Hand, Foot and Mouth - Minneapolis,MN

K.,
Parker had HFM about 2 months ago. This is how it presented.

High Fever spiked only at night (sign of a virus)
Rash came about day 2, all over body, mostly on feet and stomach
Sore throat - refusal to eat (would try but just cried)
Lethargic - but had trouble sleeping at night.

These lasted about a week. They are contagious as long as they have the rash. We all got it. It presents differently in every baby. I feel so badly for you, I know how miserable Parker was and wouldn't wish that on any baby. I pray your little one gets better soon!

Angie

Okay, I'm not a pro or anything, but it really does sound like pink eye. And the rash almost sounds like a strep rash. I know my son has gotten a rash before and fevers, never ate same thing your kind of seeing and he had strep. Did they do a strep test?

My son has had hfm before, it was horrible!! He had blisters all in his mouth and outside of it. He wouldn't eat, all he did was sleep and cry. His hfm took two weeks to finally clear up. Just keep pushing the liquids and tyenol that seemed to help with him. But doctors usually know best. Hope this helps.

We have HFM right now too. My daughter has/had the rash mostly on the stomach and legs and hands, but there was some all over. She had trouble sleeping too and a couple days of fever. We did not get any antibotics but tylenol usually gives her a bit of diarrhea. She is doing a lot better now and it's only been a week. Sounds like the eye problems may be an unrelated matter. Doctor did tell us sometime ear infections can result if the child has any infection that goes on for a period of time. I guess I'd keep going to the doctor.

It is so frustrating when you know something is wrong and your doctor can't see it. If you really like her, ask her to consult with another doctor or let your child be seen by another doctor in the clinic. Sometimes one will have information or experience the other lacks. If she is a good doctor, she won't have a problem with this.

I hope you get an answer soon.

Yikes! Sorry to hear your son is so sick. I can't really speak for all the symptoms, but we just go over HFM a couple weeks ago, and my son did have the rash over his entire body. The ped said that the only "consistent" rash of the HFM is the hands, feet, and mouth (I know, duh!), but that the rest of it really differs from kid to kid. My son is fair with somewhat sensitive skin, so he gets rashed pretty easily. With HFM, it was all over. He also had a MAJOR loss of appetite, and was really cranky. Most of that was due to the sores in his mouth, and because of all that, he also had trouble sleeping. His fevers weren't that high (only around 100), but hung around for a few days. We also thought he might have had an ear infection because many of the symptoms seemed the same, but he didn't--the poking at the cheeks and ears were because of the pain in his mouth (and a little teething).

Was your son on augmentin? Whenever mine took that it helped the infections but they would get diarrhea, too. Once we upped the yogurt intake from 1x/day to 2-3x/day, they were both fine. Now when they take that we just give them more yogurt (YoBaby and YoKids) right away and they never have any stomach issues.

As for the other stuff, I'm sorry I can't be much help. I haven't heard of the eyes and diaper rash being part of it, but that doesn't mean it's not. :) I will say that if he did have diarrhea, the diaper rash could be part of that, but I don't know about the eyes. My kids tend to get the "perfect storm" of stuff, too, so I tend to worry they've got more than one thing at a time. But as for the HFM, much of your experience sounds consistent with mine. Good luck!!!

Your poor boy! That would be so hard to be his age and so sick. The goopy eyes sounds like conjunctivitis, my boys got that at the same time as a bunch of other infections and were given separate eye drops to treat (which was really hard to get into the eye, I might add).

My son had HFM disease, and it seems like there were a lot of similarities between your son's symptoms and mine. My guess is that the strain your son has is resistant to whatever medication he was given. My son went through that problem with other bacterial infactions before.

I've had a son with stomach rash that turned into a virus, but not HFM. My son's rash was in the mouth and feet only.

We also had major eating and sleeping issues with HFM - yet those could also be from the double ear infections. The eating and sleeping issues took us the longest to resolve. We did have some diarrhea and a diaper rash with HFM, but we've also had that with ear infections.

His fever may have been from the ear infections. I don't remember if my son had a fever or not.

I would take him back to the doc. No matter how well it's documented in the chart, I would explain everything to the doc again and try and get some understanding. It sounds like he has overlapping medical illnesses, to me.

Good luck!