The Sick Season is here

73trix

Not yet Oct and my 3 yr old has been struck down by a flu like episode. Don't recall ever seeing him go down as quick. Fine and running around most of the day, bit of a cough and runny nose maybe for 2 days prior and then around 5pm.. bang...high temp, refused food, lack of energy- wouldn't leave my lap, got to bed and practically fell on the bed to sleep, wouldn't move for pillow/ duvet. Stripped down. Fast breathing. Calpol. Night shift beckons. Hopefully it won't last but crikey it just wiped him out so fast! Here's to another delightful autumn-winter season. God the summer was great....

shesty

We had vomit after two days back at school. And they are both snuffly this week.
The summer felt like a very short reprieve in what has been a very bad year so far for illnesses.I really hope we don't have a repeat of last winter.

catrionanic

Oh god, stop! I'm due a baby in two weeks and cannot deal with a sick one year old on top!

CheerLouth

Yep back with a bang My 1 year old has a nose running like a tap & heard him coughing in bed last night. No doubt night shift at some point this week.

Back to watching them both like a hawk for signs of colds etc, especially now as our 3 year old has been diagnosed with asthma

mirrorwall14

Yeah, we've had one high temp with a cold already. Could be a lot worse though, I've friend in Crumlin and her little girl has bacterial pneumonia. Counting my blessings that my lads was short lived

farmchoice

shesty wrote: »

We had vomit after two days back at school. And they are both snuffly this week.
The summer felt like a very short reprieve in what has been a very bad year so far for illnesses.I really hope we don't have a repeat of last winter.

id say you will find you will breeze through this year. i know in my experience we had one year when they got everything and then the following year were relativity sickness free.


I'm expecting bad things this year as number 3 has now started playschool and he wasn't around the year of the great sickness so id say he will get the lot this year.


bizarrely last winter i got that awful flu that was going i was never as sick in my life, i literally could not move for 3 days, yet no one else in the house got it.

shesty

That is bizarre farmchoice.Both my pair had that last December, possibly the worst dose I've ever seen them with.They managed to dodge chicken pox despite being in the minders with two who got it (I have one in preschool and one two year old)....happy because I was pregnant at the time, but at the same time it's one dose I'd like to get over with!!!!Fingers crossed for a germ-ish free year....

paddles

Conjunctivitis has arrived to 1 yr old... Second time so far. I had a new bottle of brolene that I picked up for myself recently but never used. Anyone use it for babies? Trying to avoid GP cos weekend means care doc which is a pain.

73trix

paddles wrote: »

Conjunctivitis has arrived to 1 yr old... Second time so far. I had a new bottle of brolene that I picked up for myself recently but never used. Anyone use it for babies? Trying to avoid GP cos weekend means care doc which is a pain.

Has worked for me in the past but babs was about 16 months. Similar scenario. We were heading away and couldn't get a GP apt. Googled at the time and there were a few people saying they'd used it and also advice about cooled black tea but I didn't try that.

pwurple

Shesty, there is a chickenpox vaccine. Our HSE doesn’t cover it (because they are tightarses!), but most other countries do. Ask your gp for it if you want to avoid that. I think it was around 100 per child? We did. and there’s another one you can get as well for one of the vomiting bugs. The tummy bug vaccine isn’t a jab, it’s a drop on the tongue.

catrionanic

paddles wrote: »

Conjunctivitis has arrived to 1 yr old... Second time so far. I had a new bottle of brolene that I picked up for myself recently but never used. Anyone use it for babies? Trying to avoid GP cos weekend means care doc which is a pain.

There's no real need to use antibiotics with conjunctivitis. Conjunctivitis self-resolves in 5-7 days. Also, many cases are viral rather than bacterial, so an antibiotic would have no effect.

Best thing to do is keep the eye clean with a wet cotton bud, be careful not to share towels etc (its very contagious so someone else in the family could catch it), and give it a few days to heal. No need to see GP or optometrist unless symptoms are worsening, or do not resolve within a week.

Hope that helps.

