This morning I felt fine. Great even. Came home around noon and made lunch but never got around to eating it ... by 12:30 I was hugging the toilet and every 40 minutes since then. I doubt its food poisoning since I didn't have breakfast and had a late lunch yesterday so no dinner. Normally I'd call home and my mom but she's not answering. Being self employeed my health insurance is a $1,000 deductable and ideally I'd like to avoid going to the doctors ... but will in a few days if necessary - any idea what it could be? Any idea what to do?

Rest and drink lots of water, call us back when have symptoms you know how to describe. Repeated vomiting might be an infection but that's way too little information.

Sounds like Norwalk virus to me. Food poisoning like symptoms, usually lasts for 48 hours, then makes you feel like crap for a few days afterwards. Doc's can't really do anything, other than IV you some fluids if you're severely dehydrated.

Best thing you can do is literally tablespoon yourself some water, once every 5 minutes. You'll still toss some up, but you're more likely to keep most of it down in small doses.

Gravol helps if you can keep it down. The first 8 to 12 hours are the worst, but be prepared to feel like crap for days.

If you think you can handle it too, try getting a little gatorade to go with the water if you can handle it, if not saltine crackers usually work well too and tend to not upset your stomach too bad. The important thing to remember is not only are you losing lots of fluid every time you make your offering to the porcelin gods, but electrolytes as well. Just don't over do it on the gatorade like 1:4 ratio of gatorade to water is usually more than adequate.

You're pregnant!

On a serious note seems like a flu/virus. It should pass fast.

Go to the Dr. Let me tell ya a little story about me and holding off seeing a doctor.

At the end of 2005 I started to feel weird pains in my stomach. I let it go for a week then it got worse and worse. One night at about 2 am I woke from a sleep feeling like someone stabbed me. The pain was very bad yet i waited 3 days to finaly see a doctor.

An hour after seeing my doctor I was told to get to the emergancy room quick. Turned out my intestines got infected maybe from a piece of bone or glass from a beer bottle or something and burst. That was the feeling I had in the middle of the night. Turns out they had to cut a bunch of my intestines out and I nearly died from the shit that was floating into my system through my burst intestine. I wore a colostomy bag for a year which means I shit from a hole under my ribcage that went into a bag. Two major operations and over 30 days in the hospital total I am back to working full time and back to working out 5 days a week with weights . I will never to able to lift like a powerlifter again and I worked out like that was since I was 14.

Its not all bad Ive finaly put the bar hoping and drug taking to rest and live a semi normal life.


The moral of the story is sometimes its good to see a doctor when your sick especially as you get older. I wouldnt have needed the surgerys if I went right in.

You got something at the bath house.

Haha. Basically all of my muscles ache, I'm freezing or sweating, and fluid is coming out every way possible. I just got a roommate to get me gatorade ... i mean if it can send them to the Final Four its gotta be good right? We'll see if its the norwalk thinger, if not I'll go to a doctor in 2 days.

Sounds like the crap my wife went around with for about two weeks... the toilet hugging stopped after the first day or so, but the general crappy feeling persisted for almost two weeks. If the vomiting continues or if you get to feeling worse, go see a doctor... and I second the advice on the water and Gatorade... stay hydrated and try to keep the electrolytes in your system.

If its the Norwalk virus or whatever it would be good to find out because it is HIGHLY contaigous and everyone around you will be infected most likely. Be sure to practice good sanitation habits wash hands alot etc. Hand sanitizer good to have around at least for others around you.

Good old Imodium AD usually helps for the liquid coming out the other end as well. If it goes more than 72 hours, get to the Doctors office.

Sounds like a virus. I lost 8lbs in one night puking.

Take fluids as you can.... if it gets to bad go get some IV fluids in the ER.

Sit right down and you'll hear a tale....

This happened to me about 2 days before Christmas this year.

Norwalk hit and it was coming out both ends every 20 minutes for about 6 - 8 hours for me. I was dehydrated within 1 hour.

My doctor later told me to flatten some gingerale and take a tablespoon of it once an hour. Anything you put down for the first 6 hours is not going to stay down, especially water.

After the first 8-12 hours I essentially went into recovery mode but was getting very bad muscles aches all over my body. I had one muscle ache in my back for about 6 hours that was very painful.

