Parents should be on the lookout for a rise in bugs as children go back to school, a GP has said.
Monaghan-based GP Dr Illona Duffy says there has been a rise in gastroenteritis cases in the past week.
She told The Pat Kenny Show it usually takes a few weeks for the bugs to circulate.
"We're starting to see a steady rise in presentations of young children and that matches with going back to school," she said.
"It always takes a few weeks before the bugs start to circulate, percolate and really then start to present in our younger children.
"Typically, it's viruses and most viruses present in a very similar way.
"That will tend to be often with coughs and sniffles, temperatures, perhaps also sore throats or ears - and the awful gastroenteritis which we're seeing quite a bit of in the last week."
Symptoms
Dr Duffy said parents should watch out for different symptoms.
"Gastroenteritis is typically an infection in the gut and the most common is viral gastroenteritis," she said.
"How do you know it's not food poisoning? Food poisoning tends to be very severe and sudden in onset.
"If it's something you've eaten, typically other people will have eaten it as well at the same time.
"We tend to find it hits hard and fast - you may have high temperatures, really profuse diarrhoea and vomiting as well.
"It tends to settle quite quickly in the majority of people but when it is severe, it's very severe."
Older and younger people
Dr Duffy said younger and older people and sometimes require "a little bit of help with fluids because they can get dehydrated very quickly."
"The typical gastroenteritis we see is viral and it'll often start with a little bit of vomiting or diarrhoea, often lasting anything up to a week," she said.
"People sometimes get panicked about that in young babies if the diarrhoea is persisting.
"As long as we're getting fluids in and we're not losing fluid through vomiting, then we're usually happy enough to just watch and wait."
What to do?
Dr Duffy said parents should continue giving children fluids.
"What would we say to parents is hold on the solids but continue with the fluids," she said.
"If it's a baby you continue to feed them - breastfed if they're breastfed and the bottles if they're [on] bottles.
"Adults and older children we may say no solids, but lots of fluids and we want a mixture of fluids.
"We want fluids that have glucose in them."
Dr Duffy said parents should never give diet drinks to children as they contain no glucose.
Dr Duffy said parents and children should stay at home until 24 hours the symptoms have dissipated.
"Gastroenteritis can be very contagious, which is why if you have vomiting and diarrhoea you should be staying at home - both the child or an adult.
"Normally the rule of thumb is until you're 24 hours free of your diarrhoea.
"It can be very hard on parents because they're trying to find somebody to look after [children] but the reality of it is you can't be sending children like that into creche or school because they are contagious and they're going to spread it to other children".
Going to your GP
Dr Duffy said parents should try and determine if their child's illness is viral or not before going to their GP.
"Arriving with your child because your child has a temperature or maybe a cough or snuffles for a day or even two days when we haven't watched and waited to see if this is viral or not," she said.
"The reality of it is an antibiotic is not going to speed up the recovery of this illness.
"We see this typically in the out of hours, often at the weekends, on a Sunday, when parents are probably in a wee bit of a panic."
She said parents should also be on the lookout for measles which is "probably one of the most contagious diseases that we know of."
