Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease

[sahm1225]

Have you had experience with hand,foot, and mouth disease? What do you do to prevent it from spreading? How did you realize what it was?

I had a little one out of daycare last week because he had it (he was here Monday and did not return until this week). He had been exposed the week before at a bday party and were not informed until Tuesday (So basically we were all exposed already)

This evening, my DS (3 1/2 yrs old) tells me his throat hurts and I see what I think are sores in his mouth. My DH is taking him to the doctor tomorrow to confirm/diagnose. He has not had a temperature, has been eating regularly, no fussiness, and nothing to make me think that anything is wrong except the inside of his mouth just doesn't look right.

There is no treatment for hand,foot and mouth disease and we are past the contagious stage. Would you close your daycare? I will be notifying the parents once I get the results so that they can be on the look out for symptoms.

[sharlan]

I never closed for it, others here do.

I seemed to keep it at a minimum by spraying everything with Lysol.

One little girl I had, had it really bad in her throat. The dr prescribed something that I "painted"on the sores in her mouth. It really helped.

[rjskids]

I don't remember my old daycare excluding for it cause my DD had it and I remember telling my boss I wanted to keep her home because she was very uncomfortable and irritable.

[MamaBear]

I had a HFMD situation here several months ago... Started off with one girl & then another boy had it a couple days later. Both pretty mild cases all within the mouth but one big sore on a chin.

Basically I had the parent provide a dr's note with diagnosis and had the HFMD child stay home for 10 days from when the symptoms started and/or until sores were healed up and gone. I really did consider just closing down because it totally freaked me out. I didnt want my own kids and family catch it or any of the other daycare kids. One mom chose to keep her kids home and still paid me just so he wouldnt get it. The other 3 kiddos still came. Nobody else got it. It ****s because by the time the parent finds out that the child has HFMD, he/she has already exposed other kids. :confused:

[broncomom1973]

This is a post that I posted awhile back regarding hand foot and mouth:

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My oldest daughter picked it up at daycare days before her 4th birthday. It was the last week of October 2008 and I was due to have my son the first week of December 2008. At that time I was the lab nurse at a family practice clinic and even though I wasnt working out on the floor bringing patients back, I had heard other nurses talk about a few cases that had come in. On a Sunday my daughter told me she had a sore throat and when I looked in her mouth, I about fell off of the couch. She had soooo many ulcers in her mouth. I tried to push fluids and got her in first thing on Monday a.m. The Dr told me to keep doing what I was doing with the fluids but by around 3 p.m. I called back for an order to have her go in for IV fluids if we needed it (didnt want to go through the ER). She took 1 oz from the time of her appt until that night. We took her in and she ended up being in the hospital for 5 days. She had the most severe case that many of those nurses had ever seen. She didnt eat for almost 2 weeks because of the pain in her mouth and she did not drink until Friday of that week. The criteria for her to come home was for her to drink 8 oz and she did it with much encouragement (her IV had also infiltrated so they were going to have to put a new one in if she didnt drink). We got home and almost had to take her back because she hurt so bad she still wouldnt drink. It was awful. I spent that entire week (34 weeks pregnant) in a hospital bed with her. Come to find out, one of her good friends from daycare had it the week before but "had such a mild case" that she was back at daycare within 2 days. I was lucky because my younger daughter who was 1 at the time ended up with what I think was a real mild case of it- she had a few blisters on her fingers and a low grade fever but never stopped taking fluids. After going through that whole ordeal (and a nice hospital bill), I always try to take into consideration that in illnesses such as Hand, Foot and Mouth it doesnt affect all children the same and just because one case may be mild doesnt mean that the person they pass it on to will have a mild case, as was the case with my daughter. When my son turned 1, he came down with a case of it and I closed my daycare for a week while he recuperated. No hospital for him, but he did have high fevers and was lethargic at times. There was no way I was going to expose the other kids at my daycare to that. As much as it ****ed for them to have to find alternative care, they were all grateful after they found out what we went through with dd and how serious it can be in some children.

I myself would close. Just because you were all already "exposed" to it doesnt mean that everyone came into contact with it. As I said above, my daughter had a severe case of it and I would never wish that on anyone else. Another interesteing bit on Hand, Foot and Mouth- here is a link to a new strain that is circulating around Vietnam, I read about it the other day and it really scares me http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0..._n_931289.html. HFMD is caused by viruses that belong to the enterovirus genus (group). This group of viruses includes polioviruses, coxsackieviruses, echoviruses, and enteroviruses. Here in the US, it is usally caused by the coxsackievirus, but can be caused by other viruses. Once you get HFMD caused by one virus, you usually will not get it again from that virus but can get it from one of the other viruses.

[Blackcat31]

Here are the fact and parents sheets for Hand, Foot and Mouth disease.

http://www.hennepin.us/files/HennepinUS/HSPHD/Public%20Health%20Protection/Epidemiology/Daycare%20Manual/1345_handfoot%20parent.pdf

http://www.hennepin.us/files/HennepinUS/HSPHD/Public%20Health%20Protection/Epidemiology/Daycare%20Manual/1340_s6HAND%20FOOT.pdf