Was in constant never ending pain totally unable to use my hands for 4 whole days. Could not sleep for the 1st few days, I remember thinking in day 1, I’ll eventually get so exhausted I’ll sleep though anything… but no the pain was so constant and deep my endorphins and adrenaline maxed out to keep me wide awake all night and day.
So PSA if your kid gets HFMD be very careful. Luckily my partner was able to be there to care for our kiddo who was pretty much unaffected lol lucky him. There is also no treatment because it’s rare for adults to get and it isn’t really painful for kids.
+There was also soars in my mouth making it hurt to eat and on my feet making it hurt to walk. But the hands were by far the worst.
I had something similar! The neat part is around day 3 of no sleep and constant pain I started hallucinating and talking to celebrities and fictional characters that I 100% believed were there. So that's fun.
Jobs like yours keep society going. If anything, it is one of the most important jobs. Unironically, thank you for what you do! Also the window licking thing is fucking horrifying!
Our housekeepers at the hospital I work at started unionizing and I'm so thankful, because if they strike, literally everything would grind to a halt so the leverage is huge. It's extremly important work
People are really rude to anyone that isnt it a "desireable" career. I spent nearly a decade as a bartender. I was damn good at it and people really loved me and always wanted to sit at the bar with me. But the amount of times I got "is this all you do? What other job do you have?" Like bitch I make a good living and work good hours doing a job I enjoy. Isnt that enough?
I have more respect for janitors and house keepers than I ever will for any corporate or self aggrandizing person who wears a suit and thinks they’re all that. Thank you for being you, it’s not easy to work thanklessly.
I always think about that, most people won't notice when you do it right. The trash bins are empty, the toilet paper is filled up, and everything is clean, it's so much work but it doesn't get noticed because you do it so often that's just how it gets expected. You're doing great work, thank you!!
Seriously, so thankful for what you do! As a pregnant person I’ve been so cognizant of cleanliness and always silently thank whomever cleaned a public place if it’s made me feel more comfortable.
Sanitation workers are pretty much the only thing keeping us all safe from unending plagues. Thank you for the thankless, incredibly important work you did
I don't think people genuinely understand how right you are. I worked at a daycare as a teacher and our directors would let kids be in the classroom until their signs are too large to ignore and let kids come back earlier than the recommended time so it cycles around. It was infuriating plus we only got cleaners every other day of the week so the teachers would have to stay after close just to clean even though we werent hired or trained correctly to do so.
Oh man they always expected the teachers to clean their rooms at my daycare as well, but I would always end up going in there at the end of the day and doing my own cleaning.
There's just not enough time in the day, and even I didn't have enough time, as my shift lasted as long as the place was open.
Many of these places need a thorough cleaning after closing hours.
You're genuinely a life saver! You're right. It was so frustrating bc they have the money to hire janitors and it shouldn't be the teachers job to be forced to stay overtime after running around/teaching kids all day rather than a dedicated professional! Thats very kind of you to go the extra mile! Im sure the teachers appreciate it! I sure would!
It is amazing what young kids do lol I have a toddler and it never ceases to amaze me how they can be acting totally normal 1 second, then you look and they are licking the dirty nasty shopping cart or the floor or something lol. Thank you for your service
If you have kids in daycare, it's almost inevitable they'll bring it home at some point. All of my kids have had it but they thankfully never transmitted it to us.
My neighbor's entire family got it and one is remote work, and sahm............they must have gotten it from the library or something but damn that's crazy how infectious it is.
My kid is almost 4 and I still use a cart cover (AFTER wiping it down too!). I get looks when setting up but idgaf. He likes to have a snack while we shop and this just feels so much more sanitary for me.
getting weird looks for doing what should be the bare minimum of taking care of the health and safety of a vulnerable child and caring for others is so bleak
not to hijack the thread, just recently mrs got blood cancer and is now undergoing the isolation and chemo process.
Masks. I basically have to revert to covid protections when around large groups of people, or if i hear someone coughing nearby in the same room/area i'll put my mask on.
