Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease (HFMD)

Hello ATS!

On Friday my 3 year old son came down with a high fever. As worried parents do, I start thinking it's this and that and get myself all worked up. You can never be too careful though. Turns out he has HFMD.
So I thought, as this is something that's going about around my area and the UK (probably everywhere) I would just stick this up on here as a quick reference for anyone interested.

It started off as what most would think would be a cold. Loss of appetite, high temps, drowsiness etc.

I gave him some calpol throughout the rest of the day and gave him plenty of cuddles and all that soft stuff.

He awoke the next day with rashes on his feet, hands, thighs and parts of his abdomen and nasty sores around his mouth. We rang the emergency doctor and took him to the hospital.

The doctor diagnosed it as hand, foot and mouth disease.

Hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) is a type of viral infection that is most common in young children.

and for those who will say, ''hang on a mo, I thought that was only for cattle...''

Hand, foot and mouth disease is not the same as foot and mouth disease, which affects cattle, sheep and pigs. The two infections are unrelated, and you cannot catch hand, foot and mouth disease from animals

The only way of dealing with HFMD is to simply rest and let the infection take it's course and make sure your child doesn't get dehydrated.

Hand foot and mouth disease is what is known as self-limiting condition meaning that it will get better by itself without the need for treatment. Symptoms will usually pass within 7 days.

The reason I put this here is because had I looked into HFMD like I did with meningitis etc and not over look it I would have immediately known this is what he had.

Symptoms of hand foot and mouth disease include:
•cold-like symptoms such as loss of appetite, cough and a moderately high temperature around 38 – 39C (100.4F – 102.2F)
•a non-itchy red rash that develops on the hand and the feet; though sometimes the rash can develop into painful blisters
•painful mouth ulcers

The sypmtoms he had and the ones on the NHS website were the same to a T.
So there would have been no need for the trip to the hospital imo.

HFMD is contagious so care should be taken.

HFMD is a relatively common type of infection. Most cases affect children aged 10 or younger although occasionally adults can also be affected.

Symptoms tend to be milder in adults, although a minority of adults have reported quite severe symptoms.

Both sexes are equally affected by HFMD.

Source: NHS

So there you have it ATS. No conspiracy here just a bit of general info for anybody who has kids.

Cheers

It might also be worth pointing out that the underlying cause to HFMD is exhaustion. Most children's bodies will beat those infections unless they are really worn down for one reason or another (which happens to all children from time to time; part of becoming an adult is learning limits). I know this from a friend coming down with it and the doctors gave him a pretty hard time about getting more sleep and better nutrition. Apparently the reason adults rarely get it is because the infections require the body to be pretty worn down in order to take place. Self-regulating adults rarely reach these exhaustion levels because they can easily choose to remedy their stress. A small child or toddler hasn't typically developed the same wisdom and is far more susceptible to putting themselves into that 'red zone', which explains why it is primarily a child's ailment. I'm sure having a fully developed adult immune system probably helps as well

Thank you for the information as far as symptoms and treatment. Very informative and good to know what's up. I would only add from a preventative stance that ensuring your child is well rested will help prevent it from taking place in the first case as well. This can be near-impossible to regulate 100% of the time, especially they are usually having the most fun while being active, but you can also approach it from the other side then and try to regulate cleanliness levels better when the child is worn down. Just thought i'd add that

Thanks for your comments.

Originally posted by tagasbob11
Thank you for the information as far as symptoms and treatment. Very informative and good to know what's up. I

You're welcome
I tried to make it as informative as possible. I'm not really a thread maker but I thought this would be some good info to have should someone be looking on here for advice.

A few years ago my niece came down with that, I think she may have been the same age as your child (ironically, it was only a few days after she got her chickenpox vaccine) ... it was pretty awful for her for a little while, but no lasting damage. She called it "the pricklies"