Gastroenteritis vs. food poisoning. While “stomach flu” isn’t actually influenza, it’s a common name for gastroenteritis, a bacterial or viral infection of the digestive system. It’s distinct from food poisoning. One way that it’s distinct is that it’s often contagious, so if you’re taking precautions against food poisoning but not against contacting sick people (if, to take a purely hypothetical example, you’re catching the vomit of a sick child in your hand at 1 in the morning), you still might catch the stomach bug.
According to that link, muscle aches are more commonly associated with gastroenteritis, which matches my squeezed eclair syndrome.
I guess I had one a few years ago; really, really vile smelling, clearish - like the color of nearly clear pee and slimy feeling poo and clearish vomit. Never experienced anything like that before. It was like something you could have used to exterminate Nazis with. Thought my body must have been fighting something really nasty.
The only other time I remember a stomach bug - non vomiting, was when I was three or maybe four.
No question, the worst alternative is simultaneous.
For some reason, though, puking now is really painful, and occasionally I tear my throat slightly and end up bleeding when I throw up–I can’t figure out how not to tense all my muscles in the moment. (First time I bled it scared the crap out of me, drove me straight to the computer, where I learned it wasn’t life-threatening). I’ll take the other end any day.
I think I started reading this thread yesterday, and now felt able to post, but after some of these replies I’m feeling a little urkey again…
The last few days this house has looked like a war zone. Puked-in trash cans. Messed-on sheets. Medications spread across the bathroom counter—Use As Needed.
I guess it was a bug, I don’t know what kind but it laid the four of us out one by one. I’ll talk about me but I want the record to show it started with my husband.
I think I vomited 15 times before I finally took some Kaopectate. I lost count because I finally fell asleep, would wake up and puke, and fall back to sleep again. The box said not good to take with blood thinners but since I couldn’t keep them down I figured not a problem and I had to do something. Took two tries to keep the initial dose down. I think this was in the second day. It slowed the barfing down.
Then the diarrhea started. Ordinarily I wouldn’t describe that, as we’ve all been there and know the rush to the toilet. But this had no warning and apparently needed no provocation. Skid marks became slides and dirty p.j’s became stripping the beds. As each of us felt able to help the others we had, but lines were quickly drawn between puke and shit and who it came out of.
You do learn who your friends are.
During this time came the abdominal cramps. The third heating pad I tried worked (thankfully not the catcher-sized chair one; now I know which ones to throw out. With two grown sons we have a variety of crutches and bandages and splints. In our house it wouldn’t be unusual to hear Dang! If you’d only sprung the left one…) And, this was the time of the chicken.
My older son felt well enough to cook. Roasted chicken. Nice, but the thought of roasted chicken sent my head into another trash can. If I had to eat chicken it had to be fried. He needed to cut that fat sucker (a bone-in breast) in half but he couldn’t understand my instructions of feeling for the natural separation, tearing it apart, and cooking the pieces in floured salty grease. Or so he said. (The thought of it might have been making him sick but this isn’t his story.) So after everybody else ate I stood at the stove bent double with cramps cooking my own damn chicken, which I didn’t even want anyway.
It took me two days to eat it.
I think it’s Saturday now. I started writing this on Friday, the first day I felt like myself again after this bug hit our house. I have a burn on my stomach from the heating pad and loads of laundry to do. Resentments are receding and relationships will heal. I think I’ll feel better as soon as somebody buys more toilet paper.
I get them every year or two. I rarely get any other kind of illness - no bronchitis, sinus, coughs, regular flu, etc. It’s basically stomach or nothing. Whenever I get a fever, it manifests itself as throwing up. In those cases, fever reducers and sleep knocks it out in a day. Then there’s the actual stomach bugs, which entail 3-4 days of misery. Nausea, vomiting, dry heaves, diarrhea, whatever. I guess I’m unusually prone to stomach illnesses. I’m sure some have been related to food, but others are viruses.
Years ago a friend of mine participated in a huge Thanksgiving affair with all of her family. Their were many turkeys, each of the older adult women made one for “their” table. My friend sat at the matriarch’s table and ate her turkey. Everyone at that table became violently ill, with several people hospitalized. The matriarch later told the story about how quickly the “stomach flu” spread among those seated at her table, presumably when they joined hands for grace. She hadn’t a clue and nobody told her.
I don’t know when I last had a virus that caused vomiting or diarrhea.
When I was in grad school I thought I either kept catching something or had developed some sort of digestive problem because every couple of months or so I’d have an attack of vomiting and/or diarrhea. I went to the doctor about it but they couldn’t find anything wrong. These problems disappeared once I graduated. In retrospect, I’m pretty sure it was food poisoning – probably “fried rice syndrome” (caused by bacillus cereus). I frequently got meals that contained rice from food carts and hole-in-the-wall restaurants near campus, although I suspect the main culprit was the Chinese station in the dining hall that offered a special deal if you came in after the lunch rush.
Getting a bug that causes me to vomit/have diarrhea - almost never. I think I’ve vomited twice as an adult for no apparent reason (and one of those times I suspect the weed-killer I was using made me sick). Which is kind of funny, because my IBS makes me nauseated often - I just don’t barf.
