Grow your own and eat your own.

That is my new resolution today. I have spent the last 72 hours in a state of living hell. I ate a salad from a salad bar last Sunday and a Salad from another restaurant on Saturday. By Sunday night my Stomach cramps were so bad I could not remain standing when a wave of them hit. I puked and blew out everything in the first few hours. I tried drinking as much gatorade as I could and could not keep it down for more than 10-15 seconds, and then puked up the once of gatorade with a quart of what seemed like straight stomach acid. None of the tricks I normally use to fight off viruses and bacteria even made a dent in. So I went to the urgent care at the local hospital on Tuesday morning, they pulled some blood and swabbed my butthole and sent it off to the lab to see what the culprit was (At my request) LOL food poisoning was not a good enough answer for me, I wanted to know which species it was. Anyway I went back home with the advice of drink lots of liquids and rest....... Great advice IF I COULD KEEP ANYTHING DOWN!

Back home I used a old trick we used to use when in 3rd world countries where food borne illness was pretty much the order of the day, if you ate or drank anything locally. Crushed up two Midol pills and stirred it into a very small amount of water and then stirred in a spoon of baking soda. That worked well enough for about 3 hours, which was the most relief I had since Sunday evening. During that time the Nurse from Urgent care called and said I had picked up a strain of Noro Virus (Which is what I suspected). No treatment for the Virus itself, only treating the symptoms until the virus ran its course. I figured I would just keep running with the Midol and baking soda trick until it passed.. Except last night I could not keep even that concoction down long enough for the midol to tame the stomach cramps.

By 2 AM this morning I was well beyond dehydrated and getting goofy. At 2:30 MRs T5R decreed I was going to the ER whether I wanted to or not. At this point I wanted to I had not been able to sleep more than 5-10 minutes at a time since Sunday night before the cramps woke me up in sheer agony. Except that 3 hour stretch when I did manage to keep the midol down. So after a 30 minute drive with 4 stops to puke along the way We make it to the ER. I guess I was more dehydrated than I thought because I passed out and laid face down butt up on the concrete 20 feet short of the ER door. The rest of the morning is pretty much a blur. I woke up with a nurse giving me a shot in the butt of what she said was medicine to stop the cramps and nausea. And that in a few minuted someone would be in to insert a tube into my stomach to pump it out. I must have missed that part as I passed out again and apparantly got my stomach pumped and put into a CT scanner and missed it all I did manage comprehend the Dokter telling my wife that my stomach had twisted and while not bad was enough to keep anything from leaving my stomach except up and back out the mouth and that was causing the extreme cramping and nausea. Anyway that was a easy fix after the stomach pump I guess. I was getting pretty coherent after the second IV bag and I guess finishing off a 3rd IV bag before being discharged at 10am this morning. Dokter told me to keep taking 2 midol as needed for the cramping and gave me a prescription for some anti nasuea medicine.

So the Lesson here for me is.............. DON'T Ever eat Salads or uncooked veggies ever again at a Restaurant!!! I really shouldn't anyway since I already grow my own. I have never been as miserable with anything as I have been over the last 72 hours. I have to shut the Chuck Wagon Down until Next Wednesday to avoid infecting anyone else with this crap. And now I have just popped my two midol and am going to sleep for another 2-3 hours.

 

My condolences - noro and salmonella truly suck. I can relate: the most deathly ill I have ever been was after eating at a HOSPITAL beach side cook out. Like you I ended up in the ER for IV fluids after 48 hours. They didn't culture it, but the assumption was either steamed clams or salad. Didn't know, didn't care. Following that I won't eat anything served at any public arena that's not hot enough to burn my mouth, or cold enough that I'm risking frostbite.

 

LOL I will second that! Also responsible for half or better of of the food born illness in the USA.

I doubt they will ever buy anything from me, I have to report stuff like this to the health department and give them a action plan of what I am doing to prevent the spread of it from my establishment. In this case it is mandated that I not handle food for 72 hours after the last symptoms subside. The way I am feeling right now I may very well shut down next week as well.

Yep Health Department told me one of the restaurants I ate at (The one on Saturday) that I made #7 to complain about getting sick there and we all had the ceasar salad.

 

Well Hell, Get better Santa Thunder!!!

 

Might not have helped in this case, ( I've never used it against Noro) but here is a usually perfect remedy for nausea:

Gently simmer 1/4 cup of Rosemary in two cups of water to make a very dark tea. The darker the better.

Bottle, dilute to taste if necessary.

Sip cold, as needed. Usually two or three sips will put nausea on hold for at least 15 minutes, or just stop it cold.

Relief will be immediate. As in about 10 seconds.

