Diagnosis

Your healthcare provider can usually tell if you have strep throat. An expert in throat health, called an otolaryngologist, can also diagnose the infection.

They will ask you about your symptoms and look at your throat and neck.⁶ They will look for signs of strep throat, including:

• Redness, swelling, or white patches that look like pus in the throat or on your tonsils
• A rash on your body that started on your neck and chest 
• Red spots on the roof of your mouth (petechiae)
• Swollen tonsils (tonsillitis)
• Lymph nodes that are swollen

Your healthcare provider might do some tests to figure out if you have strep throat.⁶ These strep throat tests may include:

• A rapid strep test uses a sample of saliva from the back of your throat. The results only take a few minutes, but sometimes, they are not right. A rapid strep test might say that you do not have strep throat when you really do. This is called a false-negative test result.
• A throat culture uses a sample of tissue taken from the back of your throat using a swab. The sample is sent to the laboratory where technicians will look at it to see if any bacteria is growing. The results take several days to come back, but it is the most accurate test for strep throat.