How common is stomach flu in high school

[Sailor55CancriE]

I'm in high school and norovirus is sweeping through my freshman class.y friend got it and i am so scared. Im terrified of getting it. I just want to hide in a hole forever and I'm getting anxious, and my parents are getting angry. I just don't know what to do...

[Afdpt]

During high school I had it only one time and that's when my phobia was almost nonexistent (I panicked when faced with vomit directly but never gave it a thought in between those moments) so I wasn't careful at all and still only caught it once. If you're washing your hands at appropriate times I think your chances are very small!

[crd08]

None of my friends had it in high school. It never like "went around" really. I went to a really small school tho so there's less people to get it.
I never got in high school. Just keep up with your hand washing!

[blueridge212]

I can tell you it went around a lot when I was in school (I went to a very large high school), but I never caught it once and all I did was wash my hands before eating/touching my face and I packed my own lunch. That's it. Keep your unwashed hands out of your face/mouth and off of your food, and you will be perfectly fine!

[OneBadVato]

I understand how you feel. I too am a freshman. My school's population is over 2 thousand. So imagine how likely it is for someone to get the flu. Since like 2 weeks ago people have been complaining about stomach aches. I am terrified! I was absent yesterday due to stomach and head ache. these past few weeks have been a nightmare for someone with severe emetophobia like me. This is the time of the year where viruses ate the most common. Thankfully winter break is coming. I could use a break.

[Iluvijb]

I had friends that were prone to getting it in HS (that or they just had weak stomachs) and I never got it in all four years even once!

Keep your hands clean, especially before eating, and enjoy HS! It's a great time of your life! Don't let this stop you from having adventures and wonderful experiences!

[yourjedi]

All four years of high school, I was in my emet remission. I was in the performing arts department, and would often have to spend more than fourteen hours at my high school of 2,100 people every day. (That’s about as many as would be on a cruise ship.) During rehearsals, which were always during the months of November, December, and January (the evil months), I was always sharing food with others, using the same makeup, always eating out, what have you, usually with as many as 60+ people. Never got sick.

During the regular school day, I shared my food a lot with others, too. I never washed my hands during the school day, even before lunch or even when I came home, unless I just used the bathroom, (which was admittedly rare, as I hate public bathrooms). I worked in my high school's daycare, too, for a year with 20 toddlers and 6 infants, and never washed my hands after leaving. Never got sick.

The same applies for my first year of college – I would go to my classes that hundreds of other students sit in every week, left, didn’t wash my hands and ate at my student building. And I never caught it, not once. The same thing applies to when I went to grocery stores, bowling alleys, concerts, football games, you name it. I never got sick.

I currently work in a hotel with hundreds of guests whose laundry I do, covered in various bodily fluids - including "v". Never have I gotten sick.

Fear not.

[Flowerchild]

I attended a very large high school grades 10-12. My graduating class had 430 just so you have an idea of how many people were in this school. Never had a virus sweep through the school, saw one person vomit one time only at school and she was leaving ( being picked up by her mom and vomited while walking to the car). There were never desperate moments where kid after kid was falling ill. If you maintain your hygiene then your chances are slim of catching something.

[PsiRockin]

Also a freshman, sv* has been running rampant around my school, but to be honest, some of my teachers don't clean so well. But one of them does in fact use hand sanitizer like a madman, and another fist bumps instead of shaking everyone's hand when he's sick. I haven't caught anything so far, so I'm hopeful. I sat near 3 kids that v*/felt like v* this year, but haven't gotten sick, so I think you have a good chance too!

[Erin80]

I didn't catch a sv* at all in high school

[jumperkar1]

I also went through 4 years of high school and never got it
I always washed my hands when i got home.

[Hannah A.]

I'm halfway thru my Freshman year and my school has over 1,000 students... we haven't had any sv's go around. The most i've caught is a cold.

[khernández99]

A junior in high school, and so far I have only heard of 2 reports but those 2 reports are stressing me out.

I hope mine and everyone else's high school lives go well.

[Leslie735]

During my 4 years of high school, I only had one sv* and it was so mild I went to school with it because it was just d* and I didn't realize I was actually sick. It wasn't until I had kids that I got sv* more often. I had one when I was 7 and not an other one (with v* and d* until I was 24.

[gumdropper1]

I haven't puked since elementary school. During high school, I was not as obsessive about hand-washing as I am now. I was not as careful about what I ate as I am now. I was only rarely directly aware of people having stomach flu. There was never an outbreak at my large high school.

Once I was at an early-morning meeting and the girl sitting next to me mentioned that she'd been sick the night before. I asked what she meant by sick and she said she'd vomited. I said, "so you came here to infect the rest of us?" and she said, "I hope not." Another dude who was at the meeting said later that he got sick and threw up the next day. Even then, I knew the incubation period for norovirus (then called Norwalk virus) was longer than that.

Another time a girl announced in class that she was sick yesterday. Some members of the class queried her about her vomiting (how many times, what color, etc. -- these were high school juniors, not 3rd graders) -- and she seemed to believe that she had food trouble and not a virus.

Once in January (my evil month), a teacher announced that our homework was not ready to be turned back because she spent most of yesterday throwing up. I asked if she was contagious, and she said no, she and her husband had infected themselves by not washing a cutting board.

So I think stomach flu is pretty rare in high school, at least for an emet.

Doug

[kaiilyn_23]

I'm in Grade 12. None of my friends have had a bug in the past 5 years. None of them are frequent hand-washers. There have been no outbreaks. It's very rare that it passes through my school or surrounding schools. I live on the west coast of Canada so it's not particularly warm in the winter = everyone inside.