Hand, foot and mouth..

As exam week is over, I thot I could chill out this weekend with the kids. But we can only plan and Allah grants it..

Since Friday afternoon Omar showed great discomfort in eating or drinking and he would suddely screamed in pain while playing, pointing to his mouth. At first I thought he had toothache. Then I start telling him (hoping that he'd understood) how he should not take too much sweets and all. Then I start looking into his mouth and tried to brush his teeth. Then I saw it .. he had a few ulcers in his mouth. Ohh no wonder. Must be the heat, I thought. And how he lacked drinking water. He was quite OK for the rest of the evening but he drink very little milk and eat with great pain on his face. By bedtime he had very mild fever but begining to wail and wail until he fell asleep. At 2am, he screamed in pain with eyes closed. Gave him paracetamol as painkiller and he was asleep again after 40 mins.

By morning I checked his foot and hands. Yup.. some blisters has appeared. He refused to drink, eat or even talk! Brought him to see the paedic and he confirmed it's HFM. Highly contagious and will last for at least 5 days. Oh boy! 5 days! There's no specific medication for this except for painkiller or paracetamol if he has fever. And something to sooth his ulcer which is almost impossible to drop in his mouth since he refused to open his mouth altogether. The dr also said ice cream is actually a good remedy for this as it will cool the mouth.

Yesterday he only had half bottle of iced lemon tea which later he vomitted all on me. Then a bottle of milk. We offered him ice cream, he took it but he just held the spoon in front of his mouth.. Oh poor boy! Later in the evening he must be really hungry that he tolerated the pain and had some porridge and a whole can of isotonic drink. No wailing in the middle of the nite as I've given him some painkillers before sleep.

Today however is a different story. I thought he's getting better. I was wrong. He refused everything except the isotonic drink, he used sign language to talk and refused to eat any medication. This is day 3. Ohoh.. I hope he will ge better sooner than 5 days because I can see him losing weight already.

HFM is not really dangerous but still it's a virus. If not treated well and control, it will spread and becomes an outbreak. It's normally contracted via saliva or mucus of another person who's had it. This is what puzzled me since Omar is most at the time at home. I didn't bring him to any public places for the past week. Unlike his siblings who's had this before from school last year or so.

It's nothing to be panic about only great hassle in caring the infected ones. And I have to be extra cautious handling the rest of the kids so that they won't get it.

You can read all about HFM here.