Aidan, Joshua and I got food poisoning (we suspect) last Sunday. We are recovering from it and I would like to share with you some facts and strategies on how to deal with it. When we visited the Makati Medical Center Emergency Room, I think most of the complaints that night were about upset stomachs or cases of food poisoning. I believe we got the same treatment, advice and prescription.
To save you from P630 Emergency Room Fee and P400 Doctor’s Professional Fee, I would like to share with you some Tips on How to Recover from Food Poisoning:
1. The main symptoms of food poisoning would be loose or watery bowel movement, fever, vomiting, and abdominal pain.
We experienced all of the symptoms but not at the same time. Aidan was the first to vomit, then me and, lastly, syoti Joshua who just vomited last night. All of us had frequent loose bowel movement within the day and we complained about abdominal pains. I refer to it as naghihilab ang tiyan, Aidan calls it “ouchy stomach”, and Syoti Joshua just cries about it.
2. There is no specific medicine to treat viral infection-causing diarrhea.
Usually, it gets better in 3-5 days with the proper diet. You need to flush out all the toxins from your body either through bowel movement or vomiting. If symptoms persist after 3-5 days, better consult your doctor.
3. Eat the BRAT Diet and Avoid Fatty Food.
The best way to help one recover from food poisoning is eating the Banana, Rice, Apple and Toast (BRAT) Diet. You can also eat Pretzels, Crackers, Complex Carbohydrates (rice, wheat, potatoes, bread), lean meats, yogurt, fruits and vegetables. AVOID Fatty Food, Highly Seasoned Food, Dairy Food or Food High in Sugar, Caffeine, Juices and Soft drinks.
4. Dehydration is the Number 1 Cause of Death in this situation.
Make sure to drink plenty of fluids — about 8-16 glasses of liquid per day in small frequent sips. For excessive vomiting, wait 1-2 hours after the last vomiting episode to start oral fluids.
5. Drink Hydrite not Gatorade.
Instead of just drinking water or diluted fruit juice, buy Hydrite Oral Rehydration Salts. It provides the necessary sodium, potassium, chloride, citrate, and glucose needed to replenish your body to avoid dehydration. Dissolve Hydrite in water. It tastes like the old salt water solution.
Often, we drink Gatorade instead, which has a high amount of sugar. It will cause the patient to vomit some more, so NO Gatorade please…
It is a bit scary for us, especially when you see a 1.5-year-old child vomiting helplessly. Of course if the situation gets worse, seek medical help immediately. A worse situation could be an increase in the frequency of bowel movement, or the presence of blood in the feces, or the abdominal pain shifts to the lower right portion of the stomach.
Can you share your own tips on how to handle this kind of situation?
Live an Awesome Life,
Text and Photos by Anton Diaz. Copyright 2009.
blog: www.OurAwesomePlanet.com
prof. blog: AntonDiaz.com
mobile: +63917-LOVEOAP (5683627)
email: anton@diaz.ph
oh anton, that’s scary.. i hope all of you are okay especially joshua. be careful on what you eat next time. 🙂
I don’t know a lot of info on how to recover from food poisoning, except to go see a doctor, but I can think of ways on how to prevent these cases from happening–Be extra careful during food preparation.
Avoid cross-contamination (this is when contaminated food-contact surface touches ready to eat food). Use separate kitchen tools (ie knives, plates) for raw and cooked food.
After around 4 hours of exposing food in room temp, you should refrigerate (and/or reheat) properly before consuming.
Thoroughly cook food, especially those that are more prone to contamination such as ground beef, poultry and eggs, seafood, etc.
AND practice good personal hygiene during food preparation. Handwashing should be done for 15-20 seconds (sing “Happy Birthday” twice while doing it :D).
I think that’s what I had 3 weeks ago when I was there, did Sprite/7-Up and Skyflakes like my granma used to give us. I would usually take some Pedialites (usually for infants) to prevent dehydration.
