Experiences of STEC E. coli O157 recovery and school exclusion.

[Th1sisnotadrill]

Just looking for other experiences of this horrendous infection, can't see much online. My 5 yo son tested positive for STEC ECOLI 0157 last Saturday. After 3 days on a drip he is now home and recovering well. He is to be tested every day to make sure his kidneys are okay aswell. Public health are involved and have said he can't return to school until he has two stools free of the ecoli virus. Has anyone been in this situation before? I'm told it could take several weeks for it to clear from his stools. Both me and his dad work full time and really not in a position to take a hit on our wages but between us we are going to have to take unpaid time off to facilitate this. It's been such a traumatic week, and now, I'm starting to really worry about how we'll manage. I'm also very concerned about my son developing problems with his kidneys, but I'm reassured that it'll be picked up early should the worst happen.

I'm so sorry you're going through this. I hope your DS makes a full recovery. My DC both had STEC O157 in 2024. My 20 month old was very poorly with HUS but made a full recovery and my 5 year old was asymptomatic but both were excluded from nursery and school for 6-9 weeks. It felt like it would never end. My youngest DC still has annual checks with a kidney consultant.

The UKHSA sadly were not very supportive. Obviously they are there to ensure the health of the public but I felt there was no individual support for families. Contact your GP or anyone else you can think of who might be able to direct you to support services. Do you know where he caught it from? We never did find out otherwise we would have looked into reclaiming lost earnings. My DP is self employed.

My employer thankfully was very understanding and I was able to work flexibly. Me and my DP just had to take turns taking time off work. There was a lot of working evenings and weekends to make up time. It was an incredibly stressful time and one of the most difficult things we've been through. I wish I had just asked to be signed off for stress but I was in a new role at work at the time and felt internal pressure to carry on working.

I'm sorry this post probably doesn't give any practical advice. We tried but weren't able to find any financial avenues of support and understandably noone else wanted to look after a STEC positive child! But I understand what you are going through and I'm sending you all my well wishes.

Just remembered. I was willing to try anything for life to get back to normal. The DC tested negative not long after I started giving them daily probiotics. They were both asymptomatic within a few weeks of the symptoms. It just sheds in young children for weeks.

Thank you for your reply. How awful for you, both children with this infection and one with HUS. Can't imagine how difficult that must have been!!
My work have been incredibly understanding about it and say they'll work with me should this prologue. I'm going to start sampling next week once we're out of this risky period. Can I ask what probiotics you used? Do you mean thinks like yakult and things?

Yakult will only increase one strain of bacteria. You might want to start looking at Zoe for information on increasing multiple strains. I can’t imagine it will be easy though with a little one

Sounds like you could go to your MP with this.