A month ago I posted on my Instagram account about a family vacation that turned into a staycation because my son came down with a virus. I didn’t share what the virus was and have finally been able to write this post and share.
The night before our trip my sons daycare calls and tells us they believe he has hand, foot and mouth! Now we knew this was going around the school and were hopeful he wouldn’t get it, especially since he’s had it once before. Well, wrong! Little did we know that you can get hand, foot and mouth more than once. The first time he caught it, it was more in his mouth then his body.
Let me back up a little and explain what hand, foot and mouth is for those of you who aren’t parents or have never heard of it. My family had certainly had never heard of it before. Now I’m no doctor or nurse and nor do I hold a medical degree. So I’ve inserted a link from the CDC (Center for Disease Control) https://www.cdc.gov/hand-foot-mouth/index.html
Hand, foot and mouth disease as it’s known is a contagious virus that causes blisters on the hand, foot and mouth and in some other places along with a fever. Typically it effects children 5 and under but adults can get it too.
So our trip was canceled and we were at home with our kids. And this time my son got hand, foot and mouth bad! He had the rash on his ears, under his nose, his hands, feet and the worst part of all was his diaper area. He did not have a fever or sores in his mouth. He was miserable!
At first we thought we can still take our trip and make this work. But we really had no idea what we were in for! That first night he didn’t sleep and was scratching all over and screaming in discomfort! We read everything we could online about what we could do or give him. We tried aquaphor, oral Benadryl, Greek yogurt on his sores, and caladryl/calamine lotion. Nothing worked!!
We spent two nights with our son in our bed in sheer discomfort! So by the third day we decided to try aveeno soothing baths. We bathed him in it twice a day for five days and ditched the oral Benadryl and started using the topical Benadryl with aquaphor. We put that on him as many times as we could and we’re allowed too. And by the end of the week most of his sores had scabbed over, which was great!
Like I stated above I’m not a doctor and nor do I have a medical degree. But I can attest to how well using aquaphor, topical Benadryl and aveeno soothing bath worked for our boy.
Below are some pictures of what his soares looked like.
A month later his hands and feet are still peeling but all is well!