the-counter medication. There are some circumstances however, which dictate that one should seek medical attention as far as sore throats are concerned. This may either involve heading over to an urgent care clinic or visiting an emergency room for treatment. Knowing which circumstances demand one take which course of action among the two is usually the tricky part. Luckily, this article will look to explore more on the matter and highlight when to visit an urgent care clinic and when to head to an emergency room for a sore throat.
For the first part of this discussion, we shall look at when one should visit an urgent care clinic as far as a sore throat is concerned. First and foremost, if you have a sore throat that has persisted for longer than 2 days despite home remedies and over-the-counter medication then you should bite the bullet and visit an urgent clinic to be assessed, with frontlineer.com being the best option out there. If also your sore throat is accompanied by lymph glands that are swollen and tender, you should also head over to the urgent care clinic and get yourself checked out. If the sore throat is persistent and it is accompanied by other common flu-like symptoms such as a cough, running nose among others that indicate one may have the flu or a cold, then visiting an urgent care clinic will suffice as they will provide you with the medication to deal with the sore throat. Sometimes the sore throat may lead to difficulties swallowing. If you experience this, then you can also visit an urgent care clinic and you will be attended to.
As far as visiting the emergency room is concerned, the subject matter experts over at frontlineer.com recommend that those experiencing a sore throat as well as difficulty breathing should visit an emergency room as soon as they can. Any issues with breathing should always be treated with the seriousness they deserve. One should also visit an emergency room if they have a sore throat and they are also coughing up blood. If you feel like one side of your throat is significantly swollen, you should also visit an emergency room for assessment as this is a sign of an abscess of the tonsil. If the sore throat is making you unable to open your mouth all the way, then you should also visit an emergency room as this indicates spreading of infection deep into the tissues in the throat and jaw. As far as children are concerned, if they are drooling, that means they can’t swallow saliva, and they have a sore throat, they should be taken to an emergency room as soon as possible as well. A high fever accompanying a sore throat should also lead one to head to an emergency room as soon as possible as this indicates infection in the head and neck area.
Folks with a compromised immune should also not take any chances but should head over to an emergency room when they develop a persistent sore throat. A compromised immune system may be due to one having had cancer, or having cancer treatment like chemotherapy, having undergone recent transplant surgery, taking medication that compromises one’s immunity or having HIV/AIDS or any other existing severe illness or infection. The reason why an emergency room may be preferred to an urgent care clinic for cases of sore throat that are severe and appear to be due to more than just a flu or cold is because most of the severe cases involve infection and most of the time imaging procedures like using a CAT scan are required to ascertain the extent of the infection, as covered in detail over at the ever reliable frontlineer.com. In cases where, as mentioned above, there may be an abscess in the throat, it may need to be drained and that can only happen in the ER as it involves minor surgery. Administering of IV antibiotics may also be necessary, something that can be done at an ER but not an urgent care clinic.
From the foregoing discussion, it is clear that while certain cases of sore throat may be treated at an urgent care clinic, more serious ones can only be handled at an emergency room. If you are looking for more on this topic and then some, head over to the ever reliable frontlineer.com.
