Are most teenagers ill with viruses frequently?

[thethoughtofgettingout]

My DS is 13 & has been constantly unwell this academic year. He is on a second chest infection + coughs, colds, covid & shingles since September.

When he started nursery at 4 years of age, he was ill constantly whilst his immunity got to grips with lots of other kids around. It feels a bit like that.

Are early teenage years known for being a time of lots of illness & viruses?

He is a day pupil at a school that also has boarding & I wonder if all the kids packed in together means there are more viruses circulating.

He is my one & only child so I haven't navigated the teenage years before, so no idea if this is normal...?

I have a 14 year old. He's not had a day off sick since he started secondary. He's not had any viruses etc. He says his friends are never ill either.

My 13 year olds attendance is under 90% this year. He has picked up everything going. Constant bugs, viruses etc. He has asthma which doesn't help but it has been an exceptionally bad year for illness. We all have something again, think it's the 100 day cough for me.

I was a very healthy child but since puberty I had back to back viruses. I remember so many throat and chest infections during my teens. I'm now late 40s and my immune system hasn't improved much!

Please post us some of his immunity!!

My DS has asthma too - it does seem a bad year; we keep each other awake with the cough we're both had for a month.
Poor kid, he can't catch a break at the minute.
Here's hoping our coughs go soon!

Sorry to hear he's so unwell. I have a 13 year old but not regularly ill at all. Sounds like he's very run down. It's quite unusual to have shingles at that age. I had it at 50 and it took me a long time to get over the post viral fatigue. Can you give him some probiotics and an immunity boosting multivitamin.

Touching wood but neither of mine have had more than a sniffle this academic year and no days off school.

They’re generally very healthy, the youngest has asthma and hayfever but I can count on one hand the number of days they have had off for illness during secondary school (one is in year 13 and the other year 11). Being a teenager definitely hasn’t made them more susceptible to illness.

The boarders from abroad can bring back some doozies germ, virus wise. I'd buy a big bottle of metatone and start dosing him up.

God we need some sun now.

My DS aged 12 has had a cough for 6-8 weeks now and it's only started to clear up since I've given him high dose vitamin C. I took him to see the doctor after 2 weeks and she said it's a virus that could last 4 weeks, so antibiotics wouldn't clear it.

I keep hearing about a cold/cough that is lasting weeks. My friends normally robust little boy had a cough for six weeks and my colleague has had one for a month…