positive and negative result of throat culture

amother

Mon, Feb 10 2014, 10:36 am

so I noticed my 4 1/2 year old son had a very enlarged swollen gland on one side of neck, he had little cold, but nothing more than that. I panicked and took him to closest urgent care, the dr said he most likely has an infection, and took a throat culture. but, I decided that I dont trust him, cuz I saw no sign of infection and took him to my regular pediatrician after hours dr (was in the evening) he also took throat culture and assumed its a cold or some infection. The next morning my regular pediatrician called me back saying that my son has a strep, while the urgent care said the culture came out negative, what now????? the cultures were taken a few min apart, who am I supposed to believe? and how exactly is it possible to have 2 different results? does that show me that I cant trust simple old fashioned throat cultures???

aside from this, how long does it take until the swollen gland will get smaller? its freaking me out every time I feel it.

pls share your experience of you have any.

busydev

Mon, Feb 10 2014, 10:40 am

was one a rapid culture and one overnight? rapids are more likely to have a false negative.
also dont freak abt the glands. they swell whenever someone is fighting a sickness or infection. I get swollen glands when im very tired and a little under the weather.

the world's best mom

Mon, Feb 10 2014, 12:05 pm

It could be the negative one just didn't get a good sample.

I once had a doctor do a throat culture on dd and I saw his swab didn't even touch her throat, only her tongue. It was negative. I asked them to repeat it and they did and it was positive.

baker1

Mon, Feb 10 2014, 8:36 pm

It is very hard to get a false positive on a culture. Unfortunately, my kids have been getting strep very very, very often an I have done way too many cultures in the past few yrs. I have only had once that I got a false positive.

If you see a swollen gland, that can mean that it is strep. I would give the medication just to be sure. You don't want to play around with these kind if things!

amother

Mon, Feb 10 2014, 8:39 pm

amother wrote:

so I noticed my 4 1/2 year old son had a very enlarged swollen gland on one side of neck, he had little cold, but nothing more than that. I panicked and took him to closest urgent care, the dr said he most likely has an infection, and took a throat culture. but, I decided that I dont trust him, cuz I saw no sign of infection and took him to my regular pediatrician afuter hours dr (was in the evening) he also took throat culture and assumed its a cold or some infection. The next morning my regular pediatrician called me back saying that my son has a strep, while the urgent care said the culture came out negative, what now????? the cultures were taken a few min apart, who am I supposed to believe? and how exactly is it possible to have 2 different results? does that show me that I cant trust simple old fashioned throat cultures???

aside from this, how long does it take until the swollen gland will get smaller? its freaking me out every time I feel it.

pls share your experience of you have any.

Trust your ped.