Any babs have gastro flu ?? I nee some advice

[melsy]

Toook dd to medical day unit at hospitaltoday as tempratures up o 39+ had been gohg on for 4 days today and she hasnt eaten anything substantial since Wednesday. Theres a gastro flu which she has been disgnosed with today and has to take diolite (which she wont drink & winced today with it). Im not sure how many more days she'll have it , but shes been crying in pain all the time and doesnt know what to do with herself. we are all exausted havibg been up every night since mid week & I think with her party planning Im remembering those days of feeding through the night and up all day !!!!
Weve offered plain food all day , shes eaten only a tiny bit of bread with jam. Just now shes had a bit of salmon and peas and a couple of cubes of watermelon. I just wondered if any other babys are suffering with it right now?? I was at 1st concened that I havent been cleaning enough ,but as its endemic in North london Im not sure its to do with our hygeine. Is there anything else we could give her apart from nurofen calpol alternately ???

[efmach]

Poor baby, melsy. How horrible for you all. The main thing is to give her plenty of fluids to avoid dehydration. Check she has regular wet nappies. Would she take the dioralyte dissolved in some water flavoured with ribena, perhaps that might make it more palatable.

[wobblyknicks]

DD had that at 4 months and it took 2 weeks to fully get over but in the mean time I used to give her 1-2 scoops of formula in with the water (the stupid gp told us she didn't need diolite stuff) because she hated water, and she'd drink that very willingly. She never kept much down so I was feeding her every couple of hours but she didn't dehydrate at all even though I was sure she would every minute. Can't really give any hugely great advice but it WILL pass, and its NOT down to you.

[Juliehafrancis]

Not much advice to offer Melsy but just wanted to say I hope your Dd gets better soon. It's a really nasty bug and can last for ages - sorry to say!
Try not to give her anything with dairy products in it and if she won't take the diorylite (my dd wouldn't either) then just offer her lots of water or fruit juice watered down. As far as medication is concerned I think Nurofen and Calpol are the best options howerver Nurofen does bring down the temperature but is apparently not good for tummy upsets i.e Gastro flu so maybe you should try just giving her calpol and see if it makes her feel better.
Hope this helps!

[melsy]

yes good idea I have low sugar one, problem is its the lemon lime , i thought it may have beennicer than the blackcurrant but I think not.

[melsy]

I stopped gigving her milk/ dairy from thursday as I had a feeling it would upset. we just thought it was bad teething, but Ive nevr seen her so listless. Im feel terrible cos i had all those kids here. thank god no young babies, but still . The doc did say that they may not get away from it though/

[melsy]

im having a very bad afternoon ,having let her eat at lunch some salmon flaked / peas / banana , she went to bed for 40 mins & then has writhed kicked and cried for nearly 2 hours inpain . shes a rea eater and wont get that if se eats when it digests it will hurt , so when she says yumyum , im having to say she cant have. ive called doctor as i dont know what to do for her as it wont stop, ive cried on the phone to them now as ive been worried to call as last doc told me that ive taken her in too many times ; in my defense she has been ill each time and needed specific medication each time. im waiting fir the duty doctor to callnow.

[melsy]

I havent eaven been able to go to the toliet becaszue I cant leave her

[wobblyknicks]

Get Dh to look after her while you go to the loo else you'll burst and if anyone else tells you you've been to the doctors too much tell them you can NEVER go to the doctors too much with an ill baby and they should f**k off!!

[melsy]

thankyou wobbs , i just had to lay her on the floor belowme as it was getting stupid.

[melsy]

dh isnt home YET

[melsy]

Thankfully ar*e hole doc has left the practise for good.

[wobblyknicks]

Awww, poor you - well when DH gets home make him do his share - have a quick lie down or a nice relaxing shower to make you feel better.

[Anchovy]

Poop, poor you. If it helps, I've been there and we all lived to tell the tale. When DS was 15 months old he was stupendously sick with a gastic bug: sick 15 times in 12 hours, bringing up bile, vomiting up every bit of fluid given to him, the lot. We phoned the doctor 3 times during the night and he was great - he didn't come round but would have done and talked us through it and phoned us back in the morning.

Basically he said to us that dehydration is fairly rare in babies of a reasonable size and health pre bug (I stress DS was 15 months and a bit of a whopper so can't answer for anyone else) - I think I assumed from the books that it would happen in a matter of minutes. I remember him asking if DS was listless or floppy - well its quite hard telling when they've just been sick for the 8th time and its the middle of the night.

Other advice - avoid milk and all milk products while they are still vomiting. Fluid is by far the most important: we were told to put very small amouts in a bottle or beaker and give it to them every 15 or 20 mins. We did this for about 4 hours. It was just awful how ds would cry when he wasn't allowed any more fluid, but you can get a surprisingly large amount down them in this way - and it stayed down. The doctor did say that even if they brought it all up, they would be still benefitting from the small bit that they did absorb. Dioralyte is good, disguised in whatever way you need to.

DS was very ill for about 36 hours, then very poorly for 2-3 days (lying on the sofa, no energy, etc etc). It took him about a week to be fully interested in food again. We started him back on breadsticks, rice cakes and fairly inert things.

When DD was "merely" sick 4 times in a night recently it was a breeze - we felt like real veterans. In a way, it was helpful our first experience being so bad as it meant the next times were much easier to deal with.

Look after yourself to the extent you can - the worry and the piles of sick-sodden bedding and clothes everywhere are quite demoralising (oh and I was 8 weeks pregnant when DS did all this, so dealing with huge amounts of vomit wasn't exactly welcome!)

[melsy]

thankyou anchovy , thankfully she hasnt vomited for over 24 hrs & has been drinking water , its just her tummy whcih is in abad way. The doctor has just called and said that their bowells get swollen so when they eat it just makes the inlfamation worse. He suggested a bit of clear soup and rice , so ive just been giving her that and she seemed to like it. Ive got to try and keep her food plain as possible as she does wnat to eat, which is a good sign. poor you too for having had to go through it preggers.

Is the B.R.A.T diet any good in this circumstance ??

be back soon , as she wants bed x

[Anchovy]

Can't remember what BRAT (bread rice apples ???) stand for. We really played it by ear - breadsticks, then toast. Scrambled egg/omelette after a day or so, pasta with a bit of butter and cheese. I think the problem became that the things we were offering him were quite boring, so he just didn't really want to eat, so I probably moved to putting a tiny bit of tomato sauce on his pasta or chopped up ham, but much less than usual. Egg and cheese were good because they didn't smell very strong. Once he was back on dairy, he loved nice cold fromge frais (I use the organic ones with the pictures of tractors on). He also had dreadful nappies once he did start eating and yes, the early stages of eating were obviously very painful to him.

FWIW, our next problem was deciding when he had stopped being ill. The constant attention and offering him small choice tempting morsels of food turned him into a miniature Queen Victoria lying on a chaise longue, peering at food and deciding whether it matched his current whim, then waving it away if it didn't!

Hope things are getting better.

[melsy]

LOL at likening to queen victoria. Brat is banans rice apple toast. Sges perked up quite abit today thank god. Ive got asda chicken noodle soup strained it and added rice instead and shes eaten a little for lunch. We were up again thourgh the night with her having 40degree temp and putting her into a lukewarm bath. she was writhing and screaming in pain wiht her lttile legs up under her tummy and her arms in fists for 2- 3 hrs. I was crying myself I was drained and upset for her.