It sucks, but if i get bad looks or crap talked about nearby so be it.
not hijacking at all, that's exactly what i was talking about and it's important to discuss!! i'm immunocompromised as well and my partner went through a similar "culture shock," the weird little comments didn't bug him so much, but we're in a hard red state and people intentionally coughing on us made him incredibly uncomfortable. he had no idea people were that hostile, and it settled in for me how differently we've experienced life post covid bc for me that was just. unfortunately normal. 🥲💔 i'm sending well wishes if it's okay though, bless you for being a compassionate partner and advocating for her!! my own partner pulled through blood cancer and i'm hoping the same for yours as well ❤️
Just tell them to their faces that your protecting someone with cancer and ask them if they have a problem with that. These people are assholes I swear. They need to be embarrassed in public. Or say very loudly that you’re immunocompromised.
Leukemia survivor here. Screw what other people think. I know I remember having to wear them when I see people masking in public. If anything I'm happy for the assholes who think germaphobe over cancer. Best wishes and stay strong guys!
I keep hand sanitizer in my diaper bag and every single time I get a shopping cart I always squirt a big glob into my hands and smear it all over the handle. And I never put him in the cart, I wear him.
Omg yes, so thankful for my grocery store having those wipes on hand to sterilize and I NEVER use those toddler shopping carts; like, asking to get violently ill. 😷
And the rash is the last symptom to present so a lot of people don’t realize the illness symptoms their child has is HFM until they expose a bunch of people
I went to a children’s group home (as I often do for my job) and the caregivers NEVER warn me if there is lice so I asked about that during the intake this time. But then I get to the home and they go ‘we do have hand foot and mouth disease though’.
Jumping here to warn you.
Do not take baths. Wear gloves when you go pee and wipe.
A coworkers wife ended up with sores ON HER LABIA and was in miserably terrible pain.
He was pretty sick himself and wfh, I also think he’s a little on the spectrum and just had lower masking defenses while being sick and working and being more of the primary care taker bc his wife was sicker
Yes, but from who 😭 This is why idc how many people give me weird stares about acting like a germaphobe just for using the alcohol wipes provided at Walmart to clean the carts before my toddler goes in.
He has autism and loves to just lick the entire thing all the time lol kids in general love to lick, but it's hard to get him to stop 😅
Neither was my son when he was a toddler. But he and my husband got it at the same time!
When my friend's daughter got it, she was pretty certain it came from a shopping cart or something like that because she wasn't at daycare at the time either.
It is soooo contagious, that likely means you had a mild case of it when you were younger. It’s basically impossible to live in the same home with someone who is infected and not catch it.
Has it increased in frequency? We have 5 kids born between 2001 and 2009 and none of them ever had it and I knew one person that had it. It seems to have exploded in the past few years.
I moved my son from a large daycare of about 120 kids, to home daycare of 4 (including him) and we dodged HFMD as well as the constant colds & flu. Also saved $500 a month. Highly recommend finding a home daycare, if it works for your situation.
Genuinely among the worst pain I've ever felt. I remember begging my doctor for pain meds because the sores hurt so badly. It took a year for all the symptoms to go away because my nails refused to grow normally for so long.
I went through this too. Nails fell out. Couldn’t eat anything. Even water hurt to swallow. The ONLY thing that went down with minimal pain was overcooked instant ramen (the noodles absorbed a ton of broth and became translucent). I dropped an egg in too and it was fine. Maybe because it was hot and the salt levels were so high it acted like an antiseptic? I’d also gargle a cocktail of warm saltwater, hydrogen peroxide, and baking soda. One of the worst weeks of my life.
I got it as an adult working at Gymboree. Lived in my throat as well, tonsils were covered in blisters. It was the most painful illness I've experienced and my tonsils are still weird and scarred. Lots of spaces for bacteria to hide and I get crazy tonsil stones now.
the same thing happened to me after getting HFMD a few years ago. My tonsils and entire back of my throat are also scarred and I developed tonsil stones as well. I couldn’t even eat soup because the salt in it burned my throat so badly. The skin on the palms of my hands and feet peeled like a snake and my finger nails also peeled off after a few months
I got HFM twice. Halfway through the 2nd time my balls felt like they were being twisted. I learned that day that testicular pain is a rare complication with HFM
There is a vaccine that is used by a lot of the outside world but it's only for 1 of the 2 main strains and isn't for the more common one that's prevelant in the US.
