Augmentin/XR seems to be commonly used. Why is that thought to work?
This isn’t exactly known. At very high dosage, Augmentin is bacteriacidal (meaning it actually does kill strep). One theory is that there is a strep infection hidden (perhaps inside cells) and once the cell dies it releases strep into the blood stream. In this case, Augmentin could stop the GABHS before an immune response. There is some good anecdotal evidence for this, but this has not been clinically studied. Some researchers have indicated to parents that Augmentin may be anti-inflammatory at high dose, but there is no clinical studies to support this hypothesis.