These last few weeks I have seen quite a few children with a stomach bug otherwise known as gastroenteritis. This may surprise many parents because one would think we are just getting out of cold and flu season and it should be smooth sailing form here, right? This is not the case.
Late spring and summer is a common time for some of the viruses that cause intestinal symptoms. The symptoms typically consist of vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, fever, and sometimes rashes.
It is never fun to see your child throw up. I recall one such episode last year when my daughter proceeded to burst into our room at 2 a.m. to declare she just threw up. When I went to investigate, I quickly realized that she must have been running down the hallway with her mouth open as there was quite a bit of cleaning that needed to get done after we took care of her.
Gastroenteritis is generally self-limiting, meaning that it will go away on its own without treatment or medication, but the symptoms can range from a few days to longer sometimes, especially if we are talking about resolution of the diarrhea. It is also very infectious, as most of the viral causes can live on surfaces for quite a long time. Good hygiene is critical.
Foodborne illnesses are a different entity that can cause similar symptoms. Most are also self-limiting. As a general rule with foodborne illnesses, many people tend to get sick in a very short time period after ingesting something. The symptoms are often quick to resolve as well.
The treatment for both tends to be supportive care, which means keeping your child hydrated. Us pediatricians always tend to recommend Pedialyte but it seems that many children just won’t drink it, so half strength Gatorade or other sports drink can serve as a substitute. Slow and steady is a good guiding principle as putting too much into the stomach at once can lead to not so pleasant results. As your child feels better it is reasonable to have them try to eat some solids.
Historically we use to recommend the BRAT diet to help with diarrhea (consisting of bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast) but evidence based medicine does not support this as it is unnecessarily restrictive.
The new recommendation is for the child’s usual age appropriate diet realizing that giving lots of fruits or fruit juice may exacerbate the problem. Giving lactobacillus can also be helpful to help speed up the resolution of diarrhea as this is the good bacteria that lives inside of our intestinal tract. By all means, if something does not seem right with your child or they are not urinating at a reasonable interval, something is wrong and they need to be seen.
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