How to Stay Healthy With A Stomach Bug
If I had to make a wager, I would stake my entire life savings on the fact that you didn’t find this article by sheer coincidence. I’m also perhaps the worst gambler in the world. Point is, you’re not here because you want to be, and I am much the same way. I caught a stomach bug while out traveling, and my body kindly informed me of that fact on the plane ride home. Following the worst trip through customs I’ve ever experienced (a high bar), I began walking the very painful road to recovery, wishing that I had some frame of reference for my experience. This article is my attempt to address that void, and hopefully ensure you don’t have to go through as much discomfort.
From the onset:
When you start experiencing symptoms, you have had the sickness-causing virus in your system for about one to three days. The name of your enemy is most commonly norovirus, so now you know what to curse as your symptoms worsen. Viruses that cause stomach bugs can also be highly contagious even for weeks after symptoms subside, so make sure to always practice good hand hygiene. If you are lucky, the worst you will experience is severe diarrhea, vomiting, nausea, and stomach cramping, which still certainly isn’t fun. I was not so lucky, and so this article will assume you are similarly experiencing the worst case scenario. In these cases, you can develop a fever and head/body aches together- a very painful combination.
What this results in is a massive amount of fatigue. Diarrhea and vomiting will result in water loss, and nausea will compliment this by sending any liquid intake right back where it came from. Dehydration is one of the principal causes of feeling fatigued and these symptoms work together towards the sole purpose of dehydrating you; it has to be one of the best synergies a disease has come up with. Nausea also works to force a loss of appetite, meaning the body has less energy to work with. Additionally, high fever temperatures and chills can make it hard to sleep, with the simultaneous hot and cold sensations causing constant discomfort. Lastly in this chain, muscle aches make movement painful, further disincentivizing any activity. In short, expect to be very, very tired.
Another thing I never saw mentioned is that motion sickness can make these symptoms worse, even if you rarely or never experience it normally. So if, for example, you started experiencing the sickness while on a plane halfway across the Atlantic, your symptoms may be aggravated. Regrettably, this one comes from personal experience.
You fools! I, the Stomach Bug, have come to bring misery and moderate discomfort for a few days!
Credit: Nima
That sounds like it sucks. What can I do?
Unfortunately, since it’s a viral infection, antibiotics won’t work on it. A doctor’s visit won’t help unless your life is actively at risk (you can’t keep food down at all or vomit blood, for instance). The main focus of your recovery efforts should be to make sure your body is in the best state it can be to fight the disease. A key part of this is preserving your energy as much as you can in the first day or two. Trust your body’s signals and listen to it- forcing your body to eat when it doesn’t want to will only make your nausea worse. You probably won’t be able to eat or drink very much at a time- this is normal. Take it slowly- sip on a glass of juice if your stomach doesn’t like solid food yet. Be wary of foods heavy in nutrients which are hard to digest, like fibers and proteins. You don’t have the luxury of worrying about nutrition right now; eat whatever will get you through this while reducing as much pain as possible (eating pure bread is better than eating nothing).
If you have them, dealing with the fever and aches are going to be your main issue for these first few days. Tylenol and Advil together worked for me, but if you know something else works better for you then trust your intuition. Get plenty of rest in combination with medicine of your choosing and these symptoms should hopefully pass within a day or so. If you have another person able and willing to help, let them- the less you exert yourself, the quicker you will recover.
The worst of the disease will pass within one to three days, as the fever/aches subside and the nausea calms down. In my case, I had to deal with mild diarrhea extending more than a week after my initial symptoms. There isn’t much you can do on this front, so I recommend just waiting it out- it becomes more of a general discomfort than something actually major. Once this subsides, you should be in the clear!
Other weird stuff that happened to me:
Having gone into this situation blind, there was a lot that I didn’t understand even with the internet’s help. For instance, my fever randomly resurged a few days after I believed it was gone. If it does, it should be milder than the first time, and should go away with medicine or a couple hours’ time. Another condition may occur as a result of diarrhea; your butthole (scientific term) will start feeling painful and may start bleeding as you poop. This is normal and utterly miserable to go through- if you use toilet paper, try water instead. Lastly, be wary of fever dreams- not for any health-related reasons, but because your family might think you’ve gone mad blabbing about ancient truths causing your body aches.
In short, this sickness is going to suck, but you will get through it eventually. I hope this resource will help make your experience slightly less miserable than mine was through the healing power of knowledge. If you want a more medical perspective of the disease with a more complete overview of the causes and methods of prevention, take a look at the CDC website for norovirus. I wish you the best of luck, brave soldier.
Sources:
[1] https://www.cdc.gov/norovirus/about/index.html
[2] My body, unsurprisingly
Written by: Alex