stomach flu / food poisoning

So I'm not sure if this is food poisoning or not. I've had food poisoning a few times and I know how much it wrecks my guts.

But so far my stomach only ever hurts every now and then and it's in a very specific spot 2 inches above my belly button. I don't ever really feel nauseous but the big D just keeps coming. I assume the headaches, muscle aches, and occasional dizzyness are just side effects from dehydration? I'm going on day 3 now and hoping it disappears by tomorrow.
Do I have swine flu?

No, stomach buster.

HOLY SHIT!!! really, food poisoning!?!? This is ridiculous

Also just realized parents should never from the same place like the pres and vp never flying together?

OH
MY
GOD.

Should have checked the expire date on that damn grilled eel. Urgh.

fuck this shit. went to bed at 8 and woke up at 1:30. still feel tired as balls

dunno what to say only time i had it i had enough diarrhea to feed a village

i had enough diarrhea to feed a village

o_O

uuuugh

had this last week, sucked

Has anyone ever had food poisoning which resolved WITHOUT any barfing or diarrhea?

At 9 this morning I started to get that characteristic agonizing ache in my upper left gut, it escalated to where for about 8 hours I couldn't do ANYTHING but writhe in pain and try in vain to make something happen out of one end or the other. Then about an hour ago the pain abated... now it's just like a slight soreness.

I'd be concerned if theres no diarrhea or vomiting...you might want to see a doctor to make sure its not something more serious?

Funny this thread was revived. I got food poisoning exactly four weeks ago: vomiting, chills, exhaustion, the works. It passed after a couple of days. I think it's returned: no chills, exhaustion, but diarrhea and slight discomfort.

:( no fun at all, you have my sympathies.

Jon, severe abdominal pain for 8 hours is worrisome, could be something serious. Food poisoning basically always triggers vomiting/diarrhea, so I don't think you're safe blaming something you ate.

You should go to the doctor/ER, even if the symptoms have settled down for the moment.

I can ask you a bunch of questions to try to narrow down the possibilities (I'm a doctor), but far better you get checked out properly in person.

I've managed to get an after hours phone call from my Gastroenterologist-- her take was skip the ER unless the pain comes back or fever develops (bcuz unless one of those things is happening they're just gonna make me wait for 7 hrs), and come see her first thing in the a.m.

I have ulcerative colitis and I am starting to suspect this was colitis related, even though the pain was very much food poisoning-esque.

Aha OK you have UC and a gastroenterologist. My work here is done. :)

Makes it that much less likely your pain was from food poisoning though, yeah?

Hope it all settles down for you.

Yeah, we'll see. It's a pain I've only felt before when I've had food poisoning, but the duration and the way it just ~resolved~ seems not right. Called my friend in florida who's my fellow decades-long IBD sufferer, and who has had strictures before, and it sounds like it probably was not a stricture either.

Stupid guts have been trying to do me in since 1985!

could it be severe constipation? after bouts of eating improperly or large quantities of cheese, I had bad abdominal pain that was difficult to resolve on and off in past weeks. resulted in hyperventilation....

hope you feel better soon!

Yeah, actually constipation is the one thing you never have to worry about much with UC/Crohn's (unless you get a stricture).

What did your GI doc say? I would've guessed partial bowel obstruction that resolved when your pain did.

UGH. I had diarrhea 17 times between 6pm and 6am. My backside feels like it had a cheese grater dragged through it. I took 5 showers last night.

take a warm bath and start wiping with baby wipes.

it came on during flip-turns during swim practice, and it was a dicey run to the locker room in my speedo

good thing you didn't shit your speedo in the pool.

right? that would be the most awkward situation ever. and it's not like you could play it off/pretend it wasn't you/hope it got caught in the folds of the fabric

it would be ok if you were a squid.

"Whoops, there goes my ink again!"

i've been through this a lot an all you can do is wait it out

It's not right to be going through this "a lot". I thought it was very suspicious that I'd get (what I thought was) food poisoning 3 or 4 times per year. Did go see my doc about it, but he just threw some IBS pills at me. Ran no tests. Turned out I had Crohn's, with complications developing for years, and needed surgery last year.
Jon, what did your GI doc eventually diagnosis you with?

my dad has crohns, not fun.

Thanks for asking. I already have an Ulcerative Colitis diagnosis (had it since 1985). Had the lion's share of my large int removed in '91 which fixed me up pretty good until a few years ago; now I have active colitis in my remaining large int but not in the small (so my diag is still UC not Crohn's).

My GI doc ultimately did not have a clear answer on what exactly happened 3 weeks ago. She was sure it was not a UC-related stricture or blockage, felt it was something bacterial, but also felt the symptoms were weird for food poisoning. She did a colonoscopy the following week which found nothing unexpected except that my whole lower intestine is more irritated ('friable') than usual. We're gonna try upping my dose of the non-steroidal anti-inflamm I'm on.

My theory is that I had a temporary torsion which unkinked itself when I finally got up and was running around getting ready to go to the ER. Doc was skeptical of that, but it fits the data IMO.

Yeah that sounds reasonable to me. I had a, um, I think it was a fluoroscopy done a couple months ago, and man I never realized your intestines move around and contort as much as they do. Just with breathing or shifting positions.
My stomach flu-like symptoms were due to a stricture, and so the food always had to come back up for me to get any relief.
Are you only on NSAIDs for it?

