Dr hive- 9yr old sick since Christmas

[lovinmyboys]

Ds9 has been sick off and on since Christmas. Is this just normal and I am forgetting? I have been a little worried about him because he just seems off. Today on the way to school he asked why he has been sick so much lately, so I think he is noticing too. It isn’t super sick-mostly stomach, sore throat, headache and lack of energy. Some portions of the day he seems fine and then others he kinda just lays around. This is a definite change. 
 

Any ideas of what I should look for? I can take him to the pediatrician, but I don’t really know what to ask. My kids have always been generally healthy. The one time we had a medical mystery, it stayed a mystery and then went away on its own. 
 

I know it is cold/flu season, so maybe he is just picking up a bunch of random stuff. It is the lack of energy that is mostly worrying me. Usually even when he is sick he is pretty energetic.

Edited February 17, 2022 by lovinmyboys

[MercyA]

You've had him tested for COVID, right?

[Tap]

Has he been tested for strep?

[J-rap]

Mono?  Allergies?

[Terabith]

Being sick for that long isn't normal, and the folks in our household pick up crud frequently.  I would definitely take him to the doctor, and I'd want a CBC.  

[lovinmyboys]

4 minutes ago, MercyA said:

You've had him tested for COVID, right?

Yes, twice. My oldest had covid at the beginning of January. Ds9 had covid about a year ago and seemed to fully recover. It was a full year after covid that he started acting this way.

[lovinmyboys]

1 minute ago, Terabith said:

Being sick for that long isn't normal, and the folks in our household pick up crud frequently.  I would definitely take him to the doctor, and I'd want a CBC.  

I always think of us as being healthy, but I am trying to think back to when my older kids were 9. I don’t think they were picking up a bunch of crud. Ds9 is in school for the first time this year and my older kids were homeschooled at this age, so maybe he is just picking up more stuff.

I think what worries me is that he just seems to not have energy. Dh isn’t worried and he just says he is sick that is how sick people act. But it isn’t like he is super sick- more like he just doesn’t feel well.

[Terabith]

It's a lot more normal if this is his first time in school.  I don't think it's anything to be alarmed about, but I think it's worth a checkup to rule out mono, strep, covid, among other things.  

[Tap]

I  would make an appointment with the doctor and ask for a basic blood panel. It should show if there is an illness or anything else that is significantly off. In the mean while, I would start by giving him an antihistamine for a week or two, just to make sure he hasn't developed allergies. (Post nasal drip can cause stomach issues and throat soreness). 

DD23 had a rough time in preschool, so much that one time she was sick for a month. I pulled her out and kept her home, until she had zero symptoms for a week. I really felt like she had gotten sick, and she was catching new viruses one on top of another, because her immune system wasn't getting a chance to recover, before the next illness set in. Her teacher was so kind and said she wished more parents would do the same, because they see it happen that way quite often. Once a child gets ill, it can take a while for them to fully bounce back and they just really need a break from the germ cesspool to fully recover! 

Some people are strep carriers and testing  for strep can identify a latent infection. Just enough infection to keep them down. Same with a sinus infection. It can just sit and fester, not really making them sick, but not fully well either.  Mono should be considered too, especially with him being tired. 

Edited February 17, 2022 by Tap

[Katy]

I think any time something lasts more than 10 days a doctor would probably recommend a checkup.  In these times I might wait 3 weeks if there was no fever or something obvious like an ear infection or a UTI.

It might be allergies, but even that should be checked by a pediatrician after this long.

[MercyA]

When my DD was in early elementary, she did tend to catch one thing after another, almost always caught at co-op. 🙂 As long as you've had some periods of good health in between, I don't think I'd be too worried. Definitely would have him tested, as Terabith suggested, for mono, strep, COVID, and whatever the doctor recommends.

Lack of energy is normal with viruses, I'd say.

[lovinmyboys]

Ok I feel better. I guess it makes sense that if he doesn’t feel well he would have less energy. He just typically isn’t one to sit still. Maybe he is just maturing and now that he has finally learned to sit still, I think something is wrong with him, lol. 

[KSera]

44 minutes ago, lovinmyboys said:

Yes, twice. My oldest had covid at the beginning of January. Ds9 had covid about a year ago and seemed to fully recover. It was a full year after covid that he started acting this way.

I would think it quite likely that he picked up Covid again when his sibling had it (whether you manage to catch it on a test or not). It can take a long time for some people to get energy back after Covid, and some symptoms can come and go. Energy can take a long time to return after the flu as well, but in that case I wouldn’t expect to see symptoms coming and going. I would take him to be tested for strep and whatever else the doctor recommends as well, but also keep the possibility of Covid after effects on my radar.

