Natalie - posted on 02/11/2012 ( 15 moms have responded )
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I have never heard of "Hand, Foot, Mouth Disease" until my almost 3.5y/o son woke up one morning with a pimple-like rash around his mouth. I wasn't sure what it was and l wasn't really concerned until a few hours later I happened to look in his mouth and I saw some red and white sores on the roof of his mouth. I called our doctor and they wanted to see him right away. From the time it took us to get from our home to the doctors office (about 30 minutes) he had developed spots on his feet and hands. His doctor looked him over and said it was Hand, Foot, Mouth disease and there was really nothing we could do for him other than let the virus run it's course. She told me I could give him Tylenol or Motrin for the discomfort and Benadryl for the itching.
The first day he was a little whiny, but that night he was beyond miserable! We gave him a lukewarm bath with a little bit of baking soda to help calm his skin, that did the opposite! He was extremely itchy and the Benadryl did not help either. I called the drs office to see what they suggested and she said to give him an oatmeal bath. We then gave him another lukewarm bath with Aveeno Oatmeal soak, it didn't help either. The Benadryl had yet to kick in along with the Motrin. My son was so miserable he couldn't sleep at all. He would fall asleep (in our bed because how miserable he was) and not even 2 minutes later he would wake up screaming, crying and he was violently lashing out on me and his dad, pushing, kicking, slapping and punching us. I ended up calling the on call doctor again and she said to give an extra half teaspoon of Motrin. It didn't help. He finally fell asleep around 6am until 9am.
The next day he was still a little miserable but he was getting better as long as every 6 hours on the dot I gave him his Motrin. however he was starting to get a little dehydrated because his throat hurt he didn't want to drink anything. I even gave in to giving him a bottle, he didn't want that either. I could not get him to drink anything. He went without peeing from 10am until a little after 3:30pm and he had to push a lot to get a little pee, which came out dark yellow. My MIL came up with a great way to get him to drink!! We took an old ketchup bottle, cleaned it out, filled it with chilled chocolate milk and squirted it in his mouth. He loves loves loves anything cars do I told him that this was his gas, it will help him run good. It worked great. I was able help him drink milk, powerade, and iced tea.
Our next battle, drying out his sores. We have a hot tub and I was a little skeptical about him using where the bath we gave him the night before made him miserable but his dad said it would probably help dry out his sores because of the chemicals (they say keeping the sores dry will help them heal faster). Even though I wasn't sure, I didn't want him to be miserable again but we tried it anyways. It WORKED! He slept amazing that night and he didn't even itch. So he's been going in the hot tub every night and his sores are almost gone.
I know every child is different and different things help them feel better but this is what I experienced with my son. I hope this helps somebody.
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