So, I got through Christmas and dinner but was still pretty wiped. The next day my wife and I drove to her parents about 2 hours away. The muscles under my ribs really started to hurt. We got in to her parents and I passed out for an hour, got up and felt a bit better. We opened some presents and had dinner.

Right after I finished dinner the real fun started.

I started to feel really horrible again. I jumped in the shower and it was like all the muscles in my upper body were seizing up. I laid down in the bed and started an hour of pure agony. If I laid on my back it felt like someone was ripping the muscles off my chest. If I flipped over on my chest it subsided a bit but then it felt like someone was doing the same to my back muscles. The pain went into my arms, up my neck and into my jaw as well.

After about an hour I found a fetal position that I could cope with.

Finally we decided to make the 3 minute trip up to the local hospital and get checked out. I was in no way looking forward to a repeat of this.

As we drove to the hospital and got into the emergency room I was feeling better and better. So Murphy's law kicked in and by the time I was on the bed in emergency all the pain was gone, I was awake and alert.

They took a blood test and did two EKGs on me. At one point they put an oxygen mask on me... ok why do I need oxygen? The intern comes back after about 15 minutes and says, "I don't mean to freak you out"... which I reply..."Your scaring the shit out of me". She goes on to tell me that they have some weird readings on the tests and they think I have had a heart attack! What !?

They cart me up to the special care unit, pump me full of clot busters and sedatives and watch me like a hawk for the night. A day later they carted me off to a larger medical center for an Angiogram where they stick a probe up one of your leg arteries into your heart and let some dye go so they can find any blockages. The doctor told me that there was no damage to my heart and that there were no arteries with build up. The whole time I was undergoing the procedure I was in awe of the technology in the room, but that is another story.

So they send me back to the local hospital for a day and finally release me with a prescription for heart attack pills.

We drove back home on Jan 2nd and the next day I had an echo-cardiogram (an ultrasound for the heart). Again I passed with flying colors.

I finally saw my doctor and she got me an appointment with one of the best Cardiologists here in Ottawa at the Heart Institute.

The data was piling up and all of the specialists that had examined me speculated that I did not have a heart attack. We just needed the Cardiologist to confirm their speculations.

Finally late in February I got in to see the Cardiologist. They did a EKG and he gave me the once over and spent some time reviewing all of my documentation.

He came back and told me I did not have a heart attack, very definitively I did not.

The Norwalk virus I had at Christmas knocked my immune system out and made me vulnerable to other viruses. The virus that got past my immune system was inflaming up my muscles, and not just my external muscles, it was inflaming up my internal muscles.

Just so happens we all have a large muscle that surrounds the heart. This muscle got inflamed and swelled up putting pressure on my heart which caused the confusing readings when I went into the hospital the first time.

So don't mean to scare you but just watch for any other symptoms that may emerge from your Norwalk experience. Norwalk is a very nasty bugger which can really deal your immune system a blow and can let other virus or bacteria through your natural defenses to attack.

As I have told many people, Santa was an asshole to me this year. I hope Christmas 2007 is better ;).


Cheers,

I'd go with the Medics assesment, their pretty good at that stuff.

Woke up at 5 o'clock and noticed my muscles didn't hurt anymore. Downed a bottle of gatorade, ate a popsicle and went back to bed. Slept through until now (1 pm) and feel perfectly fine now ...
What a horrible night though, oomph.

Stop making stuff up for attention.

Would you believe Wein that my editing project is done, but I wasn't able to get out of bed to go buy Vanguard? :( Go buy it for me or I'll get it tomorrow.

Lokase --

Sounds like the same thing I had in 2000; though I was in France and French doctors/hospitals are weird. Turns out I had Pericarditis, they thought I had a heart attack too but after umpteen gazillion tests and getting special permission to fly home and see cardiologists in the states I was told I had contracted an infection in the small envelope like lining around the heart.... it's like a small sac that covers it. This later developed into pleurisy because I was too stubborn to stop our vacation and go to the hospital; instead when I could no longer walk two feet without feeling like I was going to passout my family called for an ambulance in France 4hrs before we were to get on the plane to come home. /sigh The French have a totally bizarre system for medical care but that's another story.

Glad your feeling better Kelraz :)

Doctors suck anyways..... ;)