I was on my way home Monday night from work, on the subway, when I started to feel flushed. My stomach was a little upset and my vision a little blurry.
WARNING: Gross part coming up
I got home and made some chicken soup. Within 10 minutes, I was on my knees in front of the toilet puking my guts out. Then I had SEVERE diarrhea. Then I had vomiting and diarrhea at the same time! I thought I was going to die.
This continued for the next 12 hours. After 24 hours, I was weak, but feeling normal. I haven’t eaten anything since Monday at noon - more than 40 hours. I can’t bring myself to even think about food at this point.
My doctor told me this was a virus that was going around. I hope none of you get it, but I thought I’d warn you about it. I haven’t been this ill in years - what’s your “sickest” story?
Good trick for nausea: 2 tablespoons of coca-cola syrup (available at most pharmacies) over chopped ice. Keeps you hydrated, and helps the nausea. Trick is chopping the ice when you’re so sick you can’t stand up.
“Blast radius” - LOL, Alph. BTW, I don’t think you can call me “kid” since I’m two years older than you.
Phouka - thanks, I feel better, but never want to live through that again. When did you start eating again?
Eve - thanks, I was trying to drink a measured teaspoon of plain water and was unable to keep that down. Now I’m drinking flat Coke over ice, it’s working. I wish I could go home - but then I’d probably have to come in this weekend.
You guys are great for caring, thanks. But I wasn’t garnering sympathy - I wanted your own stories of sickness.
Melanie, please go see a doctor about this if you haven’t already. My father’s girlfriend died about 3 weeks ago from complications of something that sounds very similar to what you have. She refused to seek medical help until it was too late.
It swept through my household in February too. Everybody was out of commission, except me.
I got my workout playing nurse maid and janitor, and never got anything worse than a feeling of acid stomach.
I guess the next one to make the rounds will put me on my back in a very karma-like fashion.
–Kalél Common ¢ for all ages…
“Well, there was that thing with the Cheese-Wiz…but I’m feeling much better now!” – John Astin, Night Court
“If ignorance is bliss, you must be orgasmic.”
I had a flu fall before last that absolutely kicked my butt. Started feeling woozy on a Friday at work and finally decided to go see the doc. When I stepped outside the building I felt nice and cool in the slight breeze. Problem was it was 107° out. I got in my truck which had been sitting in the sun all day and though didn’t turn the A/C on I didn’t break a sweat driving to the doc. That ain’t right.
Saw the doc. Doc told me I was sick. :rolleyes: He’s paranoid about me getting bacterial pneumonia because of slight asthma so he gave me a scrip for antibiotics even though he knew it wouldn’t do anything for the flu.
[gross stuff]I stocked up on junk at the drugstore and picked up two gallons of gatorade to pre-empt dehydration. Glad I did because Montezuma’s revenge kicked in big time. Fluids ran through me like an open pipe. I’d drink a quart and it would be out of my body in a matter of minutes. [/gross stuff]I spent the weekend like that and managed to feel semi human enough to go back to work on Monday.
Unclebeer, I called my doctor - he’s this very stogy Harvard Medical old-school guy who talks like Ben Stein. He didn’t seem alarmed - he told me that it was going around and that if I didn’t improve within 24 hours to go to the Emergency Room. I’m ok now and very much alive, but thanks for your concern!
SF: I had something simular last week. No vomiting, but plenty of trips to the bathroom, with about 5 seconds warning. I had a fever most of the night, that finally broke in the morning. The next day, I called in from work. I felt like Neil Peart had played a two hour drum solo on me.
I had an “un-determined” virus last August. I was out of work for two weeks. It started out with a very weird rash that covered my entire body. That lasted for several days. Then I got really congested and my throat swelled up so bad I could barely eat. Then my stomach started cramping up and I threw up what little I was able to get down. It was total hell the entire time. I could hardly stand up I was so weak. The doctors ran every test they could think of. Then they ran them again just to make sure they didn’t mess up the first time. Because of the strange rash, they even tested me for a wide variety of STD’s, just to make sure it wasn’t something like that. After about two weeks I started to feel better, and was back to normal a few days after that. They never did figure out what it was. Sure kicked my ass, though.
Do try to take it easy, Sax. You’ll probably feel like new again in a day or two. If not, though, do see a doctor. It’s better to be a pest to your doctor and find out you’re fine, than to not see anybody and wind up really sick later on. Hope you feel better.
That sounds more like food poisoning. It’s short lived & you lose it at both ends. I have been poisoned twice in my life, once from a 7-11 italian cold cut, and the 2nd time from some bad KFC.
I felt pretty confident calling it food poisoning for all of the reasons you mentioned- it came on within a couple hours after eating, cleaned me out but good fore & aft and my system refused to hold anything down until it was done purging itself.
I’m no doc, but wouldn’t a virus hang around longer than two or three days? IIRC, the symptoms of food poisoning are over fairly quickly because (with the exception of food-borne hep-A) it’s mainly confined to your alimentary canal, and as soon as your body has purged everything it possibly can, you begin to feel better.
I had pneumonia and was down for 2 weeks at Christmas. Threw up everything (including water) I tried to ingest. Prayed for death.
That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
I was in India in late November and my family decided to go to Jammu (Northern border of India) to do the Vaisno Devi pilgrimage which is basically a 13 km hike up a mountain. We went on a train overnight and I was on a top bunk with an air-conditioning vent pointed right at my face. It didn’t bother me much, but I think it really contributed to my later sickness. The next day when I woke up I had a monster headache and I felt odd. A few hours later my vision was blurred and I needed someone to help me walk or else I’d fall on my ass. I was constantly sleepy. It was like some weird sleeping-sickness. I could eat fine, but I didn’t really want to. I saw a doctor and I think he said I had an “infection” but I couldn’t really understand anything being said. He gave me some medicine. The next day I couldn’t climb the mountain to make the pilgrimage so I had to be carried up in a palenquin that looked nothing like the one in that pic. I started out the pilgrimmage by throwing up at the base of the mountain. At the time I wondered if it was blasphemous.
Overnight I did get better and I was able to walk back down on foot.
Then when I got back to St. Louis I found out I had developed a blood clot in my left leg.
opus, I think you can be knocked out by an intestinal/stomach bug for just a few days. My most recent experience sure wasn’t related to bad food.
Last year, my nephew picked up one of many bugs from his fellow day care playmates that left him listless, unable to keep food down, and with a monstrous case of diarrhea (not unlike what SaxFace described). My parents babysat him while he was home sick, and within two days my father, and then my mother got sick with the same thing.
A couple days later they started to feel better… but guess who got sick next? I was fine until I had a bowl of cereal for breakfast, then promptly vomited and spent most of the next day and a half alternating between sleep and rushing to the bathroom as fast as I could to deal with the runs. Nothing tasted right, everything made me naseous. But on the morning of day three, I woke up really thirsty, and not a little hungry. I couldn’t handle a full meal, but did get some toast down & kept it down. By the end of the day, I felt pretty much back to normal.
BTW, I was told that, if nothing else, one should try to drink lots of fluids with added electrolytes in them (like certain sports drinks) when suffering from intense diarrhea - plain liquids (tea, soda, water) aren’t enough. WARNING: the stuff they recommend for kids (Pedia-Lyte) tastes absolutely disgusting, so go for the sports stuff, if you can.
