A friend who we walk with in the mornings was telling us today about one of her grandchildren’s bout with hand, foot, and mouth disease.
It’s described online by the Mayo Clinic as “a mild, contagious viral infection common in young children.”
But none of us baby boomers recall having, fearing, or ever hearing about a malady like this when we were kids.
So is this a relatively new disease? A mutation of some previous virus?
According to online sources, it starts with a fever and just not feeling well. Within a few days, though, it will likely result in:
• Painful, red, blister-like lesions on the tongue, gums and inside of the cheeks
• A red rash, without itching but sometimes with blistering, on the palms, soles and sometimes the buttocks
And, it seems, the patients fingernails and toenails may fall off. WHAT?
Here’s a description from the Children’s Hospital Colorado:
• Peeling of the fingers and toes is common. It looks bad but is harmless. It happens at 1 to 2 weeks. Use a moisturizing cream on the raw skin.
• Some fingernails and toenails may fall off. It occurs in 4% of severe cases. It happens at 3 to 6 weeks out. Trim them if they catch on things.
• Fingernails grow back by 3 to 6 months and toenails by 9 to 12 months. They will look normal.
Seriously. This is the kind of thing you would remember, or at least you would have later heard tales from your parents if they had to cope with you during a bout of this disease with fingernails and toenails falling off. That would get parents’ attention, I’m sure.
So what’s the story? Is this new? if so, when did it arise? And when did it become “common”?
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Ian –
In the past 5 years, my poor hubby got it 3x. I think believe it is from all of our semi-permanent visitors. At work, a young mother got it twice in 1 year from her kids. We’re all too close to others and many don’t wash their hands.
It was common in my mother’s day (she was born in 1912) and through the depression. So related to tropical climate (Florida) and poverty. I’m guessing that it is now a “super bug” version exacerbated by global warming. I’m glad I only have to deal with feline health issues!
The Wikipedia article on hand, foot, and mouth disease says it was “first described in New Zealand in 1957.” In a footnote they link to full text of an informative article from an Indian dermatology journal.
As kids in Kansas in the 1950s we never heard of it. We heard about hoof and mouth disease in cattle, but that’s unrelated. On the other hand we got measles, mumps, rubella, and chickenpox, all preventable (and worth preventing) by vaccines today, and my brother got polio.
It appears pretty common here in Western Massachusetts also. But it’s new to me, having grown up in the 1950s and raised kids in the 80’s & 90’s…. You gotta wonder….
As another said, growing up in Nuuanu had only the normal kids’ stuff. Bugs are mutating to survive also. We also ate a lot closer to fresh food.
I’m a Gen-X’er (born in ’66) and I never heard of this until my co-workers with kids in daycare started talking about it. My guess is it’s related to general population increase, increase in world travel (and therefore the spread of diseases), and a greater number of kids in daycare compared to when we were growing up (there was no such thing as daycare, or even preschool, when I was a kid). The over-use of antibiotics and the general coddling of the immune system may have something to do with it, too. Do kids even play out in the dirt anymore?