Orion

paddles wrote: »

Conjunctivitis has arrived to 1 yr old... Second time so far. I had a new bottle of brolene that I picked up for myself recently but never used. Anyone use it for babies? Trying to avoid GP cos weekend means care doc which is a pain.

We can't give medical advice here. Talk to your pharmacist if you can't get to your GP.

Dravokivich

catrionanic wrote: »

There's no real need to use antibiotics with conjunctivitis. Conjunctivitis self-resolves in 5-7 days. Also, many cases are viral rather than bacterial, so an antibiotic would have no effect.

Best thing to do is keep the eye clean with a wet cotton bud, be careful not to share towels etc (its very contagious so someone else in the family could catch it), and give it a few days to heal. No need to see GP or optometrist unless symptoms are worsening, or do not resolve within a week.

Hope that helps.

[Mod]

We've no way of distinguishing the cause of this potential case of conjunctivitis, so while your efforts to advise may be well intentioned, they could be missplaced if an issue is the latter rather than the former.

Please refrain from further commentary that can lead to someone not taking an action especially when they've already commented that they are hesitant to go forward.

catrionanic

Dravokivich wrote: »

[Mod]

We've no way of distinguishing the cause of this potential case of conjunctivitis, so while your efforts to advise may be well intentioned, they could be missplaced if an issue is the latter rather than the former.

Please refrain from further commentary that can lead to someone not taking an action especially when they've already commented that they are hesitant to go forward.

Here's some official HSE advice for you, in that case:

https://www.hse.ie/eng/health/az/c/conjunctivitis,-infective/treating-infective-conjunctivitis.html

There are a number of ways that you can treat infective conjunctivitis at home. The guidelines below should help ease your symptoms:

Remove your contact lenses. If you wear contact lenses, take them out until all the signs and symptoms of the infection have gone. Avoid using contact lenses until 24 hours after you have finished a course of treatment, such as antibiotics. If you have glasses, wear these instead.
Use lubricant eye drops. These can be purchased over-the-counter (OTC) at pharmacies or they may be prescribed for you. They may help ease any soreness and stickiness in your eyes. Always follow the manufacturer's instructions.
Gently clean away sticky substances. When you wake in the morning, you may notice a sticky substance around your eyes. You can gently clean this away from your eyelids and eyelashes using cotton wool soaked in water.
Wash your hands regularly. This is particularly important after you have touched your infected eyes and will stop the infection spreading to other people.
Antibiotics
Antibiotics are not usually prescribed for infective conjunctivitis because:

antibiotics will make little difference to your recovery from infective conjunctivitis
the risk of any complications from untreated infective conjunctivitis is very low
about 10% of people who have their infective conjunctivitis treated with antibiotics experience adverse side effects
overusing antibiotics to treat minor ailments can make them less effective in the treatment of more serious or life-threatening conditions
You may be advised to delay using any medicine for seven days to see if the condition clears up by itself.

If your infective conjunctivitis is particularly severe or has lasted for more than two weeks, you may be prescribed antibiotics. Some schools or playgroups insist that a child is treated with antibiotics before they can return, although this is rarely necessary . If this is the case, your GP may agree to prescribe antibiotics.

The two main types of antibiotics that may be prescribed are:

chloramphenicol
fusidic acid

Dravokivich

catrionanic wrote: »

Here's some official HSE advice for you, in that case:

https://www.hse.ie/eng/health/az/c/conjunctivitis,-infective/treating-infective-conjunctivitis.html

[MOD]

We aren't here to debate it.

As previously suggested, please refrain from providing advice that may lead someone not to seek the attention, we cannot determine they do/do not require.

shesty

I have used Brolene on babies.A lot.Not once has it ever been effective.
I had a very bad eye infection myself a couple of weeks ago, ended up on penicillin and eye drops.After that I would not leave a baby with an eye infection beyond a day or two.I always end up in the GP, total nuisance but there you go.
Not 100% on that chicken pox vaccine, did I hear it's not necessarily very effective??Can't remember whether it's that or not.
More vomit here last night.Ms two year old was in the bath with her ducks at 2 am.Baby has a very stuffed up nose too, have to break out the kiddie olbas and calpol diffuser.

pwurple

95% effective is the blurb we read. We Passed through 3 or 4 chicken pox outbreaks in school and Creche unscathed anyway.

