Essay On Rheumatic Fever

Rheumatic heart disease is when the heart is damaged. It’s often damage to the valves of the heart. Rheumatic heart disease is a result of having rheumatic fever. It’s commonly seen in children in many developing countries around the world.
To begin with, Rheumatic fever causes a person to have rheumatic heart disease. Rheumatic fever affects the connective tissues of the body, mostly the connective tissues of the heart, brain and the joints of the body. Rheumatic fever is associated with having strep throat. This fever usually shows up in children between the ages of 5 and 15. More than 50% of people develop heart problems after having a rheumatic fever. In the heart almost every part, including the valves and the lining of the heart is inflamed when a person has rheumatic …show more content…
The different ways of preventing this disease is by using antibiotics, mostly penicillin, for up to 10 days, orally or through injection. If strep throat is seen in children then daily antibiotics are necessary until the child reaches the age of either 25 or 30. These daily antibiotics keep the strep throat from coming back. Even though having to take antibiotics for a few years is costly it’s still imperative that the child takes them so they won’t have a second attack of strep throat. Sometime down the road surgery may be needed to repair the damaged valves of the heart.
Without a doubt this disease can cause serious damage to the valves of the heart, which are the mitral and sometimes the aortic valves, which are the valves that allow blood to pass through the left side of the heart. Damaged valves due to having rheumatic heart disease can cause the valves of the heart to not open all the way like they should or the valves of the heart won’t be able to close fully causing blood to