Why is my child always sick?

[LucyLu2021]

Hiya,

Looking for some advice please! My son is 6 (7 in April) since he was a baby he has suffered with every illness going particularly ear infections and sickness bugs. We are currently on his 4th sickness bug since starting year two in September. I just don’t know any other children his friends / cousins that get as many sickness bugs as him. He’s becoming really afraid of sick now and upset every time he’s poorly as he knows just how horrid it is. I also suffer with emetophobia so these constant bugs are far from ideal! I just don’t know what to do… is this normal?! Has anyone else’s children suffered like this? Any advice on how to deal with it alongside emetophobia too!

Thanks for reading.. any replies welcome 😊

What’s your health like? what sort of food and drink does he eat and what sort of exercise does he get. A woman I worked with was ill often and when she had children they were just the same. Lots of stomach issues for all of them.

Did he go to nursery?

Thanks for your responses 😊

yep he did attend nursery from 15 months. He has a very vaired healthy diet - he has a dairy allergy so a lot of his food options are pretty clean / healthy. He does lots of sports - 5 days out of 7 he’s doing some sort of club / football match. Very fit, lots of energy.. typical little boy!

He usually starts with stomach pain for 1-2 days then the sickness comes. I’m wondering now if it could be a possible food intolerance or something not right with his gut health. From birth he was given antibiotics via IV for 5 days because of an emergency c-section and suspected infection then has gone on to have at least 15-16 rounds of antibiotics for ear / throat infections so feel like his gut health isn’t brilliant he can’t fight anything off. We’ve tried and failed the milk ladder so many times too.. the first symptom for him to get is tummy pains, seems to have such a weak spot there.

Not sure where to go with this next - GP?!

Do you ever catch the sickness bugs? If not, i would suspect it is linked to intolerances rather than bugs. I think the body would develop some immunity after a bug that would prevent him catching another so soon after.

The way they present also isn't typical IME, whenever DCs have a sickness bug they appear very suddenly with vomiting out of nowhere, not after a couple of days of tummy pain. DS has had 2 sickness bugs in 8 years and DD has had one in 4 years (both in nursery since they were babies).

I think you're onto something with antibiotics having affected his gut health, I would probably start there and see if GP can recommend probiotics.

Poor him and poor you (fellow emetophobe here), i hope you get to the bottom of it.

Check other food intolerances and any other gut health tests.
Ask Dr about suitable probiotics. Kimchi and live yoghurt has helped DC, though they just had cramps and stomach upsets. No lactose/dairy intolerance.
Sleep and hydration.
is anything stressing him?

Agreed, if you or other household members don't catch the bugs, it's probably not infectious - could it be something like this https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/cyclical-vomiting-syndrome/ ?

My LO had four separate D&V bugs in two months when they started nursery, and the GP wanted to know if anyone else in the house had been ill (oh boy yes we had), because food allergy would have been the main alternative diagnosis.

I did a bit of research on probiotics and tried Biogaia drops for my LO. Obviously I have no idea whether LO would have got better without them, but there is at least some scientific evidence that they work. I didn't think I could get kimchi or sauerkraut into a fussy 12 month old!

A daily multivitamin and probiotic.

Liquid echinacea at the first sign of a sniffle.

We had a really bad run of sickness bugs for 6 months (pretty much one an month) and it was my two kids that have had antibiotics in the past that went down with them. Other kid, who has never had antibiotics, always seemed to fight them off. I put them all on daily probiotics and multivitamins and they have picked up far less illnesses since and no bad sickness bugs