Eczema or hand foot & mouth?

[Sheilsie]

Woke up yesterday to find my one year old DD with spots all over her lower face and spots/blisters on the fingers. Took her to the GP today thinking it was hand foot & mouth (as she's had similar blisters on her hands before and the nursery was convinced that was what it was). The GP didn't seem too clued up and said that it could be HF&M but that it could be bad eczema. Now DD had terrible eczema between the ages of 3 & 10 months but it's much better now, and has never look spotty before.

I've put a couple of photos on my profile (hopefully!). If you have experience of eczema and/or HF&M then I'd be very grateful if you could have a look and let me know your verdict. Don't want to keep DD off nursery all week if it's eczema and so not contagious!

Note that DD doesn't seem ill at all and the spots aren't bothering her, but then she didn't seem unwell the last time she (allegedly) had HF&M either.

Thanks very much for your help.

Can't really tell from the pics tbh.
When my Dd had hf&m, the GP went from tonsillitis to the herpes virus. I didn't even bring up hf&m then, but MN put me right. Dd was quite ill with it though, with only a few spots on fingers and round her lips/nose and some on her legs and buttocks, but had ulcers inside her mouth which were the biggest problem as she couldn't eat. She'd also had an extreme temperature before the spots came up.
Hope you can find out for sure...could you google some images and compare?

Looks more like HF&M than eczema to me but if I were you I'd get your health visitor to have a look - more likely to know what they're talking about than GP in my experience with things like that.

Hi,

Thought this might be you!!! So your GP was no use as you thought.

Wow, her hands look really bad, is it scaly like eczema? It doesn't look like when B had H,F&M from the pictures he only had a few spots on his palms, plus he was really unwell with it and the spots inside his mouth were the worst and really sore for him.

It also doesn't look like eczema to me either though.

Maybe if you try posting in the health topic someone might be able to identify it.

Ah, poor little thing! My lo (14 months) has eczema and recently had h,f & m. All he had were 3 'spots' on his hand which I thought was an eczema flare up but nursery told me h,f&m had been doing the rounds and asked me to take lo to the drs.

For what it's worth, my dr said that eczema never gives blisters. Not sure if that's true or not ...

Oh, and my lo was fine too. Apparently most of the kids at nursery got sent home. Do you know if anyone else at nursery has had it?

Not too clear from the pics, but when my DD had HFM last year they were distinct little oval blisters and were nothing like her usual eczema rashes...in fact initially I thought it was her shoes that had been rubbing on her toes as she had gone without socks.

I took her to the docs and he said there was no need to keep her off nursery or away from playgroups etc as it is a mild, self limiting disease.

Thanks girls. I'm now satisfied that it's not eczema, which is good as I'd do anything to keep that away. When I phoned the nursery this morning I asked if there had been any other cases of HF&M recently but they said no. Luckily, the spots don't appear to be bothering DD in the slightest so I guess I'll just hope that they go away soon.

Good luck Sheilsie.

LackaDAISYcal - that's what my doctor said but my nursery sent him home and said he couldn't come back until the blisters had gone (even though he had caught it there ) Even the dr thought that was quite draconian for 3 little 'spots'!