The offputting part is the cost really. And possiblyeffort, depending on the GP. For our first , it was very straightforward, the GP ordered it, and we just went to her for the jabs. For our second daughter, my GP was on mat leave, so we had to get a prescription, go to the pharmacist, order it, pick it up, keep it in the fridge , get another appointment ... bit more of a palaver.

lazygal

Our two had the chicken pox vaccine. Can't count the number of outbreaks we've avoided. Worth the cost in not needing to take time off work alone several times over, not to mention avoiding the kids having to suffer an unnecessary illness. Our new arrival will get it too.

CheerLouth

Our eldest got the Chicken Pox vaccine too - youngest is due to get it on Thursday but he's on a week of antibiotics now so don't think they'll give it to him

@Shesty, I love that Calpol diffuser! My kids are always getting chest infections - it's great for them at nighttime I find. Plus the smell of it is divine!

shesty

It's brilliant! No.2 is a nightmare with a blocked nose, it's saved us many very very bad nights I reckon.!!

jon1981

Thank god for this thread, I can rant!!

11 month old started creche 1 month ago and on average I've had to take her out of creche 1.5 days a week since she started. A mixture of high temp (38c), ear infections, eye infections, multiple GP visits...

2 very stressed parents here who tremble when the phone rings...

How do 2 working parent families cope? We don't have available grand parents unfortunately, so normally it's the 2 of us arguing over who has least busy work schedule that day to go collect her AND take the next day off.

shesty

Ehhhh.....a mixture of saving annual leave days, investigating will your employer allow working from home/adhoc parental leave.Basically.
We actually use a childminder which is easier in that respect.We both work.You are probably going through a very bad phase right now though.Hopefully it will improve once she has a few months there.
We have also made some very specific job choices and have been through a couple of jobs since our first arrived four years ago, to move ourselves closer to home to reduce our commute (with an eye to being able to do school drop offs) and to get jobs with organisations that are flexible and relatively family friendly.

jon1981

shesty wrote: »

Ehhhh.....a mixture of saving annual leave days, investigating will your employer allow working from home/adhoc parental leave.Basically.
We actually use a childminder which is easier in that respect.We both work.You are probably going through a very bad phase right now though.Hopefully it will improve once she has a few months there.
We have also made some very specific job choices and have been through a couple of jobs since our first arrived four years ago, to move ourselves closer to home to reduce our commute (with an eye to being able to do school drop offs) and to get jobs with organisations that are flexible and relatively family friendly.

Having the annual leave is not the issue, I've loads of it, it's more the ad-hoc nature of taking it, the company is family friendly but we're in positions that have less flexible commitments. Anyway, we're managing but it's so taxing! Moving closer to parents is not an option as would raise our current commute of 15mins to well over 1 hour. We live in the city, grandparents well outside the city.

I'm sure it will get better.


EDIT: and on that note, my wife was just called to pick her up again... gunk in the babies eye.

Ah no!

No we didn't move closer to grandparents, we moved jobs around (a few times) to get us closer to our own home, we are about 40mins drive with no traffic from the city centre, that was all.We actually hardly ever use the grandparents, childminder takes them regardless unless things are really awful.I have guilt (for the childminder) about sending over massively contagious stuff like vomiting etc but we manage anyway.It is tough, and winter is very tough (hence this thread).Last winter was a nightmare, we have one in preschool, one two year old and one 20 week old, the younger two have horrendous head colds right now.Like I said earlier, praying for an easier winter this year.

I will be honest-and this is purely based on my own observations and anecdotally what I have heard from many friends and colleagues who are parents-longer term, one parent ends up on a reduced week, giving up work or switching jobs, particularly once a second child comes.Or else childcare arrangments are changed.Generally the mother (I say this as a full time working mother myself).Alternatively, if people are renting, they will often move to buy closer to family members, to have some support.

