How come I had never heard of slapped cheek until I came on MN?

[mawbroon]

I was talking to my mum about this. She had never heard of it either as slapped cheek or fifth disease. There are five of us and none of us had it as kids.

It can't be a new fangled illness surely?

Do these things come and go over the generations?

What on earth is slapped cheek??!!

Have you heard of parvo virus?

I had. was doing the rounds when I was s child, altho I don;t think I ever had it

mawbroon - mine are all teens now; youngest is 15. Whilst I'd heard of parvo none of mine had it (well not as full blown slapped cheek ) or any of their friends as far as I know. You can have the infection mildly though without the rash I believe so they may well have had it without me noticing .

I have only heard of paro virus since googling slapped cheek.

REason I have been googling it is that ds had it last week, and now i have it. It is awful. Doc says I could be ill for up to 5 weeks.

It's not a 'new-fangled' illness since the term "fifth disease" dates from the 19th century. Caused by human parvovirus B19, it's No. 5 of a few common childhood rash illnesses (eg scarlet fever, measles, rubella, etc) with the distinction made on clinical features rather than any laboratory analysis. It has other names like 'erythema infectiosum', 'slapped cheek disease'...

However it's since known that rubella and parvovirus B19 cause very similar clinical features and when either is suspected in pregnant women, both viruses should be investigated as a cause.

Presumably you are unfortunately suffering from the joint pain that occurs more frequently in adult women?

I had never heard of it until ds had it last year.
Luckily it was just the red face but he was pretty well in himself.
Can be really poorly with it.
Lot's of kids have it without any symptoms.

No sore joints yet, but doc said that could still be to come.

She gave me co-codamol which has actually helped far more than the paracetemol and ibuprofen that I have been taking.

my DDs had this last year, 1 day before we were due to go on hols! I then got it the next day - cue a very long 8 hour drive, which by the time we arrived at our destination, i had the worst headache i have ever had. Two hours later on the caravan park, staff had to call out the emergency docs, and turns out i had my one (and hopefully only) migraine!!!!

The kids were fine, just very red faces, and ankles lol, but it took me a good few days to recover!!

wishing you well x

Oh poor you mawbroon (and ironically lucky for once that you're not pregnant, as implications not nice).
Dd had this a couple of weeks ago, and then ds was horribly ill last week, with symptoms fitting sc, but no rash ever appeared - most odd.

Hope that you feel better soon.

(I'd never heard of it before MN either, but then I found MN before I had children, so other than when I was a child myself there's prob no reason why I would have heard of it).

Yes, was thinking this morning that it was a good job that last months one didn't stick. It could have been awful I reckon.

Well, turns out that it wasn't slapped cheek at all, but scarletina which is a mild form of scarlet fever.

I had scarlet fever as a kid, and this was actually quite mild, although it didn't feel like it at the time!!

I am guessing this is what ds had too, so we still have slapped cheek to come another time...

my ds(4) has slapped cheek,he has no other symptoms tho,