Tips to avoid the stomach flu!

[dr.annie]

Hello everyone,

I am a mother of small children who has really grown to hate the stomach
flu (viral gastroenteritis). Nothing is worse than watching your child be
that sick or being too sick yourself to take care of your child. I also have a
PhD in biochemistry. So, I decided to make a website dedicated to
decreasing the prevalence of the stomach flu. I believe that if people
were educated about stomach flu facts including how it is spread and
how long they are contagious, we all wouldn't have to get it so often. My
website also contains great tips to help you avoid getting viral
gastroenteritis. http://www.stopthestomachflu.com

Since most people who hate the stomach flu are also interested in
avoiding anything that causes them to be up all night throwing up, I also
provide a wealth of information about food poisoning and food borne
illness. Please visit my website if you are interested and pass it along to
others. http://www.stopthestomachflu.com

[jkl81]

Good website. Might cause a lot of anxiety in other emets but might also teach us a little better how to avoid food poisoning. Norovirus is a tough big to stop, we're all trying, really hard, here. Are you emetophobic yourself? You kind of sound like on of us. Either way, should be required reading for all childcare workers and food handlers A+

[paulinek]

Ooh yes it does look a good website, i'm just about to leave work for the day but i'll be sure to have a good look tomorrow.

Thanks for this!

[xxglitterxx]

It is an interesting website, but I just thought I'd say, it would be very easy for someone to get incredibly anxious reading it, so possibly put a warning in by the URL that it could cause a lot of panic?

At the moment my emet is better than it has been in the past, but to be honest it still panicked me quite a bit.


Interesting wesbite though, I'm still reading it (but with my hand on the radiator cover- I'm very superstitious- I need to be touching wood!) and as someone else asked, are you emet yourself?
It is a very good website, I wish more people would read it!Edited by: xxglitterxx

[dr.annie]

Thank you all for reading my website. I am so sorry if it has scared you. I
really didn't mean that. I am just trying to help educate people. Although,
I'm sure everyone on the emetophobia website is ALREADY educated. It it
the general public that needs educating.

To answer your questions, I probably have a touch of emetophobia. I am
pretty terrified to throw up. However, my real fear is being too sick to take
care of my children. I never worried about the stomach flu or vomiting
my entire life until I had children. My son had 2 terrible stomach illnesses
within 3 weeks and that did me in. The first was rotavirus and he had to
go to the ER for an IV. A week later we got another stomach bug from a
visiting relative and my husband and I also got sick. This time my
husband was so sick that I had to call 911 to come get him. I couldn't
even take him to the ER because I was busy taking care of my 1-year old
who was throwing up in the other bathroom. I was sick too. Luckily, I
managed to schedule my throwing up for when no one else needed me. I
worry about what would have happened if I wasn't so lucky. It was all a
very horrible ordeal. After that, I decided to educate myself about
stomach bugs in hopes of avoiding most of them.

So, I am terrified of throwing up, but my real fear is being too sick to take
care of my children. I have lots of will power and feel I can take care of
everyone when I'm sick with anything else. However, when your head is in
the toilet, there is nothing else you can do. You certainly can't breastfeed
the baby. I think my worry will decrease when my children are older and
more self-sufficient.

I am very sorry if my website upsets anyone. For me, the "unknown" is
more frightening than the "known". I actually worry less now that I have
my facts straight.

[jkl81]

No criticsim about the website, its up to us to avoid things that might make us anxious and I agree the non emets and non germophobes should really really look into this. Just a couple weeks ago, a guy I know who works at a local starbucks told me he had come into work with norovirus thinking it was "just" food poisoning and he couldn't find anyone to cover for him. I gave him a bit of a hard time about it and wondered out loud how many more people he infected by being there. Here's a smart and (usually) considerate guy, but like others just not that educated about noro. At least he had the decency to not make any drinks and just run the register till he was better. Still far from ideal.

[xxglitterxx]

No no I in no way wanted to criticise about the website!!

I just wanted to warn others just in case, I know at the moment anyway my emet is a lot better than others on here.

Anyway, it is a very good and informative website, that I enjoyed (well, enjoyed's the wrong word) reading.
Thanks for sharing it with us, I wish what you write was distributed amoungst the non-emets of this world!!