Rosemary Tea stores in the fridge indefinitely.

Mine is about four years old, and still works perfectly.

Use well water or distilled, without city chemicals.

Make no mistake: if you had been a hour slower in getting medical attention, you'd probably be dead right now. Noro can kill anybody, regardless of age or state of health. Stopping the nausea and resulting dehydration early is critical.

I'm not a Doctor, but I did drive past a Holiday Inn. My professional advice is to keep breathing at least twice a day for another forty years or so. Increase frequency as needed.

 

Yummy. Mayo held at room temperature, for hours, and mostly put out to fester multiple days...

 

Glad to hear you're going to get better. I was wondering how your chuck wagon was going ,,, guess I'll ask ya in a week or so .

 

Praying.

 

Noro virus is very prevalent on cruise ships. I take disinfectant wipes and wipe my entire room down with them when I go on cruises

 

Yeah they wasted no time getting me stuck with the IV I remember cery little of the morning after going down. Wife says I tried getting back up and then started convulsing when I crash back down again. LOL she said when the Dokter started questioning me I started rambling about SMurfs and Smurf Berry pie.

 

Can't say it was Norovirus that I had contracted, not too long after I moved to Cambodia. This would have been about mid-2012. The symptoms sure sound like that is what it could have been.

It took me a few days to get over it, as well. A guy who later became a good friend, owned a small restaurant / bar, in town. He delivered me Royal D (Cambodia's version or Gatorade) and plain bread to eat, until I got passed the worst of it. Thinking back, it was probably dry toasted bread.

Knock on wood, I haven't experienced that since. I feel for ya, man. I hope you get well soon. Thoughts and prayers headed your way.

A suggestion, maybe start an aquaponics, or even a hydroponics system?

 

So, let me ask some silly questions here... So, you got this from eating salad. Was the salad's vegetables not washed or does that matter? Or, how do you think it was transmitted to you? I ask for the obvious reason because I don't want to every catch this crap and thought I was relatively safe in the U.S. I had a bad case of food poisoning one time and never want to go down that path again. The girlfriend (now my wife) poured some purple looking liquid mixed with water down my throat to flush my stomach. I finally figure out what is was and wrote it down but not sure where it is now as thought I wouldn't need it ever again. I slept in the bathroom, on the floor, almost two full days...never again. That stopped me going to restaurants for the remaining time I was overseas, over a decade, but thought I was safe here.

 

You know the funny thing about having lived over seas for twenty years? The few times I was sick from food - I got it at western style / owned restaurants. Granted, I don't eat a lot of local foods. But, I have never been sick from eating at a local restaurant in the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Cambodia, etc.

 

Norovirus can contaminate food anywhere a long the supply chain, from farm to your own home. It can be contracted from touching objects that someone with it touched, it becomes air born and can be transmitted that way via the vomit.... (Someone pukes and then goes into public and coughs it is then in the air. People that don't wash their hands after dropping a deuce. Washing leafy greens is a minor help at best as even soaking them there are all the crinkles and ridges in the leafs that the sanitizing solution can't reach. There are 25 different strains of norovirus like with most viruses once you contract one you are immune to that particular strain. Norovirus has been very prevalent in the USA for quite sometime. It is usually just written off as the Stomach Flu (Which really does not exist) bottom line every time you eat you are playing russian roulette, somethings are much lower risk than other, and other things add a few more bullets to the cyclinder increasing your odd of wining the grand prize. It got to when I was over seas if it was not sealed field rations or meals ready to eat..... I just would not eat Unless it was Street Meat, who can turn down good ole mystery meat on a stick and trying to identify it!

 

South America and S. Korea was where I picked up my worst cases of things out of Country............. Peru will always be someplace I remember not so fondly!

 

I can see it now, me - walking into a restaurant with a cooler and not ordering a salad. Rather, I open my trusty cooler, pull out my own croutons, lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, onions, etc., cutting board, bowl, dressings and silverware, prepare and then consume the salad.

Man, this is starting to remind me of a Mr. Bean (Rowen Atkinson) skit.

 

TSR mentioned Ceaser Salad on his Saturday dining adventure. Primarily Mayo, ie; eggs and oil, along with lesser amount of other ingredients. Even commercial stuff by the gallon is all mayo. At room temperature and above there is no better growth media for nasties. Noro and salmonella being the most common. Either can make you deathly ill.
The worst thing is that the actual contamination can occur anywhere along the production path, including points of origin. It could be a very small, completely harmless to anyone amount of contamination - until it gets a few hours of optimum media and temperature. Then the colony can explode and produce enough toxins to sicken a city.
In restaurants sanitation and product temperature control are absolutely mandatory.