A New Kid Disease?

Julie W.'s
momlogic: Kids and parents at my daughter's preschool are breaking out
in rash from an illness I never heard of before: Fifth Disease.

Getty Images

All
Moms dread the school e-mails alerting us of strep, pink eye or, even
worse, lice. But I just got a new one in my inbox recently, warning me
of Fifth Disease. I didn't even know what Fifth Disease was! Anything
with "disease" in the title certainly didn't sound good. The letter
said kids get fever followed by a red mark on their face that looks as
if they have been slapped. That soon develops into a full body rash.
Just what we need, another contagious illness that our kids can pass
around at school.

Then the parents started to get it too. In
adults, Fifth Disease can cause joint pain. One friend's hands began to
ache so badly, she feared she was getting arthritis. She couldn't even
get out of bed for three whole days.

Momlogic asked Dr. Rachel Franklin to explain Fifth Disease:

"Fifth
disease is so named because it was the fifth viral illness to be
identified which had a rash (called a "viral exanthem") associated with
it. The others are measles/rubeola, rubella, chickenpox/varicella and
roseola. It is a common childhood illness that affects mostly those
between 5 and 14 years old, occurs mostly during the winter and spring
and can occur in outbreaks in schools. Between 20 to 50 percent of
children in a school will become infected during an outbreak. It is
spread by droplets during coughing or sneezing.

Fifth disease
starts about four to 14 days after exposure with fever, nasal
congestion and mild headache or fatigue. It is during this phase that
the person is infectious. Once the rash develops three to seven days
after the symptoms start, the fever breaks and the person is no longer
contagious. The rash lasts from three days to three weeks and can get
brighter during exercise, bathing in hot water, or stress, and it
usually does not itch. It is an incredibly mild illness for children
and for most adults, although adults (especially women for unknown
reasons) can have joint pains and muscle aches during the illness and
some people also have diarrhea, nausea or abdominal pain."

Great. One more illness that we have to worry about our little germ bugs are bringing home with them from school.

LINK