Norton City Schools in Summit County has canceled its season opener high school football game against Northwest Local Schools after several players were diagnosed with hand, foot and mouth disease.
Hand, foot and mouth disease is a viral infection spread through coughing and sneezing, or touching infected surfaces.
It’s most often associated with young children, but it can also strike teenagers and adults — who get a different set of symptoms, said Dr. Amy Branam, a family medicine physician at Mercy Health North Lima.
In children, the virus typically causes rashes that look like little red dots on their hands, feet and inside the mouth. Teens and adults feel tired and achy, and may find their symptoms more painful, she said.
“Teenagers a lot of times get joint pain and really bad fatigue. In adults, the pain is pretty severe,” Branam said.
“Usually I have to give them a week's worth off of work because they have a hard time just moving.”
Dehydration is a secondary but major risk to athletes in particular, she said.
“The big thing is, they get sores in their mouth so they don't want to eat or drink anymore — that leads them to get dehydrated,” said Branam.
Canceling the game gives players time to recover and helps stop the highly contagious virus from spreading through close contact and shared surfaces. In rare cases, she added, the infection can lead to inflammation of the heart.
Currently, there is no vaccine for hand, foot and mouth disease. Branam recommends rest and fluids until symptoms go away. She said the virus is usually mild, even though the symptoms can be uncomfortable.
Norton’s game against Northwest will not be rescheduled, according to school officials. The team is expected to return to the field next week, once players have recovered and the team’s facilities have been cleaned.
There’s no evidence as yet of a regional outbreak among teens and adults.