***TMI ALERT***

In addition to the Pentasa NSAID, I also do a mesalamine rectal suspension (aka an enema that you hold in all night) at bedtime. It does a really good job of keeping inflammation at bay in the lowest zone of my GI. Sometimes if things get dicey I switch from mesalamine to cortisone suspension for a week.

***END TMI ALERT***

Don't know much about UC and how symptoms and treatment differ from Crohn's, so was curious what your regimen is.
No surgery since '91 seems good though, right? I was told that, for Crohn's, those who need one surgery generally need more surgery roughly every 10 yrs. I just really really hope I don't wind up with a colostomy bag ugh.

My inflammatory bowel disease buddy in Florida had the same back story as me except he 'upgraded' to Crohn's in his early 30s. He did end up having to get the complete removal a couple of years ago and has a bag now. Since that's kind of a worst case scenario in my mind as well, it was comforting to talk to him recently and find out that the technology for those things has advanced by leaps and bounds in the last couple of decades-- the whole routine is much less grisly & gross apparently, you can go a week without having to reattach the snap-on thingy, they never leak, it lives in some kind of cloth sleeve so you don't have plastic resting against your skin etc etc.

So I also really really hope it doesn't end up that way for you or I, but I am told it's not the shame horror it once was...

hey Jon, i just started taking Pentasa myself, also have steroidal foam for flareups. do you do anything special dietwise, or is that a crazy rabbithole of second guessing?

That is good to know, Jon. Presumably, it'll be even less unpleasant or rendered obsolete by the time it could possibly be a necessity for you or I.

Re: diet. I only know a few things which FOR CERTAIN fuck me up (chocolate, corn chips, peanuts) but in fall 2008, after having been in the hospital about once per year for super high colitis-induced fevers for about 4 years running, I made the decision to totally give up EVERYTHING which is commonly said to aggravate UC/Crohn's. So for 2 1/2 years I haven't had:

Coffee (but I drink black tea instead)
Anything spicy beyond the tamest of the tame
Chocolate
Anything deep fried or very greasy (this one is super important)
Alcohol
Nuts of any kind
Seeds other than the tiniest kinds
Fresh cheeses (only do the aged ones like cheddar, parmesan. No mozza, no ricotta, etc)
Big payloads of meat (it needs to be a component, not 80% of the dish)
Mollusks and uncooked seafood
Sweetened sodas

...and I feel like I've had decent results insofar as I haven't been to the hospital since and haven't had a really crazy flare (though I still have medium ones).

Also there are some whole categories of cuisines which seem to fuck me up even if they obey all the criteria above-- I just can't eat Mexican food at all, apparently. And BBQ. Williamsburg gluttony culture is now anathema :(

omg see I don't know if I could give up all that, good for you for being able to. There's some extreme Crohn's/IBD diet that I read about online that's no dairy, no sweets, no grains, no carbs. Not much left TO eat! The only thing my doc told me is no sucrose, and I've been pretty good about that. Though I did cave a couple times for pumpkin whoopie pies.

It's not that extreme-- I still got carbs, sharp cheeses, meats, sweets within reason.

The biggest heartbreakers were spicy foods (formerly my religion) and especially coffee. Tea is better than I thought though.

Mexican and other spicy foods would be the hardest for me, too. If it was colostomy bag vs giving up Mexican, hook that bag up.

Well that's my other consolation when I contemplate worst case scenaria: if I end up with a bag on my gut, I can at least go back to drinking 5 cups of coffee a day and eating genuine szechuan.

Wow, that list! Well done on having the willpower to cut all that stuff out. :/

(reading this thread cz my mother has Crohn's and lately I've had some v. minor but recurring stomach troubles which I am 99% sure are not Crohn's but am beginning to worry they may be something else I don't want to have. I def. need to cut out the sweet sodas even if this turns out to be nothing, and that in itself seems like a big deal right now; nuts, chocolate and alcohol too would be a pretty depressing prospect)

Best wishes for all the ILX Crohn's/colitis sufferers.

If your symptoms start getting more frequent and/or more severe, get your doc to run some tests.
I never was a big soda drinker, but since I can't have sucrose but CAN have corn syrup (and honey, agave nectar, etc) I MUST have a Dr Pepper every day. It's become a thing. But watch, I'll find out in a few years that HFCS and maltitol/other sugar replacements are even worse for Crohn's.

they are. this is a good article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html

Hi, Mr. Jon Lewis. Have you considered that your attack last month could have been diverticulitis? It fits your description of the pain, and I've been through it before.

You can have both UC and Diverticulosis at the same time. I've been through a couple of similar episodes over the years. Toughed it out once, and hospitalized on IV antibiotics another.

On the nicer end of the disease scale, I eat a normal diet and only have to take asacol pills for UC. No complications or steroids.

On the other hand, I re-read that you had a current colonoscopy. That should have shown up, but I've had it missed over the years.

I suppose if it were diverticulitis it's really high up (given the location of my pain that day) and hence maybe beyond the point she reached with the camera scope. I suspect I am already avoiding the things one avoids for diverticula food-wise.

There's quite the IBD posse on ILX! (IBS posers stay out!)

i've had an ongoing stomach bug this past week but i'm also craving spicy thai food. i think the thai food is going to win.

also: if i only have acid reflux, am i too much of a poser for this thread?

In Vietnam. Shaking like a leaf, weak as can be.

Oh no, R! Have been enjoying ur trip pics on IG. Feel better!!!