Late to the party on this one but I thought I’d revive it with my unique stomach bug experience. From the age of about 15 to present day (I’m 31) I’ve had about 8 full on d/v combination “stomach virues”. The first I remember was at 15 and it wasn’t too severe but enough so that I remember it. The second at 18 was horrible i spent an entire day puking and running back and forth to the bathroom followed by two more days of weakness and lethargy. For whatever reason I went about 8 years and did not get another one. Then a month after my 26 b day I got the worst one I had ever had. I was in Salt Lake City during the 2012-2013 outbreak and got infected. It was just about the most unpleasant thing I had ever experienced in my life. I was so weak and dehydrated for constant vomiting I believed I was going to die. But somehow I survived. Here’s where it gets weird. After going 8 years without one, I would continue to get them every single year once a year up until present day. I got a mild one in January of 2014. A severe one in February of 2015. Another severe one (went to the ER) in April 2016. Another severe one in January of 2017 and a mild one in October of 2017.
What I’ve learned is that these bugs really have no pattern. I’ve been struck in every season except summer and gone years and years without one only to get at least one every year for the past half decade. Granted by 23 I did have a kid and by 28 I had two in school but some of my riskiest eating and most large group socializing took place during the 8 years I was stomach bug free. I do assume that as time goes on you become more immune, that maybe subsequent infections are less severe, but God only knows if that’s true…
Since we’re reviving this thread I’d like to point out that I’ve gotten this bug now once a year, every year, for the past 3 years, around Christmas. 2015, 2016 and 2017.
This coincides with my nieces’ first 3 years of school, FWIW. I was pretty scared the first time I got it all those years ago, but now I know exactly how it works and this last time I didn’t even tell my mom I’d had it until it was over.
I was blindsided at work today. Felt a little achey, no biggie, popped some Tylenol. Around 11am I started sweating bullets so I went outside and basked in 20 degree weather for a while sans coat.
Okay, feeling a bit better, had lunch with co-workers. 30 mins later I’m feeling tummy roils, so I head to parking lot to fetch my emergency car Maalox stash. . . then that “barf is a risin’ swallow hard swallow swallow deep breath” panic set in. I made it to car, ducked behind the trunk, and spewed forth on back tire, bumper, shoes, grass, asphalt, squirrels. Then I drove home, plastic bags handy in case of in transit yakking.
I’ve a low fever and other spurious symptoms that I’m praying don’t evolve into this year’s Flu of Satan. Good news is the barfiness has gone away.
Anyhoo, all to say that I rarely get the barfs so today was a really special day and I thank you for giving me this opportunity to share.
Since this thread got bumped, I wanted to share that I learned that about 20% of people of European decent have been found, due to a gene mutation (FUT2 gene,) to lack a necessary protein in the intestinal mucosa that’s involved in infection. I wouldn’t be surprised if my brother and I have this mutation too - we already have the MC1R gene mutation for certain, so why not others?
Seriously, though, I’ve also learned that little kids are more susceptible to vomiting when ill with anything, so the very few times I do recall throwing up while sick as a young child may well not have been gastroenteritis then, either. Could’ve been mild food poisoning or the flu.
I just wish I was immune to the common cold, since I make up for the lack of stomach bugs by getting bronchitis every time I get a cold…
A “Streak” for me is six weeks without barfing. I can force myself not to, but it does no good. I get sick headaches, or wake up with an acid stomach, and no amount of rest or medicine will avoid the fact. I just stay sick until I let it out.
As for full-on viruses I had one this Autumn, after a trip to New York. This virus caused my friend to break a no-vomit streak that was something like 30 years long. I caught the virus but only got the runs, never barfed. Go figure?
I get about 2 stomach viruses a year,one between Thanksgiving and Christmas and another between February and April. I never get diarrhea,unfortunately,just the throwing up part. I will usually lose some weoght because of not being able to eat and vomiting back up everything I put in my mouth. This past week Ihad my yearly bout. Last Thursday,I threw up all night long and Friday and Saturday couldn’t keep anything down
I spent the weekend miserable with a pail next to my bed. I still feel nauseated and empty,my ribs hurt,and I have red splotched on my face because my vomiting is always forceful and in large amounts. I think it’s easing up. I only threw up twice yesterday after vomiting bile Sunday night.
It’s a good question to which I have no answer. I can’t remember the last time I had the full-on shitting-water, puking-bile type flu bug or whatever, but I could easily identify 20 or 30 instances a year where I just feel shitty and nauseous for a day or two. Is it a bug? Something I ate? A congenital intestinal defect? I don’t know but I don’t generally skip work because of it.
A bug to the point of actually emitting foul substances? Fairly rare. I get the trots occasionally, though being down one gallbladder and also being on some medication that can trigger the trots, it’s hard to tell whether there is actually any kind of virus or whatever at fault.
A couple years ago, I had some food that may have been starting to go off, and the next day felt queasy and a bit achy, but did not actually throw up or have to run the bathroom. I did once have diarrhea that was proven to be microbial in nature: a full week of severe stomach cramps and running to the toilet every 20 minutes had me going to a doctor. They never identified the culprit, but found some white blood cells in my blood sample, and it improved almost immediately when they put me on antibiotics.
As far as throwing up: nearly unheard of. I recall upchucking a total of three times as a child, all due to some kind of motion sickness. As an adult: precisely twice, both quite memorable. In 1985 (it was a Monday in December), I woke up early one day feeling queasy, and after a while I threw up. A couple hours later what hadn’t gone north started heading south. That was it until this past October, when I brought back more than souvenirs from a trip to New York City: I left my dinner on the train, and whatever was left in my digestive tract started heading south soon as I got home. From the timing, and how quickly everybody else in the house caught it, I strongly suspect it was norovirus.
