My Exact Symptoms of Parvo B19 virus (Fifth's Disease)

• First Day of actual Symptoms: Tuesday, May 13th - I went to work as usual. Appetite was decreased, felt more tired than usual. As the day went on, I felt progressively more cold and achey with a fever that developed by evening and the usual fever delerium. I also felt nauseated and ate nothing that evening. I went to sleep an hour early wrapped in a warm blanket to bake out whatever virus I had.
• Day two: I woke up still achey but my fever seemed to have disappeared. (I didn't bother to take any tylenol but I did take 2 Airborne tablets the previous day and continued to take over 2000 mg of vitamin C every day for the rest of the week.) My appetite seemed normal, but my back and shoulders seemed a little achey still.
• Day three: Thursday - My achiness was not as bad but my eyes felt like if I rolled my eyeballs back in my head, they hurt a little. I might have had a headache but was otherwise basically okay.
• Day Four: Friday - I woke up and took a hot shower. When I got out I realized I was covered with a rash. My arms looked like they were sunburned with white splotches and very tiny hive bumps. My legs also were red down to the tops of my feet but not as much. Mostly the red spots were where my hair follicles were like I had a shaving rash but my thighs were all red and splotched and my torso front and back with the classic "lace-like" rash as described in wikipedia. This is when I identified my virus as Parvo B19 virus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parvovirus_B19 As the day wore on, my rash began to fade, but started to itch a little, particularly my feet that were encased in socks and shoes. It wasn't too hard to avoid scratching. My feet felt like they were swelling badly and my eyes felt very dry. By evening, my appetite had fully returned.
• Day Five: Saturday - I woke with my joints hurting so I tried to sleep as much as I could to try to finally be rid of this virus. When I finally got up, I found that my hands and feet were swollen like balloons and my toes and soles really itched. I took a shower and rubbed between my toes with the damp towel and noticed my rash was completely gone. If I stretched my fingers on my hands, my skin felt so taunt that the middle knuckles turned white like the image in wikipedia.
• Day Six: Sunday - Swelling is mostly gone, only some slight itchiness remains on hands and feet. By Monday, I felt back to myself.

Summary: Day 1 - Flu-like symptoms - nausea, fatigue, delirium, fever. Day 2-4 - Achiness, tiredness, joint pain, decreased appetite. Day 4 - "Lace-like" red rash all over the whole body except for palms and soles. Children = pronounced "slapped cheek rash". Day 5 - swollen hands and feet, slight achiness and join pain when waking. Symptoms will likely be more pronounced with a compromised immune system. To boost the immunity take lots of vitamin C and some Airborne, and get lots of sleep.

***These are the symptoms as experienced by myself. I have not yet confirmed that this is the Parvo B19 virus yet, but my test results will come back in a few days to confirm it. The parvovirus has been spreading through my community for the past several weeks. We have had numerous pregnant women coming in to be tested for it claiming that their children or their neighbor's children were infected with the virus. I blame one of the kids that came in with their mother... I remember at least one or two having the "Slapped cheek" look. So far none of the pregnant mothers have tested positive for the disease, but about half of them have tested positive for the immunity.

*****Monday May 19th: I got my results back today from my blood test. I tested positive for IgM antibodies to Parvo. That means that the blood test confirmed that I had the disease when tested on Friday. I was negative for my IgG antibodies, but I should start making those this week and then be immune to this disease for as long as my IgG antibodies last. IgG = GOOD (immunity). IgM = BAD (disease).