A date with food poisoning (a science related real life story)

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A lot of people actually consider me weird or kind of non-conformist simply because I do not just go with crowd in almost all situations. I live in a society where eating in fast food restaurants is considered an omen of financial prosperity. Hence, girls always consider me broke by default whenever I mention that I don't eat in fast food restaurant 😐. This is quite far from the truth, I simply do not enjoy fast foods. Perhaps it's mainly because I am a good cook myself or I am just in love with locally made foods as compared to the processed foods sold in fast food outlets. In addition, merely looking at the foods displayed in a show glass gives me a feeling of doubts about the quality of the food. I still manage to eat out at fast food joints once in a while though, until I had a date with food poison. Thank goodness that I am alive to tell the story.

Like I said earlier, I am a non-conformist when it comes to popular societal practices. This made me to encounter a bit of challenges in getting a lady to court. When I eventually got one few years back, we had a lot of issues simply because I wouldn't agree to do what normal couples do: hang out in cinemas or popular places, throw big birthday bash, have deep mid night conversations and above all, eat out at fast food joints. My fiancee being a young undergraduate students, considered the latter a big deal. After series of arguments and disagreements on eating out, I finally carved under pressure to please her one fateful evening. I took my old rickety car, drove to a popular fast food eatery in town and bought two take-away packs of jollof/fried rice and salad mixture with full chicken each and two bottles of wine to wash it down (still wondering why I didn't buy candles and have a romantic dinner 😐).

I drove back home feeling like Jack in Titanic. She was super excited to see the packages. We settled down to feast. Being a slow eater, it took me some time before I could finish mine while hers went-in like the speed of a hyperloop. We settled down to gist like a normal couple after, no more arguments and disagreements; at least not for a while. It was proving to be an awesome evening until about an hour after the meal when a rumbling of what seemed like of nuclear bomb origin started off in my stomach. Within minutes, I was in the toilet spraying the basin with watery liquid emanating from the outlet of my digestive system. With each round of passing stool, the cramp in my stomach doubles. I eventually came out of the toilet after like thirty minutes of hard labour.

The whole evening fun was cut short abruptly at this point because I became extremely tired and headed straight to bed, hardly did I have energy for romantic chitchats again. It was around 7:00pm, my girl friend joined me in bed and while it took her few minutes to zoom off into sleep, I was just rolling to and fro different corners of the king-sized bed due to stomach cramp. She woke up at intervals to check if I'm sleeping and will sometimes ask if we should go to the clinic. As a strong African man that I am, it takes something more threatening for me to go to hospital. So I kept enduring the discomforts and hoping that it will relieve me with time.

Few minutes to midnight, I developed the urge to visit the toilet again. This time around, it took me a longer time and when I eventually managed to leave the toilet, I could hardly talk due to cramp and weakness. I eventually managed to wake my girlfriend and asked her to seek for help from the neighbours. I need to head straight to hospital and I was too weak to drive. I felt a tiny regret of not teaching my girlfriend how to drive before that day. She eventually got help and we headed straight to the emergency unit of a popular teaching hospital in town. The staff on duty looked very busy. I was asked to wait to see a doctor as all the doctors on duty are busy attending to one or two issues. At this point, I was already shaking from head to toe. I could not stand, sit nor sleep for more than few minutes. I became totally restless and for once in my life, I felt I was close to dying.

Yet again while waiting for attention, I felt the urge to visit the toilet and what came out was indescribable. When the staff on duty saw that my case was critical, they quickly call a doctor who administered a drip to me immediately. The unit was so busy that they could not get a free bed for me to use, meaning the drip was administered to me while I sat on a chair. Different blood samples were quickly taken and transferred to the lab for further analysis. I felt relieved a bit while the drip gradually sojourned into my system but still, sitting down for a relatively long period makes me very restless. In essence, I kept standing up, squatting or even bending a bit just to look for a position that will make me feel at ease. One patient that saw that my own condition looked worse than his own volunteered to make me use his bed while he takes the sit. I didn't think twice before jumping at the offer. All this while the drip was going into my system, the doctor after taking down the details of my situation had disappeared into thin air again but not before telling my girlfriend what and what to get from the pharmacy.

One of the nurses on duty came to administer another drip (dextro saline) immediately the first one finished. A quick look of the prescription handed over to my girlfriend showed that I am being treated for food poisoning and as usual, malaria. Aside from the dextro saline drips, there were metronidazole and cefriaxone infusions and some arthemeter injection vials. It seemed I was in for a long night.

How under the heaven did myself and my girlfriend eat the same food from the same source and I came down with food poisoning while she was bouncing around?

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wtf is food poisoning?