[thewellerman]

A few of my kids are cycling similar symptoms, and I couldn't figure out what was going on.  I realized that some nights the heat comes on a lot more than others because the weather has been so back and forth this year. This is our first winter in this house, and we aren't used to it yet.  Some nights the house gets really dry, and the kids get too hot.  Having them dress in lighter clothes, and also really focusing on electrolytes and hydration has helped a lot.  I know it would seem that everyone should have the same symptoms in that case, but my dd that has a top bunk felt by far the worst, I assume because she is near a vent and heat rises.

It does sound to me that he is either having a long post covid recovery, or getting multiple colds from school, but your description sounded similar enough I thought I would add an additional angle. 

[Ausmumof3]

12 months is plenty long enough for a covid reinfection unfortunately. Some people here are getting it twice within a month. He could be dealing with long covid. 

That said is kind of sounds like maybe some kind of recurring strep or similar type infection so worth a doctors visit to rule that out as well. 

[ktgrok]

9 hours ago, Terabith said:

Being sick for that long isn't normal, and the folks in our household pick up crud frequently.  I would definitely take him to the doctor, and I'd want a CBC.  

And Vitamin D, thyroid, blood sugar, and basic autoimmune stuff like celiac and sed rate/ana. 

My son being run down like that was a sign of anemia, which was caused by undiagnosed celiac. Add in the stomach issues reported by OP and it should be ruled out. Celiac can also cause low D, which effects immunity to disease. 

Edited February 17, 2022 by ktgrok

[lmrich]

I still do that. (and did that a child - strep, wallking pneumenia, stomach bug - all in 12 weeks - it took 6 months until I felt ok - fifth grade year; I missed so much school) It seems once I get sick, I am a magnet for every bug around. Rest - and more rest than you think he needs. Time in the sunshine to get that vitamin D.  And some nices doses of laughter. 

[Spryte]

1 hour ago, lmrich said:

I still do that. (and did that a child - strep, wallking pneumenia, stomach bug - all in 12 weeks - it took 6 months until I felt ok - fifth grade year; I missed so much school) It seems once I get sick, I am a magnet for every bug around. Rest - and more rest than you think he needs. Time in the sunshine to get that vitamin D.  And some nices doses of laughter. 

Same here. I dread getting sick because one thing leads to another, ugh. Just wanted to say you are not alone!

OP, I’d take him in, and I’d also mention that a sibling had Covid in Jan — it’s so easy to just get negative tests these days (my mom tested negative for nine days, till finally going positive! Symptoms were so mild, it would have been easy to miss altogether). Maybe kiddo is having a long post-undiagnosed Covid recovery. 

Or maybe it’s something else. I’d want some of the bloodwork mentioned above.

[rutheart]

It could be that he has a sinus infection that he can't kick. If you touch around his sinuses, does he have any tenderness?

[cintinative]

3 hours ago, ktgrok said:

And Vitamin D, thyroid, blood sugar, and basic autoimmune stuff like celiac and sed rate/ana. 

My son being run down like that was a sign of anemia, which was caused by undiagnosed celiac. Add in the stomach issues reported by OP and it should be ruled out. Celiac can also cause low D, which effects immunity to disease. 

This.  For our Celiac kid, other than the sluggish growth (which the pediatrician wrote off) the clue that something was amiss was that he kept getting sick--strep and ear infections mostly, over and over. He had stomach pain and constipation which we blamed on the antibiotics for awhile, but then he started having nightly stomach pain and losing weight which is what triggered the Celiac panel.  

So whenever I hear of a kid with back to back illness, I am concerned that they are missing something like this, as ktgrok is mentioning. Is the child absorbing all the nutrients from their food?  Is their immune system not what it should be?

 

 

[ktgrok]

1 hour ago, cintinative said:

This.  For our Celiac kid, other than the sluggish growth (which the pediatrician wrote off) the clue that something was amiss was that he kept getting sick--strep and ear infections mostly, over and over. He had stomach pain and constipation which we blamed on the antibiotics for awhile, but then he started having nightly stomach pain and losing weight which is what triggered the Celiac panel.  

So whenever I hear of a kid with back to back illness, I am concerned that they are missing something like this, as ktgrok is mentioning. Is the child absorbing all the nutrients from their food?  Is their immune system not what it should be?

 

 

And mine never had stomach pain at all! Or GI issues worth him mentioning to me. But he was complaining of being tired. And kids shouldn't be tired all the time. 

[The Governess]

My oldest was sick for nearly a month with strep and we didn’t know. We were on vacation in the UK and she kept getting low grade fevers, upset stomach, and an occasional light rash. We took her in to see a doctor while we were there and she thought it was viral. Once we got home we took her in to her pediatrician, who thought maybe she had mono. She ran a rapid strep as well and it was negative, but she sent it in to be cultured just in case and it came back positive. She never had a sore throat. It’s the only time she has ever had strep. Now it’s the first thing I think of when there is unexplained illness...