Being sick as a kid

Quite a few people sick at the office, which got me to wondering about the times I was sick as a child.

Seemed once a year for quite a few, I’d get a terrible headache, then spend the next 12 hours or so vomiting.

After that I would be fine (and want to eat whatever I could get my hands on!).

So, what exactly describes this? My Mother always called it a ‘bug’. I’ve heard the term, but never knew anyone else to get it. In fact, I’m one of 5 kids and I was the only one to experience this.

Is it at all common to have such a short illness? It’s strange, because otherwise I do not recall ever really getting sick, except a very rare head-cold. I don’t recall ever having the flu. Now that I’m older, I don’t experience this once a year, 12 hour sickness.

Hmmm. Horrible headaches followed by vomiting.
IANAD, but could it have been migraines? It’s unusual for young children to get them, but certainly not unheard of. My middle daughter (now 18) started getting them when she was about two. In fact, she didn’t start to talk until after she was three, and when she first started getting them, we had no clue what was wrong with her. A couple/three times a year, she’d just start screaming and holding her head, then before you knew it, she was puking. She was diagnosed when she was four.

By the time she was verbal, though, she had learned to recognize the precursors (vary from sufferer to sufferer) and if she took Excedrin immediately, it would nip it in the bud.

Did yours by any chance cease right around puberty? It’s my understanding that, for children who get migraines, the patterns often change with puberty. For many, they get more frequent, but for a lucky few, they get less frequent or disappear altogether.

Just a WAG.

Absent any other data, a 12 hour headache with vomiting sounds like a migraine.

Same here- my son had terrible migraines from about age 6-12. Headache and vomit, sleep.

I started getting migraines, complete with vomiting, when I was about twelve, IIRC.

I’m with the others that it’s most likely neurological. Something so short term isn’t likely to be a virus or infection, especially because you didn’t mention any other trademarks. There was no fever, fatigue, weakness, etc.

I never had headaches as a kid, but it seems like I puked all the damn time. Sometimes it would just be once, sometimes it would be 2-3 times in a night, and then I’d be better the next day. Pretty much stopped in my late teens. I’m in my 30s now, and haven’t thrown up (other than once from drinking) in about 8 years.