Yipes! I've got food poisoning!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

{disclaimer; I am not asking about medical advice for treating it, I will instead wonder how I got it}

I have been ‘crampy’ and generally uncomfortable for a few days and was chalking it up to stress and the crappy winter weather here, (and maybe a little hinky gall bladder issues I experience as I get older). It hit me this morning (I woke up feeling a lot better) that I have had yet another bout of food poisoning.

(in spite of feeling better, I have the ‘classic’ thrashing intestine sensation today, for me, that confirms what is wrong)
I have been thinking about what I have eaten over the last week and am drawing a blank over what might have done it.

some possibilities:

vanilla beans? I made some pudding and used vanilla bean scrapings to flavor it. I may have licked the knife I used to scrape the bean. The cooked pudding caused no problems for anyone else who ate it. I have never heard of anyone getting food poisoning from a vanilla bean.
deli slicer:

got one for Christmas, and I love slicing sausage and cheese with it. Did I overlook something when cleaning it? Weird I am the only one to get sick, and, if the problem was meat and/or cheese residue, why did no one else get sick?
water cooler:

I volunteer at a visitor center, and drink from the water cooler. I used a fresh paper cup, and no one else, (again) got sick.
This is really annoying, I seem to get food poisoning once a year (I have had the nasty undercooked hamburger E coli twice, and both of those occurrences, I knew precisely what meal had done it.) These random bouts where I never find out what did it are annoying because I don’t figure out how to prevent a re-occurrence.
Any other fellow sufferers out there? Any insight as to what I am doing wrong?

2

Deli slicer seems the most likely candidate. Wipe it down with bleach after use.

3

Of the things you listed, the deli slicer is the most likely. But it is still odd that no one else got ill.

Out of curiosity, why do you think it’s food poisoning, specifically, instead of a viral infection or IBS or Celiac’s or some other chronic gut thing?

4

Have you had any restaurant foods lately?

The two times I’ve definitely had food poisoning were both related to restaurant meatballs - once from a Subway in North Carolina which was “fun”… had a meatball sub Sunday night, woke up extra early Monday feeling queasy… before terribly long I had it “north and south”, luckily not at the same time… death seemed like a fair alternative at one point. The second time was from a pizza restaurant in NYC. Next day I started having the “cramping, run to the bathroom NOW” symptoms which were quite painful and lasted over a week, until I went to a gastroenterologist and got antibiotics. Even Imodium wouldn’t help that round - at best it slowed things down a bit.

Another time, was after some food-court “mexican” food - I just felt nauseous and achy the entire next day. Never had actual trots or vomiting, just felt miserable for 24 hours. So I can’t say for sure that it was food poisoning but the timing was suspicious.

5

I have gall bladder issues, and display the classic deep breath catch when that is the problem. That was not the case this occasion.

I experience general malaise, constipation, and then the sensation of my intestines trying to flee my person (this is rather unpleasant, btw). When the constipation resolves itself (don’t we love the phrasing things delicately?LOL) I get the familiar sense of relief that I have survived another bout of food poisoning

It occurs to me, when finished using the slicer last time, I ate some of the grunge that accumulated around the blade. If there was some of that stuff there from a prior use, and I didn’t notice, that might be why I got sick and no one else did.

I will sanitize the heck out of that thing!

And I relieved it is not the vanilla beans, I lurv cooking with them.

6

Random thought, really unrelated to the original posting:

What would happen if you took Imodium…

…while doing a colonoscopy prep?

Would your stomach explode out of your belly button? :D.

7

Yeah, I have already figured out Imodium is not a good thing to take for this.

I had the nasty E coli from a restaurant meal. That was a near death experience, I jaundiced, had bloody poo, and could not walk for a couple days. Took about 3 weeks to fully recover. Generally my ‘unknown caused’ food poisoning comes on slowly, I don’t feel like I am dying, and I always get the ‘thrashing’ intestine thing. And constipation too. (my family medical history is replete with bizarro symptomology).

And almost always, I am the only one in the household to get it. I have my suspicions I may be rather more susceptible to it than average.

8

LOL! I really appreciate the humor when I am ailing.

:smiley: