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Show If Your Throat Is Sore, You Have Plenty of Company Now can trigger it. So can extreme thirst, excessive smoking, or mouth breathing. Anything that dries out the throat and ' cuts off secretions that normally nor-mally wash dust away. Virus infections of many types also are a cause of sore throat, and everyone who has had flu knows that this particular par-ticular virus disease often causes the throat to hurt. "Strep throat" is a serious infection that occasionally leads to rheumatic fever and possible heart damage, it can be knocked out with pencillin, if diagnosed in time. The crucial diagnostic test in sore throats is the swab test through which the germs causing the trouble can be identified. There is little or nothing you can do to cure a sore throat at home. There are medications which bring temporary easing of the discomfort, but the cure must be launched by your doctor. Does your throat hurt? If so, you may console yourself with the knowledge that you have plenty of company. com-pany. Sore throat is one of the more common physical discomforts that plague most of us from time to time. Sore throat is nature's warning that something in the body is out of order. Often a sore throat accompanies accom-panies a common cold, and the soreness passes in a few days. The American Medical Association reminds that sore throat also can be the symptom sym-ptom of any of a wide range of diseases, from diphtheria to leukemia, that may require your physician's skill, not your guessing, to diagnose. Sometimes tonsils and adenoids are involved in causing a sore throat, and when these organs repeatedly cause trouble they frequently are removed. Tonsil-adenoids removals account for half of all surgery performed on children. Sometimes the removal helps prevent sore throat, sometimes it doesn't. Allergies can cause sore throat. Cold, dry winter air |