Stomach Flu

Well, this week-end had turned into a nightmare – in the truest sense of the word. I had already bought the tickets last month that I was planning to spend this week-end in Manchester. 

Everything went well till around 4am on a Saturday morning the awful pain in my stomach started, which caused that I was sleeping and lying the whole Saturday and Sunday in bed and couldn’t even eat. My main nutrition during these two painful days was simply water and bread.

So, what is stomach flu?

Stomach flu (or viral gastroenteritis, which it its medical name) is usuallycaused by a virus. The outcomes of this are vomiting,diarrhea, stomach cramps etc. (as I had these syndromes’, I can be pretty sure that I got this – but how??). According to health.com “viral gastroenteritis can be spread from person to person or by touching a contaminated surface, but [one] can also get viral gastroenteritis from sewage-contaminated food or water, or meals prepared or handled by an infected person” or in other words “it's spread by close contact with the person who is sick or by eating food that's contaminated” (kidshealth.org). So, what did I have on Friday for food? Actually not much… I had a chocolate croissant for breakfast. During lunch time I bought a chicken lime sandwich, which was *yummy*. For dinner – I cooked tofu with vegetable and fish. And I had my dinner at around 6pm – so if anything was “bad” then it should show its “reaction” after 6h or so… but I had no sign that my stomach hurts. So, what else? Around 11pm my room-mate gave me her self-made dessert to taste (see picture) Looks great isn’t it? She is such a talented cooker!! But was it this that caused my stomach flu? I really dunno as my other room-mate, who ate it as well, showed no “painful” reaction the other day… Guess, the reason that destroyed my week-end plans might be a mystery secret forever ~~

So far, there is no medicine, vaccination or treatment that prevents one from getting stomach flu. Therefore, the best defence is (it may sounds trivial) hand washing and try to avoid food preparations as possible.

Luckily, I felt better today. I even managed to go to work. But one has to remember – if you are still in pain or there is no improvement after 3 days, you should go to a doctor before everything goes worse. And even if you feel better from your “diet”, don’t get trap but your hunger and start to eat a lot immediately. You shouldn’t overload your stomach with lots of food – take it slowly. For instance, I had oat porridge for breakfast, tuna salad for lunch and fish, scumble egg and vegetable for dinner (sounds a lot – but actually it was in a small portion)…