Stomach Flu vs. Food Poisoning

[Mr. Bloom]

Well, one thing I can say for gatorade and saltines...they make their round trip with ease!!! I had gone 4 stable hours...but that just changed.

So, now I'm on Propel...I'm allegic to tea...and my body seems to be favoring cold rather than hot.

Ironically, I feel decent right now...just achey with the chills.

You can see from my blog that I had quite a dinner last night at Bonefish Grill...shrimp, steak, salad, veggies...I was so good, I even told the waitress to take the bread away (along with temptation). But with all that heavy food, it just made the 'morning incidents' miserable to say the least.

PS: I'm type B blood.

PSS: I WILL go to Arizona tomorrow...I have to, it's going to be 75 degrees

[mimitabby]

you'll be all right mr silver, just don't be in such a rush to eat. The clear food diet lets your guts calm down before you dump more solids on them.

[luv'nAustin]

Mr. Silver,

I had the flu last weekend (along with a nasty sinus infection) and I'm still feeling weaker than normal. I hate to tell you that my stomach is still a little iffy after I eat "real" food.

Hope you enjoy Arizona and go for a hike up Camelback if you're in Phoenix. Good luck!

Karri

[Aggie_Ama]

Don't rush to eat is good advice. I was starving and did, paid for it with another day of horrible stomach cramps. The stomach virus I had last summer lasted 4 days. Only the nasty part one day, but cramping stomach and a feelign of nausea for the other three.

I was told by my doctor to steer clear of gatorade because the sugar could just aggrevate the cramping.

[Trekhawk]

Bananas are a good food to eat when starting solids again after a stomach bug. A doctor recommended this when my kids had a terrible bout of tummy flu it worked a charm.

Hope you are feeling better soon.

[mary9761]

I had some kind of 24 hour bug a couple days before the superbowl and thought it was my payback for getting into the chips and dip late night before going to bed when it was getting ready for it's first assault. I woke kind of nauseous and refluxy and grabbed a couple tums on the way to the bathroom. Well, needless to say I spent the rest of the day between bed and bathroom. I felt like I'd been beaten and didn't actually get a fever until late in the day when I started to feel somewhat better. I survived the day on room temp sips of lemon lime soda and then later on crackers and soda.
I thought I can't be sick for the SUPERBOWL!! I'd bought saurkraut and brats to make. Thankfully I fellt better by then.
The sickest I've ever been was 10 years or so ago when I had Salmonella!! NOT FUN! It started with a terrible headache and I thought I was having one of my worst migraines when I went to the ER because my meds weren't helping. While waiting to be seen at the ER, I needed to go to the bathroom and waiting outside the public restroom door, collapsed (passed out for a few minutes) and came to in the observation room, (way to get taken straight back and no more wait) I was in and out of consciousness due to phenegran etc and hooked up to IV. I found out a few weeks later that it was Salmonella and then they start asking where did you eat/what did you eat etc WEEKS later you're supposed to remember??
I don't EVER want to be THAT sick again and don't envy anyone who is.
Good luck

[Grog]

I'm so sorry Mr. Silver (and for Silver too!!), I hope you're okay and travelling as planned. Just keep washing your hands and hydrating, okay?

And, by the way, antibiotics can't do a thing against the norovirus because, well, it's a virus. Antibiotics target bacteria. I'll be very careful not to catch it this year, it ruined part of my trip to Belgium last year!!

[donnambr]

The worst thing about norovirus is that it mutates so fast, you can catch it multiple times a year, so long as it's making the rounds.

[Mr. Bloom]

The worst thing about norovirus is that it mutates so fast, you can catch it multiple times a year, so long as it's making the rounds.

...and that's encouraging?????

[bikerchick68]

I have the whole list of food borne illnesses at my office... and what symptoms they have as well as time tables... did you know that there are several food borne illnesses that "incubate"? You may not display symptoms for a long time! Weird huh?

