There a Way to Avoid Getting the Stomach Flu?

I just asked this too and got great responses. And none of us got it...

http://www.mamapedia.com/questions/7166647349090123777

Good luck!

Wash your hands like the ultimate germaphobe!!

I had the same problem when I was in school. They got a lot of mom loves you but I am not touching you. I did manage to avoid it.

Gastro-enteritis (commonly called stomach flu) is usually spread by hands contacting any infected surfaces, or the body fluids or stools of a sick person. The hands then infect whatever food or objects you might put in your mouth. My reading has never suggested spread by airborne germs, but I suppose that could also happen.

So I would say hand-washing, and encouraging the sick person to wash hands often, is probably the primary protection.

There was a study in a poor African neighborhood a few years ago in which participants were given plain soap and instructed to wash hands often. It dramatically reduced incidents of both digestive and respiratory illnesses, compared to similar areas not provided with soap.

Wash your hands, wash your hands, wash your hands. Throw Clorox on any surface you can that the sickle has touched. Lysol everything else. Ponytail holders.
A little late for this one -get a flu shot!
My son has that very same thing right now. Ugh. I'm leaving town next Saturday and praying I don't get it.
But you know what? Usuually I don't. I have cared for many, many sick kids over the years and probably only gotten sick maybe once. And my kids are 20, 16 and 13 so I have been exposed plenty.
Good luck.

Wash your hands as other say. And put your sick girl's hair back in a pony tail so you don't have to hold it. I also recommend:

Keep your sick child isolated from her sister. She needs to be using a different bathroom from you and your toddler. Keeping yourself and your toddler out of the same bathroom as your sick child is really vital if it's at all possible. You can tell a toddler a thousand times not to touch something and not to touch his or her face and you still won't move fast enough to stop him or her from touching the toilet handle and then touching his or her mouth!

Be sure you have lots of disposable plastic or latex gloves (available at the grocery store with the cleaning supplies). You also need lots of Clorox or Lysol disinfectant cleaning wipes . Can't leave the house? Call a friend who'll go to the store for you. You will need to use the wipes (with your gloves on) to wipe down the entire sink; spigot handles at the sink; toilet handle (in that order, never wipe a toilet handle then use the same wipe for anything else -- that is the last stop for that wipe). I pretty much do it every single time my kid is sick in that bathroom.

Be sure to wipe down all door handles in the house regularly because if your sick child opens a door and your toddler touches the handle later, it can transfer the virus even if your older kid thinks she's got clean hands. If your older child has diarrhea as well as vomiting you may want to use Lysol spray to spray down her shower/tub after every time she bathes as well; don't bathe the toddler where the sick child has bathed if you can possibly avoid it. Empty the bathroom trash cans very frequently when they contain any wipes or other cleaning stuff; get it all out of the room and out of the house. Then wipe out the cans with disinfecting wipes so there's no virus hanging around on the surfaces inside them.

Also, I'd throw out your sick child's toothbrush. And be sure, if the bathroom must be shared, that other people's toothbrushes are not near hers, and that she does not share toothpaste with her sister -- throw out the toothpaste if your sick child's been swiping her toothbrush over it.

This sounds like a lot when I write it down -- Sorry! But basically the rule in our house is simple: Sick person is isolated to his or her bedroom and one bathroom; that bathroom gets plenty of wipedowns by a gloved adult; all door handles get wipedowns frequently; all plates, cups etc. used by someone with stomach flu are washed separately, or that person uses paper plates etc.

This is what we do when anyone is sick and it generally helps my kid not get whatever her dad has and vice versa. When my daughter had a bad contagious stomach virus on vacation this summer we did the same thing in our rented apartment and neither my husband nor I got sick. But it takes attention to things like wearing gloves at times, removing trash quickly, and cleaning up constantly -- not just cleaning up when and where someone has just vomited. Good luck -- you'll get through it.

My daughter had a stomach bug & vomiting not long ago.
I didn't get it.
My son, during the summer, had a stomach bug & vomiting.
I never got it.
And I was the one, who handled them and their excretions and took care of them 24/7 while they were sick.

I didn't do anything special.
I just never got it myself.

I dealt with this last week with two kids plus my husband is in New England for work. I washed my hands constantly. I made sure I disinfected everything in the bathroom. Also, I blew up my daughter's air mattress and let her lie there all day watching movies so I could contain what she touched.

As for my son, he is 10 months old, I kept him in a warm bath to play.

Hi A.,

Anything that will build your immune system can prevent you getting the flu. I was exposed to the H1N1 (in the hospital) sitting with one of my daughter's sick friends. We were waiting on her mom to get there from out of town and there were 11 cases of swine flu in the ER. I got a mild case and no one in my home got it because we are always very diligent about keeping our immune systems strong. My teenage girls are the first ones called to babysit a sick kid because they have no fear.

I've found that I could write a book on here and most people really simply want a quick fix. If you are interested in details I'll be glad to get more specific. Write me a PM and we can talk.

God bless and congratulations on #3!

M.