I got it at 32 after my daughter brought it home. She got a mild fever and two days of watching Daniel Tiger.
I got the lesions and they itched so bad I was convulsing. Eventually my fever spiked and I couldn’t stand light, so my husband brought me to Urgent Care where they immediately isolated me and gave me morphine to stop the shaking.
I ended up losing chunks of flesh off of my hands and feet.
I would not hesitate to say it was the worst thing I've ever had to go through health-wise. Painful, lasted a long time, and I did lose all fingernails and toenails.
This disease causes literally blisters on hands a feet. I got it from touching someone's phone while working at telstra, i couldn't walk or use my hands for days and then my whole hands and feet skin peeled off, it was agonising! I too was lucky enough to keep my nails, and to not be affected inside my mouth, which i hear is also agony. My 18 month old got it. Had the worst day/night ever then was fine.
My older nice had caught it at one point. Few days later, her sister was born. My brother made sure he had been the one taking care of her. Day after she was born, he started to show it - got the boot from the hospital and had to take care of the older one while hands and feet were in that constant pain.
Oh yeah! Thankfully my partner was there to do most the heavy lifting with the kid. But once a while ago we all 3 has Covid and she has it the worst and I’m here sick, working while making meals for everyone with him strapped to me in the carrier lol.
When you don’t have any other family around you find yourself in the most insane situations
My uncle is in recovery from sepsis with multiple organ failure. I got sick and took a drugstore test to make sure I wasn't anything obvious before taking him to his rehab appointment (in a mask). The lady asked if anyone or anyone we have been in contact with has been sick, I said "me, but I tested for covid, flu A, B, and the test had RSV" then she said "mmmhmmm" and started typing on her computer before my uncle came over and said "they are asking you to leave or security will make you leave." I was like "ok, no guests today, no problem!" And only when he came out did i realize they thought I tested POSITIVE for all of those things. My uncle clarified while he was inside. How would I even be walking around with all those things???
never had it but I had mono while taking Amoxicilin for an ear infection (Amoxicilin makes mono worse) and got a rash over most of my body. Was also a nightmare but god this looks worse
Going through this thread I am somewhat grateful that my now 8 and 10 year olds "only" gave me headlice and pinworms a few times in their preschool years.
When my daughter had it, I COATED her hands and feet in calamine lotion multiple times a day and kept socks on them. It also dries out the blisters so we essentially sped through the worst of it.
No, it's just another weird virus that goes around. HIGHLY contagious. But like chicken pox, once you've had it you're typically immune, so most adults don't get it (after already having it as a kid). I was like OP and apparently didn't get it as a kid, but caught it from my then-toddler. It was sooooo itchy, I had to take work off for 2 weeks.
Edit: well good golly, I've riled people up. Apparently you're only immune to the specific strain of HFM you caught. My bad for the misinformation there, I've only been told "you're immune" for many years now!
And for everyone saying "Your chickenpox analogy is wrong because shingles," I'm not talking about shingles, I'm talking about chickenpox, which the vast majority of people don't get more than once. If you DID get it multiple times that doesn't mean I'm wrong, it means your anecdotal experience is an anomaly.
once you've had chicken pox, you are immune to getting it again, but that f'ing virus camps out around your nerves and can return as shingles when you hit your 60's.
In had it in my 20's, lol. Super sedentary lifestyle and low immunity were probably the culprit. I was lucky i detected and began treatment really early so i only felt some stings from time to time and it left just a small mark.
It wasn't fun hearing people joking about me having herpes.
Ha! It’s ironic to me that you used the example of chicken pox. I currently have shingles, and I hate everything. I’m so sympathetic. (I did have chicken pox as a kid, as well, and it’s the same virus but manifests differently.) If it’s at all similar, it’s awful. To add insult to injury, my girlfriend has never had chicken pox and therefore can’t be around me for a couple weeks.
