Streps throat? 
In other words, is strep like a cold that you can get one right after another because they’re not the same thing and your body isn’t resistant to Cold II, or is it like other things where you won’t get another one for a while?
My poor boyfriend who still can’t hear out of one ear from last month’s strep thinks he has it again, and we can’t get him in to see anybody until at least Monday. It would ease his mind if he knew it probably wasn’t the same thing.
I am not a doctor and am basing this answer solely on my experience as the mother of 2 kids who got strep from time to time. Assuming it was really strep the first time, diagnosed by a specific test, no reason it couldn’t be the exact same thing. For example, the antibiotics might not have knocked out enough of it, and over the ensuing weeks, it multiplied enough to blossom forth again. Or he might just have be re-exposed. Or it might just be a garden-variety cold this time. Our pediatrician always said that it was impossible to be sure without the test. He said that some really bad sore throats were not strep, and that some that didn’t look so bad were. I’m surprised it got so bad that it interfered with his hearing. In my somewhat limited experience the good thing about strep is that when treated promptly with the appropriate meds, the congestion clears up pretty quickly. Bad things can happen if it’s not treated, or if the patient doesn’t finish the entire prescription.
Neither. Strep throat is a bacterial infection caused by Streptococcus group A. That is the only bug that causes “strep throat”; there aren’t several kinds of strep throat. And, unlike the story with some viruses, you can definitely get it several times. Like MLS said, it’s easy to clear up with antibiotics, but if the course of antibiotics didn’t get all the bacteria, a nre flare-up is possible. Or you can go and smooch someone with a raging infection and get re-exposed and start from scratch.
It’s also possible that something else is causing your boyfriend’s illness - was the strep officially diagnosed with a test or culture? Did he take the whole prescription?