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Old 02-08-2008, 10:01 PM
BigRedBeta BigRedBeta is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2006
Posts: 281
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...
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