Connecting moms in Polk County, Fla.

Keep your hands washed - Hand foot and mouth disease!

I guess its just that time of year. Hand Foot and Mouth disease is going around really bad right now. Just a warning for all you mommys out there. I spent all night Monday in the emergency room with my 18m old. I couldn't get his fever to go down at all, it just kept rising no matter what I tried. Now my daughter and my son both have icky blisters all over their hands and feet, and the little guy has them in his mouth and on his face. :( The pediatrician said that this year is the worst he has seen, as far as the number of infections and the severity of them.

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Permalink Reply by Shawn Arnold on October 12, 2011 at 9:04am

Great idea to pass the news! I've been hearing A LOT about this going around, too! I am so sorry you are dealing with this and how scary! that your little one's fever kept climbing. It's such a helpless feeling. :( I hope your gang makes a speedy recovery.

Now, I'm completely knocking on wood here, and I hope I'm not totally jinxing myself by saying this, but, out of 5 kids, we've never picked this up that I know of. If we did, it never presented with the blisters to clue me in as the tale tell signs. I'm not even sure I would know what to look for. Does it look like fever blisters?

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Permalink Reply by Shawn Arnold on October 12, 2011 at 9:10am

I thought I would add some information about this in case any of you were curious about this virus that seems to be running pretty rampant in Polk right now.

From the CDC I found this fast facts about Hand, Foot, and Mouth Di...

After reading a little more about it myself, it does say the sores can present only in the mouth but usually starts with a sore throat and fever. In this case, who knows, my kids likely have had this at some point, we just never saw rash on the body.

Krista is right, according to the link, keeping hands as clean as possible is one of the best ways to combat catching this. Good luck mommas!

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Permalink Reply by Krista Tant on October 12, 2011 at 9:17am

My daughter ran a fever all weekend. And then monday when I picked her up from the at-home daycare, she said "mommy, I have red spots on my hands". It was odd. It was just small, flat, red spots on her palms and in between her fingers on monday night. On Tuesday morning, they started to look more "blistery". I had a feeling about what the diagnosis was, because I've seen my niece come down with this. So, I mentioned it to the pediatrician yesterday, and he confirmed. The blisters are almost the size of a dime. She said they don't hurt, Thank God. I'm sure it won't be comfortable when they pop. The inside of my sons mouth looks awful! The blisters have made ulcers, so we have to be careful of what we feed him. You can look this up on the CDC website, and I did a Google Image Search to find pictures to compare to my little ones.

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Permalink Reply by Krista Tant on October 12, 2011 at 9:27am

I know the picture isn't very clear (I have a very old phone), but this is what they looked like the first day. The tiny red spots are now yucky fluid filled blisters.