You kind of get away with it for a bit with one child but the second often really throws a spanner in the works!!!

jon1981

Weird, how was my post edited by someone else?

Anyway, I think when/if number 2 comes along, I'll be strongly considering a child minder. This adhoc sickness X2 would send me over the edge.

pwurple

When we were both working, it was au-pair and creche combo. Creche in the mornings, au pair in the afternoons, but she was super-nice, and if we called her with an emergency, she was able to pop over and collect early. Then one of us would scramble to get out in an hours or two as well. Neighbours can be a great support too. I don't know does it sounds cynical, or old fashioned, but there's huge benefits from engaging with the community around you when you have small children.

shesty

Did I edit it?Sorry, I tried to quote it and it came out looking strange.
I think you engage more with your community/neighbours when you have kids anyway, because they engage with them!

73trix

[QUOT

You kind of get away with it for a bit with one child but the second often really throws a spanner in the works!!![/QUOTE]

This strikes the fear of god into me! My older chap missed a lot of playschool last winter but I was on mat leave so managed it. Only 2 months in with both kids in creche and no family back up. The sheer dread...

Childminder fell through ..twice... Decided creche more "secure" altho we were backed into a corner yet very grateful at the same time that they could take kids. BUT a childminder allows so much flexibility having had a fab one after first child. Maybe next year we'll have to look again at the childminder and weigh up the lesser evil...

shesty

That's it 73trix, see how you are getting on.As the kids get bigger too and school starts to be involved, things change aswell.
I am still hoping for a better winter than last year though!!

annoyedgal

It will get better. It's par for the course when they start creche but their immunity builds up quickly enough. We had that for a month and now he has a great constitution! Hang in there!
Thankfully I'm public sector so have 5 days family leave, also an understanding principal. No family nearby. No 2 will start next year and expecting the same craic again!

73trix

2 weeks after chest infection started and we've had a week of coughing, day and night, not jyst nighttime like last time.FFS he's just finished a course of anti biotics! Up every night and it's so exhausting. Debating going back to GP but another anti biotic already?? Its just so hard listening to this non stop barking every night.

Anne_cordelia

73trix wrote: »

2 weeks after chest infection started and we've had a week of coughing, day and night, not jyst nighttime like last time.FFS he's just finished a course of anti biotics! Up every night and it's so exhausting. Debating going back to GP but another anti biotic already?? Its just so hard listening to this non stop barking every night.

An antibiotic is no good for a cough but he might need steroids to help him shake it off.

CheerLouth

73trix wrote: »

2 weeks after chest infection started and we've had a week of coughing, day and night, not jyst nighttime like last time.FFS he's just finished a course of anti biotics! Up every night and it's so exhausting. Debating going back to GP but another anti biotic already?? Its just so hard listening to this non stop barking every night.

Ah gosh that's awful. Maybe bring him and back just to be on the safe side. Might need an inhaler at nighttime?

mirrorwall14

A humidifier or vapour plug might help too?

73trix

mirrorwall14 wrote: »

A humidifier or vapour plug might help too?

Any recommendations for either? Quick Google of humidifier had range of 35-130 euro?

shesty

1.5 weeks of it here 73trix.We are exhausted.No.2 and No.3 are up on amd off all night with stuffed up noses and coughing fits. Off to sleep they go....and coughing a lung up several times during the night (leads to vomit in mine...).
Calpol plug-in helps, although that's more nose related.
Two pillows or lifting the head of the bed up 150mm (as advised by DDoc nurse when the first one had croup for the first time).I also find encouraging them to lie on their side helps a bit.
Keep the room cool-ish....don't let it get too stuffy.Even open the window briefly, since it's cooler now.
You know yourself, judge the chestiness of the cough as to whether it requires the doctor, but otherwise it seems to just take time, they always seem to last about 1.5 weeks.Sometimes I find calpol helps because when they can sleep they can shake it off better-if they are tired, it drags on for days.Some honey on a spoon can help sometimes too.....

Millem

73trix wrote: »

Any recommendations for either? Quick Google of humidifier had range of 35-130 euro?