But, most foodborne stuff happens anywhere from 2-6 hours after eating the contaminated object... and the only way to ascertain for sure that it's food borne illness is to 1) have your stomach pumped (I think your body took care of that for you already!) or 2) have a stool sample taken (again, taken care of). Foodborne illness almost always passes in a matter of 24 hours... as soon as all the bad stuff is... expelled... you begin to recover.

Based on my knowledge of this topic, yep, you got a nasty case of the flu... sorry and hope the crackers and propel have you feeling well soon!

[Mr. Bloom]

I woke up feeling really good this morning. I'm packing for Phoenix and leaving for the airport soon. I had a normal breakfast and a power bar a few minutes ago.

I'm convinced that it was food poisoning. Here's why:

• - initial onset 6 hours after my last meal
  - I had no nausea, just a feeling that something in me needed to get out (I know that's weird, but that's the only way I can describe it)
  - within twelve hours of initial symptoms, no more 'incidents' just weakness from the experience and shakiness from whatever toxins I had ingested.

But, either way, I'm back to normal (as normal as I'm capable of being ) and as Young Frankenstein would say "I AM ALIVE"

[xeney]

I'm glad you're feeling better. I just went through this myself, after a trip to Mexico (but I got sick on the airplane on the way home, I was fine in Mexico), and I had read up on the issue and talked to my doctor before we left because I'm pregnant and I needed to know what foods to avoid, as well as which kinds of illnesses were going to require a doctor's visit, and which would just require adequate hydration. (I get sick every time I go to Mexico, no matter how careful I am, so I was probably a little paranoid.)

Anyway, what I found is that while there are lots of different food-borne illnesses you can pick up, and some of them are very serious, what you actually get is almost always norovirus. And most "stomach flu" episodes are also norovirus. And so are most cases of "Montezuma's revenge" or traveler's diarrhea or whatever. The vast majority of the time, norovirus is the culprit, whether you get it from your significant other or from a food worker who didn't wash his hands. So whether it's food poisoning or flu isn't really a question, because they are the same thing.

And hoo boy, did I get it. I'm still down eight or nine pounds from my pre-pregnancy weight, and I'm 15 weeks along. (Some of that was morning sickness, but mostly it was the stomach bug.) Fortunately the baby is fine, but two weeks later I'm still not quite myself.

[Meaux]

for either one, take imodium for diarrhea if it continues too long.

DH got bacterial gastroenteritis (basically the WORST food poisoning I have ever seen in my life, he was vomiting and passing blood every hour, yikes!!) last Memorial Day weekend. The ER doctor told him NOT to take Imodium because it would plug him up and keep him from passing the virus out. Not necessarily a pleasant thing to have diarrhea without end, but I could see the guy's point. So beware.

[light_sabe_r]

yikes poor mr Silver (and the rest of you suffering from bouts of the stomach flu)

The last time I had the stomach flu was in 2004. there was a nasty one floating around brisbane. I'd just quit my job as a Medical secretary to begin my job as a researcher.

WELL I got a lovely present of a COLD from the patients I saw on the last day.

I had also booked to go to sydney that weekend. I sinus headaches coming into land in Sydney and felt like I was going to faint the entire way to the hotel.

The next day I had breakfast... thengot on the manly ferry. I don't USUALLY get sea sick.

Mum was worried. i was knocked for six totally and even walked around manly harbour with the fly of my jeans open because my stomach hurt so much.

We were visiting my Aunt when it hit me like a freight train. i was vomitting for an hour in the waiting room of the doctors surgery. I got one of those anti-vomitting injections. I couldn't walk and my parents carried to my aunt's car to take me home from the surgery.

Even though I could barely walk I still forced myself to see the Lion King that night. and fly home two days later... same sinus headache. Worst Holiday ever.

The White and pasty look is not so good when starting a new job either.

[Mr. Bloom]

When I see some of these other stories, I'm counting my blessings. Although it was miserable while it lasted, for me, it was still brief.

I do feel immuno-compromised right now. Feel a sty coming on in my eye (this never happens to me), skin seems very unhealthy (not to mention pale), and weak. Plus, I'm time-zone challenged right now!

I wonder, will a detox at the hotel spa help?