Are Stomach Viruses more common now than 30 years ago?

[ann32]

I had never ever heard of stomach viruses until I had my son 7 yrs ago. I've never had one I'm almost 35. I think they are more prevalent now

[Rebecca85]

I'm 26, and 20 years ago when I was a young girl, there were definately stomach bugs that went round, I remember several children vomiting at school and my brother always seemed to be doing it! And my earliest memory of vomiting was when I was around 3 or 4, I am pretty sure it was a bug because of the way I felt (fever etc).

[Jdpillow]

I don't believe so. My parents were sick a lot as kids and always said I was never sick nearly as much as they were. I believe you just hear more about it now. Things like Facebook make it so easy to know everything about everyone.

[Kazzia]

I'm 26 as well. Stomach bugs were always around in the late 80s/90s when I was at school. I remember getting a stomach bug when I was around 3 years old and me asking my mum why I felt so ill and why it tasted so bad, and then I got a stomach bug when I was nearly 9. By that point I was old enough to register the trauma of it and became emet.

But every summer there was a school camp and all the kids would come down with a stomach bug. It was like an annual event. That's how I got the one when I was 9 and when I was 11 in 1996 the whole school camp came down with noro and I somehow managed not to get it. I actually looked forward to adulthood, where incidentally, I have come across fewer v* bugs.

I believe social media and the internet might make it seem more prevalent. Also, the population of this country is increasing, people are squished ever closer together and I don't believe many people have good hygiene, which means these things are spread more easily than ever.

But I know people who hardly get stomach bugs - some people just aren't prone to catching them.

[Erica1649]

I think its more prominent now, as is most viral sickness because most people have bad hygeine.

[person54321]

I read it was 1968 in norwalk Ohio

And that's just the discovery of the virus, it was definitely around long before that. I'd say it's likely people have been getting and passing along stomach viruses since the beginning of civilization. It seems likely they were MORE stomach bugs (and all bugs) prevalent pre-discovery of sterilization, since people didn't know what "germs" were or how to get rid of them.

[stella9]

The allergies are outrageous. I saw a documentary on HBO that addressed global warming and the connection to the rise in allergies, primarily hay fever. Supposedly, everyone will eventually have hay fever.

During my entire growing up, I only knew one person with food allergies. There was one boy in my entire elementary school of 1000 children who had a food allergy and that was to eggs.

When my children went to camp and school as young children, I received long dissertions about the do's and dont's of what to pack them due to the large number of food allergic children in the bunks/classes etc.

When my son was in kindergarten, there were 10 out of 18 kids with allergies and severe ones. That was also the case in my daughter's class. When I told people my children didn't have food allergies, they were shocked --- as though that was abnormal!!!