3 Diseases That Cause Swollen Necks

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3 Diseases That Cause Swollen Necks

Strep Throat / Mumps / Diphtheria
Signs and Symptoms / Tender, swollen lymph nodes in neck. Fever 102 to 106—worse in evenings. Sore throat, occasionally mild. Red, swollen, sometimes pus-covered tonsils. Abdominal pain, nausea. / Swelling of the parotid glands, which are next to the ears. Sometimes only one side is involved. Fever up to 103. / Starts with cold symptoms and sore throat. In about 3 days a gray membrane from dead tissue covers the tonsils and entire back of throat. After the gray membrane come the swollen throat and lymph nodes, called a “bull’s neck.” Fever is usually low-grade.
Incubation* / Few hours to 3 days. / 12–21 days. / 1–10 days.
Treatment / Antibiotics such as penicillin, amoxicillin, cephalexin, erythromycin, or azithromycin. Take for 10 days. Gargling with warm salty water. Acetaminophen for fever and pain. / Rest, fluids (oral). Antibiotics don’t help. Acetaminophen for pain. / Antitoxin if available. Also erythromycin or penicillin for 14 days for those infected or exposed. See more below the chart.
Duration of Illness / 3–7 days. Usually gets better after 48 hours of antibiotics. / 1–2 weeks. / About a week to well over a month.
Most Common Complications / Ear infection, rheumatic fever, kidney disease. / Encephalitis, deafness. If mumps occurs after puberty, there can be painful swelling of one or both testes, ovaries, or breasts. Fetal loss is high in first trimester of pregnancy. / Paralysis of throat muscles, permanent heart damage, permanent nerve damage, difficulty breathing. Mortality with full treatment is 5–10 percent (up to 20 percent if under 5 or over 40 years old). With no treatment 50 percent.
How Long Contagious / Up to 3 days before symptoms to a few days after they begin. Or up to 24 hours after starting antibiotics. (Airborne.) / 6 days before until 9 days after onset of symptoms. (Airborne.) / 2–6 weeks after onset or up to 48 hours after antibiotics are begun. (Airborne.)

*How long it takes for symptoms to start after you’re exposed to the virus.

Use of this information is AT YOUR OWN RISK, intended solely for self-help, in times of emergency, when medical help is not available, and does not create a doctor-patient relationship. Medical information changed rapidly, and the author cannot guarantee the accuracy or currency of the content.

More Details on Diphtheria Treatment

With diphtheria, the bacteria aren’t the direct cause of the damage; a toxin they produce is. So treatment is twofold: killing the bacteria and getting rid of the toxin. Antibiotics can kill the bacteria. Only the diphtheria antitoxin can kill the toxin.

If someone’s been exposed to diphtheria but hasn’t developed symptoms, early antibiotic treatment can kill the bacteria before it produces the toxin.

Pretreatment of those exposed but who have no symptoms is one of the following:

One shot of benzathine penicillin G (600,000 units for people younger than 6 years old and 1,200,000 units for those 6 years old and older)
Seven- to 10-day course of oral erythromycin, (40 mg/kg/day for children and 1 g/day for adults)

If someone already has symptoms, antitoxin and antibiotics should be started ASAP. The antibiotics course is one of the following:

Erythromycin orally or by injection for 14 days (40 mg/kg/day; maximum, 2 g/day; divided into two to four doses daily)
Procaine penicillin G daily, intramuscularly, for 14 days (300,000 U/day for those weighing 10 kg or less, and 600,000 U/day for those weighing more than 10 kg)

As best I can tell, for people who have symptoms, azithromycin, clarithromycin, and ciprofloxacin work also. I can’t find anything on dosage for them, but since the recommended erythromycin dosage is no more than the usual one, I would assume that other dosages would be no more than their usual ones also.

As with any medicines a licensed health care prescriber should be consulted, and be sure to read up on side effects, interactions, etc.

For information on storing antibiotics for survival situations, download “The Survival Doctor’s Ultimate Emergency Medical Supplies” guide here: