Hand Foot Mouth Disease :-(

Tuesday afternoon we got a call from school that Colton was not feeling well and was running a temp of 101. We went to pick him up and scheduled a Dr appt because he was saying his tummy hurt as well as his ear. That night the Dr looked at his ears and said they were 'red' inside but since he has had previous ear infections thought it was probably just that so she gave us antibiotics to fight it off. Wednesday morning he woke up with a rash around his mouth. NWA including our daycare has had Hand Foot Mouth Disease going around so that's the first thing I thought of. Our friends Greg and Jen's little girl Addy had it last week and Keisha's boys have it this week (and they don't go to our daycare and live in Rogers) and both have said that there is nothing they can do because it's a viral thing...so we just had to wait it out. Thursday he woke up and it was much worse. Now it was not longer on his face, but on his hands too with a small rash on his feet. By Friday the blisters on his mouth were worse but some were actually starting to scab over and dry out (which I heard was a good thing) but instead of just a bad rash on his hands he actually had blisters so I scheduled a Dr appointment hoping they would do something...ANYTHING to make my baby feel better! Our appt was Friday morning and the Dr said Colton had a severe case of HFM disease and so that his blisters would not get infected and cause a secondary infection he gave us an antibiotic cream called Bactroban for his skin. He also gave us Tylenol with Codeine in it to help him feel better and sleep better (I just gave it to him at night because I didn't want him to be sleepy during the day. I did give him IB Profen during the day to take away some of the pain/itch.). I have to say Colton has been a trooper through out all of this. He has times of irritability (I'm sure because he just doesn't feel himself and is hurting/itching) but most of the time he acts like himself. I can say this momma can't wait for my baby to be back to normal! The Dr said by Monday his rash should be much better but would not be gone. It turns out that the ear pain and fever are actually the first signs of HFM so the good news is he no longer has to take the antibiotics since he actually does not have an ear infection! I pray that Lauren, Kraig and I don't get it also as I have washed my hands more in the past few days than I ever have trying to stay away from it (so much so that my skin is cracking!). Lauren is treating him like he has the plaque and won't go near him...poor guy he just doesn't understand. :-( Luckily it's very rare for adults to get it since it's mainly something that shows up in kids 10 and under but Kraig and I still need to take precautions (mainly me because of baby #3).
Day 1 photo

Slight rash around the mouth...nothing on hands or feet.

Day 2 photos

Face has raised sores/scabs. Hands are starting to get red blisters.

Day 3 photos

Hands and face are all red with sores/blisters.

Day 4 photos

No more blisters on the face, just scabs. Hands have red marks and blisters.

Day 5 photos

Some scabs on the face but they are about 80% gone. His hands still have red marks.

Day 6 photos

All the scabs on his face are 100% gone! His hands still have red marks and scabs as they have been about a day behind his face so far but the spots on the hands are drying up so that's a good sign!

Yesterday was a big change in his face and attitude. I could tell he missed his sissy's hugs because all day he just kept wanting to hug her. She kept yelling "mom he is touching me!" Poor guy...he just wants to be loved. I have been snuggling him and kissing his forehead, etc but making sure I washed my hands after I touched him or his cups, etc. Luckily no one in our family has caught it and I pray we don't. Now it's time to disinfect the whole house! :-)