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6.04.2017

Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease in Adults: Getting Better? (Part 4)

Here is Part 1.

Here is Part 2.

Here is Part 3.

Now you're up to speed!

On Day 5, Sunday, January 1, I woke up suddenly feeling like my throat hurt marginally less. I was still getting new spots on my feet and hands and torso, although I didn't think so earlier in the day:
Thanks for all of your commiseration and concern, friends and relatives! Throat is finally starting to feel better today and I'm not seeing more new hand-foot-mouth(-and-rest-of-body) spots, so I don't think it's going to get any worse, which was my main concern. I feel very lucky that I seem to have contracted a mild case of hand-foot-mouth/coxsackievirus. I'm planning on continuing my regimen of sleep + liquids + analgesics until I stop feeling cruddy. I have enough food at home now, since I went out for groceries last night. Continued wishes for a speedy recovery/refuah sheleyma to anyone else out there who is sick (with something mild or serious) or otherwise feeling cruddy. Also, if I seem to be complaining a lot about a mild illness, just know that I'm doing so in the service of challenging prevailing gender stereotypes surrounding mild illnesses. (Edited to add: Also, that I hope I always sounded like I knew that it was small potatoes in the grand scheme of things in life. Because I did.)
I observed that blister on left middle finger had flattened into a flat-but-thick, red spot:
Day 5, left hand spot had gotten larger and flatter
Day 5, left hand spot had gotten larger and flatter
The original two blisters on my left sole had undergone a similar transformation, although the one that was on/near my arch was drier (despite applying moisturizer), maybe because the skin there was thicker:
Day 5, left foot
Day 5, left foot
New blisters/sores were still emerging and filling with fluid, especially on the heels of both feet, as you can see on my left foot, above. (Three small things on my heel.)

The small red spots on the backs of my hands, now accompanied by a similar scattering of small red spots on the palms of my hands, mostly stayed small and red and not really raised:
Left hand, Day 5
Left hand, Day 5
Left hand, Day 5
Left hand, Day 5
A few of them got slightly larger, but never really got raised or filled with fluid. I really felt very lucky about all of this.

New blisters/sores were still emerging and filling with fluid, especially on the heels of both feet, but I was so happy that my throat was no longer in agonizing pain that I didn't really care:
Immune systems, properly functioning, are splendidly amazing. I am never as grateful for my beautiful, strong, healthy body as I am when recovering from an illness. Take that, you nasty, sneaky string of RNA enterovirus (aka coxsackie, the virus that causes Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease) that set up shop throughout my body and reproduced willy-nilly for 4 days! In other words, sure, I may be sweaty and tired and have no appetite, but I can *swallow* with very minimal pain despite not having taken any ibuprofen in ~5 hours! I am very excited! In related news, my not-very-many-but-somewhat-inconveniently-placed sores are flattening and becoming callus-like. ברוך רופא חולים!

On Day 6, Monday, January 2, I woke up and my throat hurt more, again. I think it's because I'd been taking less analgesics since the improvement of the day before.

I noticed more new sores on Day 6, after thinking on Day 5 that the "getting new sores" part of this thing was over. I'm not sure if I was actually getting new ones on Day 6, or if they were just getting larger and so I was starting to notice them. Unclear.

I wrote all of this, up to here, on January 3, 2017. Then I saved it as a draft.

I am now coming back to it on June 4, 2017, five months later. I no longer recall the rest of what happened, really, although I have photos that I took, somewhere, which I may post as an addendum to this post at some later point. Basically, after this, I slowly got better and felt mostly okay by Day 8.

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