What are the dangers of not treating pharyngitis for a long time?

People always pay attention to physical health. The first and most important thing in life is to have a healthy body. Pharyngitis is a common condition. When you have a cold, the throat is easily inflamed, and you will have coughs, sore throats, and itching. Some patients do not seek timely treatment because they are busy with work, thinking that pharyngitis will heal itself in a few days without treatment. In fact, pharyngitis will cause certain harm to the human body if it is not treated in time. What are the dangers of long-term untreated pharyngitis? Let’s take a look at it next.

1. The harm of pharyngitis

Systemic toxic reactions such as the acute pharyngitis may also occur except that the pharyngalgia, generating heat, fear of cold, headache, body aches, poor appetite, and dry stools and xerostomia. When there is a bacterial infection, the number of white blood cells in the blood increases. If the throat pain is severe, it will affect swallowing and cause nutritional and metabolic disorders in the body. If not treated in time or if recurring attacks occur, it may turn into a chronic disease; if the infection spreads upward and affects the ears and nose, it may lead to acute rhinitis, sinusitis, and acute otitis media; if it develops downward, it may invade the larynx, trachea and other lower respiratory tracts, causing acute laryngitis, tracheitis, bronchitis and pneumonia; if pathogenic bacteria and toxins invade the blood circulation, it may cause systemic complications, such as acute nephritis, sepsis, rheumatism, etc., which are extremely harmful to the body.

2. The harm of pharyngitis

Patients with chronic pharyngitis often feel discomfort in the throat. If they get cold, tired, talk a lot, or have not drunk water for a long time, they will feel worse pain and burning in the throat. The itching in the throat causes bouts of irritating coughing, which affects their rest. If it is dry or atrophic pharyngitis, the throat will be obviously dry, and it will be difficult to speak and swallow saliva. You need to drink water frequently to moisten the throat, and you may even need to get up several times at night to drink water. However, it can only temporarily relieve the symptoms, and the throat will soon feel dry again. Some people need soup to swallow dry and hard food when eating.

3. The harm of pharyngitis

Some patients experience a foreign body sensation in the throat and often make grunting and swallowing movements in the hope of expelling the foreign body. However, these ineffective throat clearing movements can only aggravate the original discomfort. The patient then suspects that he has a tumor in his pharynx, throat or esophagus, which causes a heavy mental burden and depression. Some people snore during sleep due to thickening of the pharyngeal mucosa, which affects breathing.

4. The harm of pharyngitis

The retention of inflammatory secretions and bacteria can cause bad breath, which not only affects others but also causes great distress to the patient himself. Chronic pharyngitis leads to a decrease in the resistance of the pharynx. When the climate changes from cold to hot, dry to wet, the warming and humidifying regulatory functions of the mucosa are weakened, the ciliary activity and decomposition and phagocytosis functions are insufficient, and bacteria and viruses are easily retained and multiplied locally, becoming lesions of chronic infection. Therefore, these patients are prone to catching colds, which can cause acute attacks of pharyngitis. The infection and inflammation of the pharynx spreads to other systems and may be complicated by chronic laryngitis, chronic trachea and bronchitis, nephritis, heart disease, etc.; long-term inflammatory secretions are swallowed into the stomach, which can cause indigestion, esophagitis, gastritis, and enteritis; toxin absorption can cause dizziness, headache, fatigue, loss of energy, weight loss, low fever and other systemic reactions.