Yes I recommend cool mist vicks humidifier. The warm mist vicks one is actually better but too dangerous if he got his hands on it as it’s like a kettle boiling. You can get pod things that release oils but my neighbour just adds the essential oils to water and it works well......I have done this with warm mist one.

I have used the plug in vapour ones too they are very cheap like less than €10.
We also have a dyson air purifier which is excellent but you won’t need that my little guy has asthma

Dravokivich

73trix wrote: »

2 weeks after chest infection started and we've had a week of coughing, day and night, not jyst nighttime like last time.FFS he's just finished a course of anti biotics! Up every night and it's so exhausting. Debating going back to GP but another anti biotic already?? Its just so hard listening to this non stop barking every night.

Why the debate? It just took me one night of coughing in his sleep to get my son checked out the next day. You've the GP visit card sorted? Just go and get an informed opinion for piece of mind at the least.

jon1981

Our little girl has been on 2 courses of antibiotics in the last 4 weeks. It's just one thing after another. She was grand for the last week until today, she's an absolute terror, crying and cranky all day, I fear she's starting to come down with something else... more work juggling to come, looking like she will be kept out of creche tomorrow. She's had a stuffy nose/cough for like 7 weeks now.

73trix

Dravokivich wrote: »

Why the debate? It just took me one night of coughing in his sleep to get my son checked out the next day. You've the GP visit card sorted? Just go and get an informed opinion for piece of mind at the least.

Prob because I've taken him to GP with coughs before ( last winter he had a cough that lasted nearly 3 weeks) and been told there's nothing to give him and as he'd just had an antibiotic and there has been no temperature this time/ other symptoms. But I know what you mean. I was planning to take him tomor when back home (we've been away the wend) but thankfully, he's worked through it and no coughing for 2 nights now.

paddles

impetigo is back. :mad:
LO gets it recurring but this first bout since starting in creche. i know the signs now and had her at caredoc ASAP at the sign of the first little red spot to get meds started so we've had 2 days of oral antibiotics and cream so what are the chances of her getting past the creche door tomor?? :mad:

Icbaby

73trix wrote: »

Prob because I've taken him to GP with coughs before ( last winter he had a cough that lasted nearly 3 weeks) and been told there's nothing to give him and as he'd just had an antibiotic and there has been no temperature this time/ other symptoms. But I know what you mean. I was planning to take him tomor when back home (we've been away the wend) but thankfully, he's worked through it and no coughing for 2 nights now.

I have a 16 month old who constantly has a cough, couple of courses of steroids last season but doc says it's just the way it is. Checked for asthma and didn't have it and because she's under 2 no cough bottle... a friend of my mams suggested this herbal Chinese natural cough bottle and it's brilliant. I'm sure you'd get it in a Chinese shop but 1 spoon a day and no coughing for a couple of weeks!!

Dravokivich

Icbaby wrote: »

I have a 16 month old who constantly has a cough, couple of courses of steroids last season but doc says it's just the way it is. Checked for asthma and didn't have it and because she's under 2 no cough bottle... a friend of my mams suggested this herbal Chinese natural cough bottle and it's brilliant. I'm sure you'd get it in a Chinese shop but 1 spoon a day and no coughing for a couple of weeks!!

That's just honey. If their throat sounds coarse, honey helps sooth it.

73trix wrote: »

Prob because I've taken him to GP with coughs before ( last winter he had a cough that lasted nearly 3 weeks) and been told there's nothing to give him and as he'd just had an antibiotic and there has been no temperature this time/ other symptoms. But I know what you mean. I was planning to take him tomor when back home (we've been away the wend) but thankfully, he's worked through it and no coughing for 2 nights now.

I'm not sure why you keep bringing up antibiotics. I don't go expecting to be given a prescription. I go for the opinion and suggestions of what to do. But sure, it's good to hear the kid is getting over it.

jon1981

Foot & Mouth landed in our creche, that's my little one out of creche for a week now...

shesty

Oh jon1981...you have it rough at the moment.It's hard going.