Back to School Means Back to the Cold and Flu Plague

It never fails: as soon as the kids head back to school at the end of summer, they get smacked with a head cold almost immediately. Why?

I consider our house to be a pretty healthy one, knock on wood. But once the new school year rolls around every end of August and early September. one of us gets what we call the back to school bug.

My boys can be perfectly healthy and feeling great heading into the first week of school and then BAM, one of them will be down for the count by Day 3 or 4. It usually starts with a sore throat and headache and can turn into an ear infection or that awful viral bug. This year, it was my 12-year-old Brody, and thankfully it didn't go further than the headache and stuffy nose.

CNNHealth has a great article on how to help your family avoid getting sick when school starts back up after the long summer break.

In the article, Dr. Harley Rotbart says that, "Schools are full of "hot zones" for germs, Rotbart says. "Most people think that's the bathroom, but it really isn't. Those get regularly cleaned." If he had to rank the germiest places in school, No. 1 would be the drinking fountain. It's germier than the toilet seat, he says, but "doesn't get disinfected as much." Plus, it's the perfect spot for kids to ingest these microorganisms as they put their mouths on the stream of water -- or right on the fountain itself."

I would not have thought that a water bubbler has more germs than a dirty toilet seat, but it's true. So stay away from the school bubbler, kids!