I didn’t have the “naghihilab ang tyan” though I was just flushing everything out from both ends. Thanks for the tips ‘bro. Hope you’re all ok now.
you’re doing things just fine like doctors visits more liquids some food to replaced stomach needs a nice lukewarm showers anti light bacterial mouth rinse brushing teeth a cleaner comfort rooms-beds-home will help too while figure out where all of you been what you’ve been eating same last together within the last 24 hours call health department and alarmed them what happened to you-family and asked if they are concern enough to check do some questioning on the premises of suspected places that irritates your conditions a common sense steps to make sure it wont find another victims plus that is extra national fines-warning tickets meaning good for philippines economy if giving fines-tickets to all troublemakers healthwise or whatever awareness plus more awareness both the food places government inspections medical visits at your own home inspections plus your other family friends consultations to make sure they do not become the next ‘diarrhea’ ones
did you get the food poisoning from your taumbayan experience?
Other than dehydration out of emesis (vomiting) and/or diarrhea (defined more of frequency than looseness of stools), ELECTROLYTE IMBALANCE can be lethal. So it is important to seek medical consult immediately in order to identify and prevent such. Blood levels of sodium, potassium, chloride, etc. should be checked as well as stool exam or fecalysis in order to rule in/out the cause of diarrhea whether it’s infectious (bacterial, protozoal, viral) or otherwise.
I am mandated by my license to include in health teaching that self-medication should be avoided especially if it’s abdominal pain for taking some drugs may mask the pain and yield to false negative physical examination at the clinic/ER. Most Anti-diarrheals may paralyzed the bowel movement thus if the cause of abdominal upset is an infection, it will persists until correctly identified and managed.
Some cases need to be put into NPO/ nothing per orem/nothing by mouth for some hours in order for proper observation to be done. So better seek professional help!
Considering hygienic preparation of food and beverages is also integral, still proper HANDWASHING is the best universal precautionary measure to prevent transmission of diseases.
Thanks!
Which resto did you go to?
i cannot tell you my own personnal first aid bcoz i will be accused of a mental case to know the right thing to do i will be accused of make believe of a person with a psychic ability a reason some special interests reasons to put anyone in asylum american styles lol! meaning it is like calling all the professionals globally to challenge what i do & say {me} until i go down with mental-physical exhaustions lol!..i felt that way almost 2 decade ago so i wrote a note on how what i feel the date the time and where-what ive been doing in the last 24 hours just in case my know how is not good enough then i took a shower rinse my mouth with anti bacterial brush my teeth then i quickly clean my house with anti bacterial wash my bedsets this is only after i drank a lot of hot teas some luke warm lugaw na gisa sa luya hour later i drank one of those small bottled from non need prescriptions sa botika to cleanse-rinse my internals effects took around 4 hours i suffered in the bathroom nausea etc.coz it emptied my internals so i drank more teas eat a bit of left oever lugaw then i buried myself in thick blankets hour later i sweat like pig so i kept drinking small amount of hot teas every 10 minutes at least change clothes wrapped again with thick blankets until no more perspirations that come out of my skin then i took a hot shower and sleep straight..but i DO NOT RECOMMEND TO DO THE SAME I DID decade ago unless you do not trust traditional medicines and just ignore o rely on prayers then hey i survived right lol!
if you had a look like break end in the past o last few years had a flat tire had to change your door locks ..but do not worry coz you guys are a gem just keep doing what youre doing have fun keep meeting new friends new adventures increase life excitements coz it will help further lol
not really any specific resto… we ate at our in-laws house.
Oh no…. the funny thing is it was not from a restaurant…haay
Oh so that is what happened to you. It is common these days and I don’t know
why…
Thanks for the tips, Karla!
That is indeed scary. We are still observing Joshua.
anton
Thanks for this expert medical opinion, docgelo! I learned a lot and I’m
sure most OAP readers learned a lot too from this. Some of the doctors I
talked to did not even mention Electrolyte Imbalance. I can relate to it
after my Marathon when my potassium and sodium levels are low
Hi Anton,
hope the 3 of you are ok now. Thanks for this post, I’ll save it in my file so I have a reference just incase I encounter this situation. Get well soon….
KHIM
p.s i have a copy of the entepreneur magazine last april and you’re there pala. I keep on telling my mom that your site is one of my fave site and I learn a lot from it. Now my mom always visit your site din.hehehe. avid fan kami. when she found out that we’re friends sa facebook lagi niya vinivisit yung profile mo. hahaha.
