Diarrhea in children...

[Jazie543x]

So my son is 5, had diarrhea since last Monday so on day 11 today. He's been eating/drinking and totally himself. Took him to the doctors 2 days ago and she didn't seem concerned just said probably the tail end of a bug now but she said to do a stool sample so dropped that off yesturday morning. Anyone else experienced this with there child and for this long? Also how long roughly does stool tests take to come back and what do they test for.

Thanks

What they test for depends on which hospital it goes to.

If it's gone to a bigger hospital, they normally look for food poisoning bacteria; they might do a dipstick test for the top three viruses in children (noro, rota and adeno); they might also look for parasite eggs. But it also depends what your GP requested.

Went through all this with my toddler after repeated rounds of D&V in the spring, one set of samples for lost, the other took five days (sent Thursday, results Monday). That was rotavirus.

There is definitely SOMETHING going around causing D&V because it's struck our house, but I don't think it's noro or rota. There are rather a lot of viruses that cause diarrhoea & the NHS only test for the top two or three :/