In the course of my practice and clinical work, many patients and healthy people often think they have rheumatism when they have joint pain or elevated anti-“O” tests during physical examinations, and even non-rheumatology doctors and nurses, most of whom apply penicillin and Chinese herbal medicine on their own for treatment, resulting in a series of problems. So is a high anti-O necessarily rheumatism? The answer is: this statement is wrong! Anti-O high is clinically associated with the following symptoms (fever, wandering joint swelling and pain, rash, progressive increase in values, increased blood sedimentation and C-reactive protein) before it is considered to be related to rheumatic fever. With the abuse of antibiotics, patients with rheumatic fever are very rare in clinical practice. The high anti-“O” is definitely not rheumatoid! Then what is anti “O”? The actual “O” is the anti-streptococcal hemolysin “O”, abbreviated ASO. hemolytic streptococcus produces a metabolite that can lyse red blood cells, so this product is named “O” O” hemolysin exists in the body as an antigenic substance after human infection with group A hemolytic streptococci. In order to measure the amount of antibodies that neutralize streptococcal hemolysin “O”, it is called the anti-streptococcal hemolysin “O” test. The value detected by this test is the anti-O that many patients see. Therefore, an elevated anti-“O” level only indicates an infection with the bacteria mentioned above, which is the most common respiratory infection and is found in more than 90% of adults. If you find elevated anti “O” after a cold, there is no need to apply long-term antibiotic treatment if there are no uncomfortable symptoms, and don’t think you have rheumatism, use some more toxic anti-rheumatic drugs, which will only bring more damage to health.