What to Do If You Think You Have Food Poisoning
The worst food poisoning I’ve ever had happened a few days after returning from a weekend of vacation with friends. When I finally got out of the bathroom, an email was waiting for me: “Is everything okay? I know we had dinner together a few days ago, so I’m sure that’s not the case, but I just wanted to check.
We never found out which food was to blame, but we all shared only one meal, and after about two days, every adult fell ill with vomiting and diarrhea. This is a classic food poisoning. But sometimes the situation is less clear. How do you know if you have food poisoning and not a common stomach problem, and what to do about it?
Food poisoning is another stomach problem
In truth, there is no medical difference between “food poisoning” and other diarrheal diseases. The same germs that cause food poisoning are also common causes of stomach flu or travelers’ diarrhea .
In all of these cases, some virus or bacteria, or perhaps even a parasite, got into your mouth by faecal-oral route from (sorry) someone’s ass into your mouth . In terms of germs, this is a wonderful way to travel: you get eaten, make a person’s body vomit at one or both ends, and then do your best to stick to surfaces that they or someone else might touch.
Norovirus is a master at this game : in 2009, a passenger vomited on an airplane, and the flight attendant immediately cleaned up the mess. Over the next week, half of the flight attendants who worked on this plane fell ill . In another case, members of the football team ate snacks from sealed bags that were stored in the bathroom with an ailing teammate. Investigators believe that droplets containing the virus settled on the bags and other players got into their hands while eating . Call it food poisoning or stomach sickness – one way or another, they got sick.
Other organisms follow a similar path, but usually not with such ruthless efficiency. Perhaps some faecal bacteria from the farm (say, E. coli ) got into the beef and the meat grinder, and from there spread to several packs of hamburger meat. You leave the meat ready for too long – maybe in the fridge at a picnic that wasn’t as cool as it should be – and bacteria multiply. Then you cook the burger, but not completely, because you rarely like them. Your immune system kills most bacteria, but that’s not enough. The bacteria produce a toxin that will make you sick. Mission completed.
Don’t blame your last meal
If you’ve eaten with friends and all of you have vomiting or diarrhea at the same time, chances are good that something is wrong with that food. But sometimes it is impossible to trace it so accurately, and it is difficult to understand exactly where the culprit came from.
Intuition doesn’t help us track down the source of food poisoning. People who get sick often remember their last meal or two, especially if they were in a bad restaurant. In truth, our biases probably influence where we point the finger. For example, see this unofficial analysis of Yelp reviews, which found ethnic restaurants are more likely to be blamed for food poisoning . Illness can be due to something as simple as a sick worker who has not washed their hands, which explains why restaurants with poor food safety performance are not necessarily more likely to make people sick : not all factors that cause illness are likely are measured by inspection reports.
So, if you can’t always blame your last meal for it, who should you blame? It turns out that there are quite large possibilities, depending on what exactly caused you. Norovirus will live in your body for 1 to 3 days before you develop symptoms; this time is known as the incubation period . Campylobacter , common in poultry, takes 2-5 days. Clostridium perfringens can strike on the same day, within 8-16 hours. E. coli takes up to three days, although more unpleasant forms can last up to a week. Salmonella is another rapid disease that strikes in as little as 6 hours or up to 2 days. In addition, listeria (which is mild in adults, but can cause miscarriage or stillbirth if a pregnant woman falls ill) will cause stomach bug symptoms during the first few days, but show more serious complications after a few weeks. The FDA has a handy chart .
Take care of yourself and get out
To avoid repeating this faecal-oral route, be aware of the germs you are likely to spray your entire bathroom with. If you can isolate yourself from your family or roommates, do so — for example, now would be a good time for your child to spend the night with her grandmother.
In the meantime, wipe off any fluids that have entered your body, wash your hands (and make sure everyone who stays in the house washed their hands if they were near you or with things that you touched), and as soon as you feel good about Use bleach to clean all potentially contaminated surfaces .
One of the common complications of food poisoning is dehydration, so drink water and think of other liquids when you’re ready, such as Gatorade, ginger ale, or soup. Not wanting to eat for a day or two is normal. You might want to revert to light meals with simple, tasteless foods like crackers.
You don’t need to call your doctor if you have vomiting or diarrhea that will go away in a few days, but you should still probably call about anything serious or unusual. sometimes serious complications can develop . According to the Mayo Clinic, symptoms to look out for include :
- Strong pain
- Blood in vomit or stool
- Temperature above 101.5
- Signs of severe dehydration, including extreme weakness or dizziness and inability to urinate
- Any neurological symptoms such as blurred vision, tingling, or muscle weakness.
Treatment will most likely be with fluids given intravenously to combat dehydration, and if your food poisoning is due to a bacterial source, you may be prescribed antibiotics. It is very important to seek help if you are at high risk of complications. This includes pregnant women (due to, among other things, the risk associated with listeria ), young children (who are more prone to kidney damage from E. coli ), or all older adults or people with a medical condition that weakens their immune system.
Should I report this?
If you end up hospitalized with suspected food poisoning, your provider will likely report the case to your local health department, where investigators can collect reports to find out if a particular restaurant or store was the source of the outbreak. But what if you just vomit on your own? I asked Stephen Morse , professor of epidemiology at Columbia University:
I think it’s a good idea to contact your local health department, especially if you think others may have been infected as well. If it was a party, picnic or similar event, the affected people may well be talking to each other and may know if more than one person in the group is sick. These investigations are common in large health departments and are usually one-off events (such as tainted potato salad), but health departments often want to know about them just in case they are part of a larger problem (such as Salmonella in a commercial batch). More importantly, if you think it was from a restaurant, this should definitely be checked with the health department. Health departments are generally very careful and cautious about restaurant investigations, but they want to know because this could mean more cases are expected and (depending on the source) may be able to prevent future cases.
It has a list of health departments by state , but it’s best to start with your city or county health department (Google it). In some cases, people find it difficult to communicate their illness because the health department is awaiting reports from hospitals and laboratories. It is worth looking upstairs, though; many departments encourage people to make reports, especially if you can trace your illness back to a specific restaurant.
If you think you are ill from a packaged product, check the FDA’s recall and warning lists and consider reporting the product if it is not already on the list. The agency is moving at an icy pace – yesterday they remembered a bad batch of frozen vegetables produced a year and a half ago. But still better than nothing.
Prevent it next time
It’s impossible to completely protect yourself from food poisoning, but you can improve your chances by properly preparing and handling food. Spoiled residues may not always taste or smell unpleasant, so there is a rule: “When in doubt, throw them away.” Still Tasty is a good database for figuring out how long something can be left in the fridge. (You might even be pleasantly surprised – some seasonings last for several months.)
Prepare food properly . When working with meat, temperature is a better indicator than color. Store raw meat separately from cooked meat and do not allow anything in the “danger zone” for more than two hours. This is the temperature range between the temperature of the refrigerator and the hot pipe. Fully cooked food kills bacteria and inactivates many bacterial toxins, so it’s a good rule of thumb to make sure food is safe to eat – but if you suspect food has already gone bad, reheating does not guarantee safety. This is because some toxins, such as those from Staphylococcus aureus , can survive cooking. Read about how to handle food properly and stay safe.
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