Nursing Case Study Tonsillitis

1. Tonsillitis. This is an important differential diagnosis that should be considered. Tonsillitis is an infection and swelling of the tonsils. Tonsillitis is common among school aged adolescents such as this patient today. The severity of tonsillitis can be accompanied with difficulty swallowing. This patient has obvious 2+ tonsils with erythema and petechial lesions, but swallowing has not been effected at this point in time. Other symptoms seen in a patient with this diagnosis would be fever, mouth breathing and bad breath. The patient does not appear to be mouth breathing, but has had a fever and notable bad breath on exam.
2. Infectious pharyngitis. Pharyngitis is inflammation in the back of the throat where the pharynx is located. This typically is viral in nature and results in a sore throat and fever. However, this can also occur due to the invasion of certain bacteria and usually involves both the pharynx and tonsils together. In this case, antibiotic treatment is required. This patient has many signs and symptoms that correlate to this differential diagnosis. The first major sign is the sudden onset of symptoms. The …show more content…
Sinusitis. Sinusitis is inflammation and edema of the mucous membranes lining that result in symptoms. Sinusitis can be either acute or chronic. Acute sinusitis last about four weeks and is typically viral in nature. Chronic sinusitis is usually caused by a bacteria and will persist for 12 weeks or longer. Most bacterial sinusitis occurs in patients that have a history of having allergies or asthmas. In this case, this patient has neither. Signs and symptoms that occur in sinusitis includes fever, frontal headache, sinus congestion, sinus pain or pressure, ear pain, sore throat, purulent nasal discharge and fatigue. This patient has some of these symptoms such as the fever, headache and sore throat, however, he denied everything else. Without having some of these classic symptoms, it is less likely this would be the final

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