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To simplify it, food poisoning is an illhealth that results from ingestion of food contaminated bacteria; especially the bacteria of enteric origins such as Salmonella and Escherichia coli and less often by Camplobacter and Listeria. In some cases, poisoning can be caused by virus such as the norovirus, sapovirus, rotavirus and sapovirus. Since heat kills off most bacteria, the source of bacterial food infection is mostly from uncooked foods and food handling procedures.

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The symptoms of food poisoning is simply as I displayed it after consuming the food purchased from fast food joints in my story above. The summary of the symptoms I displayed include diarrhea, fever, weaknesses, stomach cramps etc. Littles wonder that the doctor did not have to wait for the laboratory test results before diagnosing me of food poisoning. Whatever happened to the result, I do not know up till today.

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Post treatment issues

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I got to the hospital around 1:00am and left around 7:00am after series of drips including antibiotic infusions such as metronidazole and cefriaxone and arthemeter injections. I was prescribed with metronidazole tablets afterward and discharged. The stooling has subsided greatly this time and I had strength to at least walk into the waiting car and walk back into my crib after alighting from my neighbour's car. I couldn't eat almost throughout the day due to lack of appetite but I took some liquid to rehydrate my body. I started eating light food the following day and by the third day after the whole brouhaha, I became strong enough to resume office.

Things seemed to have returned back to normal as far as my body system is concerned. However, after four to five days of been treated for poisoning, I observed that I have not being to the toilet and could not even fart like a normal human 😐. I initially did not take it serious and sticked to my regular eating habit until my stomach started bulging due to constipation. Not interested in visiting the hospital again, I started doing my own little research on what and what to use to aid easy passage of feaces. My bowel movement was nothing to write home about. I started spending considerable time in the toilet in order to force the feared out but to no avail. After almost two weeks of post treatment without bowel movement, I stopped eating solid or semi-solid foods totally and stuck to liquids.

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What could have caused constipation?

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Mine was a direct journey from diarrhea to constipation. I felt there could have been something among the various treatments I took during the food poisoning that induced constipation in my system. A research into constipation led me into first of all understanding how the colon works. After digestion and reabsorption of nutrients in the small intestines, the bowel muscles push the wastes through the intestine during which water is reabsorbed and the waste ends up forming a solid stool. Hence, a steady supply of roughages is needed by the intestine to function optimally by giving the inestinal muscles something massive to push through the system. Roughages also helps in keeping the stool softener by holding on to the intestinal water like a sponge.

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The problem of constipation sets in when there is too much water reabsorption, inadeaquate fibre or damaged nerves or muscles of the intestinal walls which unavoidably make the stool to become hard, dry and requiring force to pass. In addition to these, some other factors can increase the chances of having constipation. These include:

• Ignoring the urge to have bowel movement
• Having medical condition known as pelvic floor dysfunction
• Side effects of certain medications.

In my own case, I suspect it was a side effect of one of the medications I took when being treated for food poisoning.

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so how did I solve the problem?

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From my investigation both online and in real life, a lot of interesting options were discovered. One of such options is the use of laxatives which works by drawing water into the colon thereby softening the stool for easier passage. The laxatives are usually of three types, namely;

• Saline laxatives
• Stimulant laxatives
• Osmotic laxatives.

Saline laxatives are usually magnessium or sodium phosphate containing and are usually sold as milk of magnesia or phospho soda respectively. The stimulant laxatives work by stimulating the muscles of the intestines to move the stool. The movement usually cause cramping, lessens the reabsorption of water and softens the stool as a result. The osmotic laxatives work by using the principle of osmosis and causes water to soften the stool. They contain active ingredients such lactulos or polyethene glycol.

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Other possible solutions proferred for my situation include drinking of more water, taking foods that are rich in fibre and doing rigorous exercise that can induce bowel movement.

At the end of it all, a particular laxative known as liquid paraffin was the saviour that bailed me out but not without some problems. After considering all the options available to me and trying out some without positive result, I started considering visiting a hospital for the second time within a month but not until I tried out liquid paraffin. After like two days of adhering to the prescription, I started getting the urge to pass stool. With leaking of the liquid from my anus and considerable force, I was able to finally pass some stool.

Everything normalized after about a week and I was able to pass stool like a normal human being. The experience will stick with me for my entire lifetime. Indeed, it was a real date with food poisoning.

So which of the medications/treatment taken (dextro saline, metronidazole, cefriaxone, artemeter, paracetamol) against the food poisoning could have induced the constipation? I will like to read expert's opinions on this.

Thank you for reading!

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References

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nhs.uk

Healthline

Consumer reports

netdoctors.co.uk