The water bottle
5 years ago
Hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) is a human syndrome caused by intestinal viruses of the Picornaviridae family. The most common strains causing HFMD are Coxsackie A virus.
HFMD usually affects infants and children, and is quite common. It is moderately contagious and is spread through direct contact with the mucus, saliva, or feces of an infected person. It typically occurs in small epidemics in nursery schools or kindergartens, usually during the summer and autumn months. The usual incubation period is 3–7 days.
Symptoms of HFMD include:
- Painful oral lesions
- Non-itchy body rash, followed by sores with blisters on palms of hands and soles of feet
- Oral ulcer
- Sores or blisters may be present on the buttocks of small children and infants
- Irritability in infants and toddlers
- Loss of appetite.
- Diarrhea
Early symptoms are likely to be fever often followed by a sore throat. Loss of appetite and general malaise may also occur. Between one and two days after the onset of fever, painful sores (lesions) may appear in the mouth and/or throat. A rash may become evident on the hands, feet,mouth,tongue,inside of the cheeks, and occasionally the buttocks (but generally, the rash on the buttocks will be caused from the diarrhea.)
Treatment
There is no specific treatment for hand, foot and mouth disease. Individual symptoms, such as fever and pain from the sores, may be eased with the use of medication. HFMD is a viral disease that has to run its course; many doctors do not issue medicine for this illness, unless the infection is severe. Fever reducers will help to control high temperatures. Luke-warm baths will also help bring temperature down.
Only a very small minority of sufferers require hospital admission, mainly as a result of neurological complications (encephalitis, meningitis, or acute flaccid paralysis) or pulmonary edema/pulmonary hemorrhage.
When treating an infection, physicians may face a choice between using a bactericidal (bacteria-killing) drug, a bacteriostatic (bacteria-inhibiting) drug or a combination of the two.
The solution is not always obvious, particularly since a drug that is bactericidal for one strain of bacteria may only inhibit the growth of another strain.
Although it might seem logical that bactericidal drugs would be preferable to bacteriostatic drugs, the type of infection is important in determining which kind of drug to use. Endocarditis seems to be best treated by bactericidal drugs. Meningitis is another candidate for bactericidal drugs.
Strikingly, a bacteriostatic drug can antagonize the action of a bactericidal one in the treatment of meningitis. In treating urinary tract infections and preventing staphylococcal wound infections, studies have shown that bacteriostatic drugs work as well as bactericidal drugs.
In central nervous system infections, a rapidly bactericidal drug can release bacterial products that stimulate inflammation. For this reason, it is recommended that corticosteroids be given at the same time as a bactericidal antibiotic for bacterial meningitis. Certain bacteriostatic drugs may be preferable in cases of streptococcal and clostridial gangrene, because they inhibit the production of the toxins that cause much of the morbidity.
Some infectious disease physicians wrongly believe that bacteria-killing drugs are automatically preferable to those that inhibit bacterial growth, The misperception that it's always better to use a bactericidal drug is incorrect.
It's probably important to use bactericidal drugs in treating endocarditis and meningitis, but in many situations, cidal drugs are not preferable over static drugs.
