It’s been three days now, and my kids, me, my brother’s family and my mum have been hit with a highly contagious gastrointestinal infection. Somewhat reminiscent of the time we all got Rotavirus diarrhea attack a while back.
Anyways, we all got infected within one day, and until now, we have yet to trace where the infection came from. It’s not from food that’s for sure, but we know that dirty kids make a highly infectious pot of trouble. No matter how clean we may like to be, you know how toddlers are, they don’t wash their hands often enough and they pick the strangest things from the floor, table, grass to eat! And the worse thing is we all end up sharing saliva. Baby picks up brother’s water bottle and suck on it, for example. Toddler niece snatches a tasty morsel from the baby. The adults kiss and feed food off the plates with the kids.
Bam! Recipe for disaster!
Ethan with his fingers in his mouth
Ethan with his shirt in his mouth
Ethan with his fingers in his mouth again.
At least he doesn’t try to eat his booger like his older 3 year old brother!
Oddly enough, the doctor, I took my 1 1/2 year old kid to check with on Sunday, said, there’s no need to consume anything else but 100 Plus and other soda like Coca-Cola. Skip all porridge, fruits, dairy, juice. It’s like telling a mother, “don’t give the kid anything to eat but sweets!”
I checked on the internet and most sites say about the same thing;
You’ll feel better if you stay well hydrated, so drink lots of water. In addition to fluid that is lost during bouts of diarrhea, electrolytes (sodium and potassium) are also lost and need to be replaced because the body cannot function properly without them. Try sipping broth or soup, which contain sodium, and 100% fruit juice (with no added sugar), which contains potassium.
When you feel ready to eat something more substantial, try soft fruits or vegetables, which also contain potassium. Avoid milk products and fatty, high-fiber, or very sweet foods until the diarrhea subsides, and don’t drink sports drinks or soft drinks — although they contain electrolytes, their high sugar content may aggravate diarrhea.
This means, that most sites are saying something very different. I have been racking my brains out, wondering about this old Doc’s advice. I did ask him why just drink soda and nothing else, but he just mumbled something about making the diarrhea worse. Now, it’s true everyone should drink lots of fluids for this type of infection. And generally, an empty stomach will not make the sick person vomit badly. So why not take lots of raw fruit juices? Well, I happen to know, unhealthy people with an unhealthy diet could go into massive detox if they suddenly drank lots of healthy, vibrant, raw fruit and vegetable juices. If, over the years, lots of unhealthy people parked their butts at his clinic complained about the side effects of drinking fruit juices , then maybe he might have thought that fruit juices was not the way to go then. And so, perhaps his sweeping advice is just to drink calorie laden, no nutrient whatsoever soda drinks to keep up one’s strength?
Actually, whatever the advice is surprisingly not about diet. I believe that the best thing to do is stick to one doctor and make that doctor your family doctor. Someone you trust and feel comfy with. A regular doctor can track your health history easily and is probably able to give a better advice. It was unfortunate that the health crisis started on ungodly hours early, early Sunday, and so we had to see a doctor, like NOW. Nightmare I tell you. My niece started vomiting at 10pm on Saturday night. Sister-in-law was frantically searching the internet yellow pages for a good 24 hour doctor while my brother was probably holding a bucket under his little daughter’s head all night long. My eldest kid started vomiting all over his bed, our bed and the bathroom floor starting from 2am onwards and didn’t stop even at the clinic that mid morning. Baby started his purging all morning as well. My mum was no better.
Oh well. The good news is gastrointestinal infection is usually short-lived.
