Food poisoning going around?

Had something really nasty on Thursday evening/Friday. Went to the quack first thing on Friday morning who sent me to the emergency room at the hospital. One of the worst things I have ever had, gave me the urge to make a number 2 every 20 minutes or so, not good when there is nothing left inside to come out. No other symptoms of food poisoning though. Belly still not 100% and backside as sore as anything. Doc couldn’t find anything overly wrong so said bad case of gastro.

If you eat food contaminated with staph toxin, you can get nausea and vomiting in about one hour. You don’t get ‘gastro’ per se, just really unwell, really fast.

So many people blame food – without any knowledge of food epidemiology – it is oftentimes community acquired. Common gastro is usually not from food, but passed through the air by carriers. Food poisoning has many different symptoms depending on the pathogen that caused the poisoning. It takes at least – I want to repeat this – at least six hours to take effect, but can take up to 6 weeks. Therefore it is seldom if ever the last meal that you ate that made you sick.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence, the Christmas silly season is definitely here in full force and people just aren’t on the ball. Yesterday, my coffee from a usual place was awful, very rare for them to make sub par coffee much less totally bad coffee. Today, my sub was incinerated, the chicken having all the tenderness of kevlar.

At both places, the staff were noticeably… laid back shall we say. Indeed at the coffee shop, two of the staff were doing a piggy back ride, not really professional during business hours.

A mix of people not thinking straight and the higher than normal demand on staff on hospitality before Christmas is a dangerous combination.

Lots of viral gastro around at the mo. 10/22 of young Miss Pott’s class were away with it 10 days ago, and it has marched through the rest of the Potts family since then; at home today. As noted above, though, it does wonders for the Xmas weight control.

And I’m not sure if food poisoning ‘goes around’…

matt31221 said :

It is marketed as a flatulence stopper because it does that too.

Why on earth would you want to stop flatulence?

I suffered this last Friday night after eating the chicken in mushroom sauce at a friends dinner party. I was like Mt Vesuvius. However after being strapped to the dunny for three days my old jeans now fit , so it was worth it … maybe.

matt31221 said :

Food poisoning sucks. I would like to share a remedy that I have tested many times for when contracting gastro food poisoning…

You need to eat at some better places!

Food poisoning sucks. I would like to share a remedy that I have tested many times for when contracting gastro food poisoning. Activated Charcoal tablets from the chemist marketed as gas-eaze or some name like that. Wolf down some medical charcoal tablets and depending on the kind of food poisoning you may be better within a few short hours. The dosage is up to your discretion but I had a few after making sure it was safe on the net.

Activated medical charcoal is used by hospitals for standard poisoning. The charcoal absorbs the poison and a lot of other things too. That is why if you are on normal medication, if you take charcoal with it, it may absorb and negate the effects of your medication.

The idea is, all the poisonous crap in your stomach that your body is desperately trying to expel, may be absorbed by the charcoal, including perhaps some toxins from bacteria. Give it a try, it worked for me when I got salmonella from Chicken in Sydney two years ago. Oh yeah it has to be the medical stuff you buy at the chemist for about 8 bucks a bottle. It is marketed as a flatulence stopper because it does that too.

Some links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activated_charcoal#Medical_applications
(Look under Medical applications)

http://www.earthclinic.com/Remedies/charcoal.html

I’m a bit embarrassed to say this but any possible bugs in my tummy are probably being eliminated by the regular treatment with alcohol.

But remember, mates don’t let mates drive drunk.

buzz819 said :

But how good is losing 5 or so kg’s the week before Christmas?

Really got me ready for Christmas lunch!

I thought the shirt was a bit looser this morning. Dammit, I’ll take that lose as a win

No headache or fever. Very tired (slept a stupid number of hours) and nauseous.

But how good is losing 5 or so kg’s the week before Christmas?

Really got me ready for Christmas lunch!

I have been sick since Friday morning; really, disgustingly sick. The last thing I ate was a piece of bread on Saturday, when I thought I might be improving, and that was a big mistake.

Other family members have got it now as well. As they do not necessarily eat the same as me, I favour the ‘bug’ theory. Can’t just be chicken as I’m vegetarian. If all these people are sick after eating at different places, a bug seems more likely, logically. I wonder if it’s centred in a particular area?

Or perhaps it passes through computers. (Feeble, sick joke.)

Yeah I think I had a good bout of it at the start of last week, still getting over it. No headache or fever though….

Might I suggest, with no medical training whatsoever, that it is a bug borne through contact or proximity?

+1
Yes had a rather nasty viral gastro bug earlier this year and a few at work had the same thing. Difference between viral and food sourced is with viral you generally get headaches, fevers etc as well.
Hope it doesn’t last too long!

I was out with a gastro distraction on Thursday/Friday, and know a few others that copped it on Friday or over the weekend. A quick straw poll couldn’t show a common food-based point of origin.

Might I suggest, with no medical training whatsoever, that it is a bug borne through contact or proximity?

How do you know it was contracted on Friday? The incubation period is from an hour to several weeks — if you were all eating the same freegan curry out of a garbage bin on Thursday, you shouldn’t rule it out…

yep, I had it a 2 weeks ago after picking up dinner at a certain supermarket in Chisholm. it was so bad I had to go and visit the lovely nurses at the Walk-In Centre and get a shot in the butt to stop the vomiting

Miss ThatGuy was at a bar that rhymes with ‘bellows’ recently. Apparently undercooked chicken led to a few being re-acquainted with the water closet.