Hand foot and mouth - how long to keep them isolated?

[vladthedisorganised]

Sigh. I understand that Hand Foot and Mouth is madly contagious - DD appears to have it (2.5) but is fine in herself apart from complaining of sore hands when tired.
I have a catalogue of woes at the moment including caring for a parent with cancer, a DH who is working abroad and a redundancy threat at work, so was hoping DD and I could at least have a nice day out with some friends at the weekend to cheer us both up (she's missing her dad and I'm going mad). Obviously I won't take her out of the house while she's contagious, but it would be lovely to have an idea of how long it takes to get over it!

When she had chickenpox it seemed to last for ever (she had it quite badly), but we had lots of visitors and she couldn't say "Why can't we go to the park?" every five minutes...

Hello, my DS started with hand foot and mouth on Sunday, and were still in quarantine! He also has the spots all over his neck, backs of legs and arms, although those ones are starting to dry up now.

We have been inside since Sunday (shoes hurt his blisters on his feet) but today we have been for a lovely walk and adventure in the woods,
As far as I know it takes around a week for all the spots to go and my doctor said he will be contagious until then.

I don't see any harm in popping some gloves on and playing on the park, or a nice walk xxx