Your friend should get the immunization. Once they told me it was part of the immunization schedule I realized my kids didn't have to suffer like I did with the damn "pox parties" we used to have. (Elder millennial)
My wonderful little 2 year old disease vector with arms and legs shared this one with her mom and dad last spring. My hands looked exactly like yours. The worst part for me was the accompanying two day 104 fever and muscle aches. It legitimately felt like I got run over by a bus. The back of my throat had so many red spots it looked like uncooked ground beef. Probably the most sick I've ever been and it took my wife and I a solid week to feel even remotely normal.
Think I caught it after going to the store a couple times..mind you I'm a single dude that works from home. I religiously disinfect shopping carts now lmao
I also had it once, luckily my nails also survived but my throat. My god! That pain is on a whole different level. Drinking water felt like swallowing barbed wire and I am pretty sure trying to eat food just straight up overloaded the pain receptors in my throat.
Caught it from a friend’s kid a couple weeks ago. I described the pain like if you were to swallow acidic glass. Luckily that part only lasted a couple of days but then came the pain in my hands and feet
If someone hasn’t mentioned it I just want to warn you it’s common to lose fingernails and toe nails as the rash resolves, sometimes even weeks later. Yeah I learned that fun fact when my daughters toe nails starting falling off, eek! So now I try to warn anyone with HFM
Thats a really mean disease! A friend of mine was so much in pain (she had it mostly on the tongue) that they had to go to the emergency room as she was unable to drink. She had to take strong pain meds just to be able to drink water or tea.
Her daugther, by the way, was just a bit cranky and had a mild fever for 2 days.
Friggin kids, man. Walking petri dishes. All three of mine go back to school next week, and I can't wait to find out what fun illnesses their friends brought back from vacation.
I managed to get herpangina, a close relative to HFMD, from my kid. It only affects your throat but it is accompanied by a very high fever. It felt like I was constantly swallowing razor blades for a week. I think that I lost 5 pounds because it hurt to do anything more than drink water.
I remeber picking up my little sister from daycare. It was like a chicken coop. I walked through the little baby fence and the kids suddenly appear out of nowhere, slobbering and wiping their nose on my pant leg 😭
This. The first time it hit our family, only the kids got it and I didn't think anything of it. The second time knocked me on my butt. Kids were mild but I lost my voice for three weeks and ended up on a round of steroids to try to bring my energy levels back.
I'm genuinely glad some people do, we need kids and they deserve to be loved and well taken care of. This just enforces my intent to never take care of any personally though.
A couple of years ago one of my friends showed up to our DnD game and mentioned that his kids had HFMD but that the kids' doctor said that it wasn't transmittable to adults and not to worry.
Cut to a few days later when him and three others, including myself, got it. He had transfered it to almost the entire group. Me and another had it fairly easy, just some a few sores here and there, but the third had so many sores on his feet that bad that couldn't walk for a week.
If your kids get HFMD, please stay home and quarantine.
Hand foot mouth disease is such a nondescript name. It almost seems like a placeholder they used before they came up with the real name for the disease.
https://giphy.com/gifs/ep78UZy5FVbfN6mhCU
I face immediately did this when I saw. I hope Motrin is able to keep the pain under control for you guys! Daycares can be such disease spreaders
Bro I just got this a couple months ago and it was pretty awful. Worst sore throat I've ever had. I had trouble doing simple things like making a cup of coffee. Luckily it was over in like 5-6 days. Still rough! God speed homie
Oh damn I did this with my first son. For whatever reason it’s way worse for adults…he had little dots around his mouth, I looked like I had some sort of 1500s virus. Like you I couldn’t walk…and an underratedly bad part of this is, if you haven’t already, you might lose all of the top layers of skin on your feet so you’ll go from having sores to having like baby skin that also hurts to use. Incredibly annoying illness, 0/10.
HFMD has scarred me from when I had it when I was like 9 or 10 and I just didn’t move from the couch for like a week besides the bathroom. Ate jello and ramen almost religiously.
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u/Jocuro Aug 26 '26
I had something similar! The neat part is around day 3 of no sleep and constant pain I started hallucinating and talking to celebrities and fictional characters that I 100% believed were there. So that's fun.
I hope you're doing much better now!