Slapped cheek?
Rashes are strange things, especially when they appear on children. Immediate panic if you always think the worst, or if you have a child like N who tends to get a few spots frequently, and the occasional prickly heat style rash with no further symptoms, then you slap on a bit of sudocrem, check the temperature and send them on their way.
Obviously rashes are a big topic of conversation at the moment with the measles outbreak in Wales due to the low uptake of the MMR vaccine a few years ago. Here, I’m a ‘give them all the jabs, get them out the way’ type of mum, especially as we don’t know anyone in the family who’s been impacted from having them.
The biggest panic here is if he gets a spot or rash at nursery as they’ll send him home until a doctor will verify it’s nothing infectious. Last year he had chicken pox – grand total of 5 spots, only 2 of which were watery, no other symptoms; they just dried out but didn’t scab, pretty minor so I’m praying he’ll not get hit again as it was a mild case. He’s had hand foot and mouth before, again pretty mildly.
He sometimes gets viral rashes when he’s got a cold, and last year he would get a reaction after using any of the normal sun lotions so we changed to Green People and seemed to have no reaction to that.
Yesterday, he woken up from his nap at nursery with a little red mark on his cheek. It got redder, and by this morning he had a couple of red rosy cheeks, a bit blotchy rather than smooth. He’s had no other symptoms – the cheeks feel hot, but his temperature was fine (good excuse to get out the ear thermometer which we both like playing with), so he’s went off to his aunt’s today as normal. We decided it might be slapped cheek as he could have it mildly, so we’re just waiting to see if he gets a rash on his body, or whether it’ll just go like other blotchiness he’s had in the past. By the time I picked him up it had spread to under his chin, and slight rash on one arm, so think this is what it must be.
Thankfully like so many childhood viral infections, it’s only contagious in the incubation period before the rash comes out, so he’s fine to be out and about. Let’s hope nursery will have him without a doctor’s authorisation, as I’m never going to get an appointment tomorrow so it’ll be a first in this job having to work from home with a lively toddler running around.
I did think at first it might have been a reaction again to sun lotion at nursery. I said they could try their own usual sun lotion on him as I’d not stocked up on some new organic lotion for this year yet, but they’d not put on any yesterday. However, last year I found his lotion reaction tended to come the day after, so am hoping that’s what it is again and I don’t have to worry.
Rashes are a minefield though as so frequently they can just be a child’s body showing the mild virus they have rather than being anything scary. Still it’s always worth checking – my online friends are great users of taking photos and all discussing what we think symptoms are. Everyone has their own experiences to share, so it means you don’t have to Google and then panic until you can get a doctor’s appointment!
