intermittent sickness bouts - should I talk to doctor?

[sallymetharry]

For the last 4-5 weeks, my 6 year old son seems to have got a small sickness bug once a week. By that I mean, every week or so he has a short period of vomiting (typically no longer than 12 hours, and many times much shorter a period than that) and then is completely fine. Prior to this he rarely got sick - barely had a day off school, was maybe sick once every 9 months or so.

Do you think this is something I should talk to the GP about? I normally wouldn't contact them at all over a minor sickness bug obviously, but I'm wondering if there's something going on that I should get him checked out for - or if it's just that there are many sickness bugs going around at the moment.

The only other thing I'd add is that no one else in our household ever seems to catch whatever it is that is making him vomit.

Yes bring it up with GP.

DS had this, turns out he has a mild lactose intolerance. It came out of the blue - he's the only one in the family so it caught us unawares.

GP listened, suspected an intolerance and gave us advice on how to cut out foods to establish out was causing it.

It might just be sickness bugs as there are a lot going around but if it continues, ask the GP about cyclical vomiting syndrome. My son started having this around age 7 and every few weeks to few months he would vomit for several hours, sleep than be fine. It always happened around the same time, early morning 6-7am ish which I think is the pattern with CVS.

You can also develop temporary lactose intolerance after a bug. Called secondary lactose intolerance. This is what my son had but when we took him to the doctor they did stool sample and bloods for coeliac disease.

Thanks all - that's really helpful. Appreciate it hugely.

My son went through this and turned out to be a UTI much to my surprise.

Contact GP

Please take him to the GP. Hopefully it's a mild gastro issue but anyone reading this should bear in mind that persistent vomiting can be a sign of brain tumour. See headsmart campaign for more info. Early signs of brain tumour can be very vague. My DC just was off their food and then very occasionally sick, every 7-10 days or so only. Headache was very late to show up. It's rare, but it's always worth specifically raising with GP.