Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease

While traveling over Easter Micah got hand, foot and mouth disease. It's a sister virus to the chicken pox that starts with a fever for 24 hours and then creates blister like sores in the mouth and on the hands and feet. Most children get it when they are young, but the symptoms are rarely noticeable and sores may not even appear on the hands and feet (in fact we're pretty sure Jackson had it too since he had the 24 hour fever as well, but he had no other symptoms).

However, poor Micah got this virus pretty bad and there was nothing we could do for him but wait it out. He had a fever on Easter Sunday that lasted 24 hours. A day or two afterwards his eating habits were strange. I thought perhaps he had a sore throat because he was spitting out some of his most favorite foods(even sweets).


Then a few days later I noticed that in between his toes were raw and blistered and finally noticed his hands had a few little blisters as well. That's when I put two and two together and realized he had hand, foot and mouth. We had already been giving him Ibuprofen because we thought he was in pain from his throat, but it turns out he had visible sores on his tongue too. Poor guy.

We continued the Ibuprofen and put triple antibiotic cream on the open sores on his feet and covered them with socks, which seemed to ease his discomfort. After a couple of days of eating just eggs and drinking just milk the sores in his mouth went away and he slowly went back to his normal eating habits.

Micah was so exhausted from this virus that he fell asleep at the lunch table.

The virus was a doozy for Micah. It's now been over 2 weeks and he still has remnant blisters on his hands, but mostly his feet that are peeling and healing. He's been sleeping through the night for a little over a week, but still struggles with his naps, but we're getting it all worked out.