The fifth disease (slap disease)
 

Has anyone heard of this? I'd never heard of it until a couple of weeks ago. A coworker of mine mentioned that her son had it. A week or so later my other coworker's daughter caught it and then my coworker ended up catching it. Common signs are what appear to be a rash on the face and some other parts of the body.

Yep.. it's the "fifth" rash disease, basically.. rubella, mumps, rubeola, chicken pox and fifth disease.

I've heard of it. It went around my daughter's day care when she was a baby. Apparently it's a pretty common viral infection, and doesn't have any treatment - it just has to run its course.

Yes, my sister had it when we were growing up. Fifth disease is also called slapped cheek disease because of the rash that develops on the face that lasts for 2-7 days. It's a virus, so there's no cure. Other symptoms include sneezing, runny nose (flu-like symptoms), and achy joints and headache. It can only be spread through sneezing and coughing (or eating/drinking after someone).

It is the human form of the Parvovirus b19. Only humans get it, it is not the same as what you immunize your pets for.

I am confident all 5 of my children have had it at one time or other....it is more of an inconvenience illness than anything.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/revb/.../parvo_b19.htm

My middle son had it when he was about a year old- I didn't think it was any different from a mild flu/cold until we went to the doctor for an ear infection check and she told me he had fifth's disease. I assume my oldest son had it as well since he had similar syptoms before the middle one got sick, but he was never officially diagnosed.

My younger brother and I both had it as kids. From what I remember, it wasn't too bad (compared to chicken pox, which I had the year previous); the worst symptoms of the rash went away with a dose of benadryl.

My eldest daughter was diagnosed with it at 6 months. She didn't pop out with the rash at first - had a high fever and was very listless. She had to endure a spinal tap (they thought it might be meningitis!) and then, the next day, BOOM- broke out in the rash.

Both of my nieces had it when they were little. They were very lethargic.

and if memory serves, the only time it is ever a problem is if one is pregnant and exposed to it. Other than that, it is just a nuisance.

Oh, that's what they called 'laceface' when our older kids were in pre-K. They told us it looked like a red lace pattern over the face. I never knew because that was one of the few things the kids didn't catch.

Had it in first grade - the school nurse had to ask me if anyone was hitting me at home (wouldn't those have been bruises?). IIRC I didn't even really feel that sick.

It's an issue during pregnancy, but a rare one - many women are already immune and those that aren't, the illness is mild. Rarely (5% of the women who aren't already immune), the fetus may develop severe anemia and the women will miscarry.

The bigger issue, at least for most health professionals is in patients who also have Sickle Cell Anemia (and those who are severely immunocompromised). Parvovirus in these individuals can lead to aplastic crisis. The virus causes a transient loss of Red blood cell production in everyone, but since Sicklers have a shortened red blood cell lifetime, they're less able to handle the loss of production and develop a lot of problems...

Yes we have quite a few children that come in to our medical practice with that. the parents are always upset with us because we wont give them antibiotics for it ............despite telling them antibiotics are for bacterial infections and thus do not treat viral infections:rolleyes:

This is correct however, we did have a parent call us one day saying that the neighbor's dog had parvovirus and because her child had been playing with the dog and then got sick, she thought the child got parvovirus from the dog.

WTF I've never heard of this disease! Ew!

(Not to sound judgmental, I would just freak out if I ever saw it.)