Fifth disease

Especially common in kids between the ages of 5 and 15, fifth disease typically produces a distinctive red rash on the face that makes the child appear to have a "slapped cheek." The rash then spreads to the trunk, arms, and legs. Fifth disease is actually just a viral illness that most kids recover from quickly and without complications.

In some cases, especially in adults and older teens, an attack of fifth disease may be followed by joint swelling or pain, often in the hands, wrists, knees, or ankles.

What they don’t tell you is that you can go to bed one evening swollen and then wake up with every single joint in your body shrieking in agony. Not being able to walk is bad, not being able to hold things or pick things up with your hands sucks. Crying because of the pain when you try to write a check (and hell it was under $100, I don’t even consider that money) may cause you to go to the doctors; where you will have blood taken, and not the sissy tubes. You will have 6-8 GIANT MAN EATING TUBES taken because you were bitten by a tick a few months back, you have a nut allergy, the kids at your kid’s school have fifth disease, or it could be something else horrible that they don’t talk about until after the test results come back.

This is what I have been dealing with since last Thursday. It’s been a week and it is totally sucking my will to live. My hands hurt, my wrists kill, my ankles want to bite me. The joints of my fingers are doing the wave…of pain. And now my hips are getting into the act, or perhaps they were always there but I am used to their damn tricks so I tend to ignore them. I tried to roll over last night and brushed my elbow against the mattress (which is a water bed btw) and woke Boy Toy up with my scream.


To anyone with arthritis. I am sorry! It sucks to be you and it sucks in a big way and if ever a doctor tells you to take an extra strength Tylenol let me know so I can punch their lights out for you. (Does over the counter crap work for anyone? Ever?)


I am happy that they figured out what was wrong because I know half of the stress level is not knowing. At least once you know you can plan your attack, which will not include Extra Strength Tylenol because that crap does not work.

So I can expect to be in this condition for the next few weeks. I read that in some adults the pain can last months or years, but I have rubbed my eyes and clicked out of that web page so I must have dreamed it.

Did I mention that it hurts to turn the pages in a book? Kill me.