The last time that she and her friends dine out she recommemnds a restaurant daw na na feature sa blog mo and her friends are super happy.
Thanks fo making my mom happy through this site. Natutuwa kasi ako pag happy sya….Thanks anton!!!!
Seriously. I lost my breath reading your email. you need some periods and commas!
I got food poisoning from the Raspberry iced tea in Pasto in Eastwood. Just to give a heads up to you and the readers. I’ve been wary to order the iced tea in restaurants ever since.
Thanks Alana for this warning!
You might want to consult Josh’s pedia about his milk.
When my 3-year-old son had gastroenteritis a year ago, he had to switch milk for a while (to a Lactose-free formula). His pedia explained that the acids in his stomach caused by the gastroenteritis stripped away his stomach lining which makes it harder for them to digest “complex” food. (That’s why back to basic sila and go BRAT).
Hope all of you are feeling better!
just always remember to my beloved filipinos in particular plus the whole world that in most cases here in united states when people have medical problems sometimes instead of recoveries they became even more serious or even tragics SO WHAT PEOPLE NEEDS TO REMEMBER is to always check with other doctors
always asked for 2nd 3rd 4th opinions listen to those closely related to you personally not from someone related to closest to you but closest to you personally bcoz here in america a ‘misinformed’ intelligence cases be it economic social political scientific or if youre just a plain threat to anybody could mean distortions of medical records neglectful medical improvisations delayed professional medical aids etc. could happened to anybody so explaining here how we all handle our personnal cases o personnal opinions ay pwede rin nilang gamitin na basehan kung papaano ang outcome na gustong palabasin nila kung ang tao ay economically threat sa kanila not all doctors are meant to help individuals-human beings some doctors are raised to protect the interests of any associations be it medical superiorities history economics social o scientific reasons-issues some unprofessional doctors could be protecting so remember to asked for many medical opinions not just one particular that is if you care enough about yourself as part of your human-civl rights which is the THE RIGHT TO LIVE lol
be careful with some tricky medical questionnaires that i regret later not crossing those blank spaces you must pay attention bcoz no one can protect you if you happened to sign medical questionnaires that trapped you with anwsering portions that has more than one box to answer bcoz those other empty ‘answers’ boxes i realized later that it can be answered without the patients knowledge if they put in your medical record you have high blood on first check but then minutes later they tell you after 2nd checking that your blood level suddenly became normal but didnt wrote down then it could mean trouble for you later coz it will become hearsay later lol also nothing wrong to be suspicious if it is your life involved DO NOT BE INTIMIDATED if youre accused of behaving paranoid dellusional worrying too much non sense so suspicious abnormal wasting their time wasting your money etc.when it comes to your health PLEASE BE SUSPICIOUS lol! do not let any doctors any religions anyone tells you that your own life is not that important not the greatest by ‘simply’ asking them how about giving you an ‘exaample’ meaning be a typical filipino coz it helps lol
Anton, I have to agree with this poster. I am not doctor but I do think that if you have multiple symptoms like that, save the worry on the 1000+ bucks and seek medical help. In my case, I already know that I need to be confined when I can not even take in any liquid anymore.
The BRAT diet – if am not mistaken – is something you take after you got the proper medication and all. It’s not the cure I think.
Thanks Cathy B for sharing your experience…
hi anton, i hope you’re all feeling better. in addition to the brat diet, i also learned about the CRAB diet in high school its: coke, rice, apples, bananas. this is the first-aid treatment for LBM.
take care ya’ll!
btw after i emptied cleanse my system{have a ready tea/lugaw with you to supplementfast}i was crawling in the floor took almost half an hour just to reach a few yards to shower then crawled back to bed i used bigger straws eating lugaw gisa sa luya at straw to drink tea almost half an hour to change clothes-cleaning i prepared in the bed within the 4 hours to reach the final multi body cleansing emptying that needs a super speed to drink & eat lugaw is a must so crawlings can be possible bad body contents{toxins]came out thru the cleansing & all those persperations to have perspirations a constant drinking is a must then a deep sleep follows just make sure to check pulse lol drinking eating small amounts between deep sleep a very peaceful place prayers are way even more helpful lol
tnx for the tip
Thank you. This was so helpful to me. I really appreciate everything that I read here.
Single mom of four.