Getting sick

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I have a question for parents. Does your kid get sick often? Ours is almost 2 and has never had a fever. When he was younger he got colds and coughed and sneezed, but since his autism symptoms have strengthened (around 18 months) he has not had a cold. I've been sick, and coughed around him, and he is touching everything at playgrounds but he hasn't been sick at all. A friend who believes in homeopathic medicine suggested that his immune system is not fighting viruses. It could be a trigger for autism. That's why I want to find out if this is common to other autistic kids.

My son is 5, has ASD and gets sick just as much as any other kid, if not more. Most people don't get sick as often in the summer as they do in the winter, unless your son has super powers it's likely just coincidence.

When my son was little it felt as if we were never away from the doctor! He was premature though, and there were some health-issues directly connected to that. Other than that, he was ill - mainly colds - to about the same extent of most other children in his age-group. He went to toddlers' groups, nursery part-time and was often in the company of neighbours' children, so he had plenty of chances to pick up illnesses.

As he's got older, he's now 12 and at High School, he's rarely ill, and again it's usually some bug that's going round the school which he has picked up from classmates.

I don't get sick often now, the last time was just before Easter two years ago when I got a cold or flu with a fever, sore throat and a lot of coughing. But that may be due partly because I live alone and I'm not as exposed to all the germs out there. When I had to live in a home with ten other people, not including the staff, I'd get a cold almost every other month. I still got sick pretty often even after moving into a home with two other people I also think the stress and anxiety, and maybe even whatever meds they were making me take at the time lowered my resistance. The last few months before I was finally kicked out of the home I started getting sick a lot more and with things that were kind of unusual for me, like an infection in both eyes where after seeing the doctor he made me get my thyroid tested because it was a type that usually people with bad thyroids only get (my thyroid was fine, I think), and not long after that I got a throat infection and had to go to emergency when it didn't get better in 48 hours. I had my tonsils/adenoids taken out when I was around four, so that was pretty unusual. I've also had problems with my ears my whole life. As a kid I had I don't know how many ear tube surgeries, and as a teen I developed a mastoid infection where I had to go get surgery several times, and even now I still get low-grade ear infections and my left eardrum has a perforation that will not heal but the doctor says it's fine as long as I don't get water in there. Pretty painful if I do.

Hi Bkdad. I've heard the theory that people who don't get sick actually have compromised immune systems before. With my ASD twins (3), one gets sick all the time (colds, only one fever), and one almost never does. The one who doesn't get sick is more severe, but just barely. So, I don't know. And really, what could we do about it anyway? Like many things with ASD, so much of it is out of our hands.

My kids get sick in even amounts, and one is ASD and one is NT. I really don't see a correlation, but my sample size is limited.

Wouldn't never getting sick imply a stronger immune system that fights off invaders better?

What am I missing?

My kids are generally well, but not equally so. The one on the spectrum used to get really nervous whenever she was sick, so it seemed like she was often less than healthy, but then I also have another one who's supposedly NT and a bit of a hypochondriac. OTOH, none of them have had antibiotics more than once or twice.
Teachers and AIWs often say that kids on the spectrum are more often sick, however. Their theory is that a lot of our kids have trouble sleeping, might be limited in the amount of exercise or fresh air they get, and sometimes have restricted diets (because of food intolerances or preferences); this all can make for a weaker immune system.
J.

My daughter gets sick but rarely shows symptoms of illness. I think she pays so little attention to or has so little understanding of her internal status that it causes her to not notice and therefore not suffer when Ill. This has led to problems such as practically needing to be hospitalized due to massive kidney infection because she never noticed any discomfort from a uti.

My AS daughter has always been the healthiest of my 3 kids (my son is 19 and my twin girls are 14). She only had one ear infection and her brother and sister both had chronic ear infections until age 4. She rarely ever gets a cold and if she does, it lasts a day with barely any symptoms. She has only been really sick a few times in her life, mostly croup or stomach flu). I am glad she is so healthy because she is really miserable even if she has only the sniffles or a stomach ache.