How to speed up recovery from stomach bug

[CreatingHavoc]

I'm on day 5 of a horrible stomach bug, no vomiting, just diarrhoea. Came on suddenly on Monday and still not better. It has improved but I still can't eat normal food and I'm feeling rather depleted. I'm going to the loo about 2 or 3 time per day and it's still loose and bright yellow (sorry tmi). I only had toast with butter this morning and it made my stomach awful. I seem to feel ok ish before I go to the loo and then it takes me ages to recover from the experience 😳
After I've been to the loo I'm lightheaded, heart racing and need to lie down. It's exhausting and I'm meant to be going to a festival for a day on Sunday.

As I'm no better I've called the Dr and waiting for them to call back but is there anything I can do to speed up recovery? I'm sick of eating dry crackers, rice and toast all the time :(

Sorry you are suffering. In my experience, diarrhea that's lingering is more likely to be food poisoning/bacterial than a sickness bug type virus.

You did the right thing calling the GP. When this happened to me after a trip to India I was prescribed antibiotics and felt better quickly, after a week of suffering exactly as you describe.

Until then, not much else you can do except rest, keep hydrated and stick to a bland diet as you are. Feel better soon!

I've just spoken to the gp who have said they won't test for anything until after a week so I have to wait till Monday :(

Try plain cooked rice with a bit of salt

Oh gosh how awful for you. Thinking about it, it had probably been a week by the time I saw the GP, but he still prescribed the AB before we got the results of the stool sample so I could have some relief straightaway.

@SicknessBugsJustWhy It's so strange, it's like I keep starting to feel better, then need to the loo and feel awful again. Your user name is very appropriate btw!

You need to rest your gut. I'd stick to water for 24 hours, then slowly re-introduce food again and try adding in some Yakult to get the good bacteria back.

Ah yes unfortunately I was up all night with DD who has a sickness bug hence the username...

Yes mine was the same, in the end I ate whatever I fancied as nothing I did made me better or worse, I just had several bad episodes everyday regardless. Sometimes I even felt normal for a couple of hours but then it would come back.

In that sense it was very different from a virus where after a few days your body is able to fight it off and you start feeling better. I knew it wasn't going to shift by itself. It's the pits, I'm so sorry for you!

I'm hoping that it might not be food related as today has been much better. My stomach is still very growly and I have quite a lot painful wind and a bit of nausea but zero episodes of diarrhoea. I've only eaten dry toast, crackers and bananas today and only drank water. I'm still going to do the sample on Monday though. Really hoping it keeps improving.

A doctor told me lucozade sport is good.
Try small amounts of food. - apple sauce, banana and white rice.
also could you manage an actimel or yakult?

I might get some lucozade tomorrow, that's a good shout. Have already got apple sauce but couldn't bring myself to eat it, it smells too acidic! Been having rice though.

24 hours just water if it's a bug I was told by my GP it will die. Son caught something like this in Egypt was ill on and off for three months he was offshore for six weeks. Wouldn't listen to the starvation advice I gave him. Went to GP who advised starvation 24 hours. It worked 🙈🙈

Well it looks like I can't go to the festival as I had another episode of diarrhoea this morning, despite a better day yesterday. I'm not sure what's going on but I'm really fed up of it whatever it is 😞

I know this is an old thread, but did this ever clear up OP? And if so how long did it take you? I'm in exactly the same boat, could have written this post myself! Day 5 and stomach is fine if I eat oatcakes, peeled boiled potatoes, broccoli and bananas, but anything else is a no go. I imagine my stomach is just very irritated following the (suspected) virus, but it's so frustrating. I just want to eat a pizza!!

@Alittleditsy oh god, that was a horrible bug! It took ages to resolve properly but I found that I kept getting episodes afterwards and I ended up having to change my diet. I went low fodmap and ate pretty bland inoffensive food for a good few weeks. Also went gluten free. In fact I stayed mostly low fodmap and Gf but I've let it slip recently and stomach not been great the last few days so I'm getting back on it again! Dr put it down to having ibs anyway and the stomach bug made my flare up a lot worse.

Two months later two poop tests I'm waiting on a result from the second. @CreatingHavoc is right. I took the grandchildren to a Halloween party last week pizza only for adults. OMG that was not a good idea. So back to gluten free, lactose free, onion, garlic, tomato, mushroom free.

Had lunch out on Sunday full roast. Absolutely fine.

GP gave me some tablets which were buscopan based. They helped a lot. Two four times a day for a week.

Friends daughter a pharmacist had food poisoning. She still has outbreaks of IBS now and again months later.

@CreatingHavoc thanks so much for replying! Sounds like you're getting there, even if it's meant some diet changes. Hope things get better again once you get back on the low fodmap and GF!

I wasn't so lucky, later that day after I posted I got the results of a stool sample, and I have C-difficile. So, so unlucky because I went into a hospital for 4 hours in the outpatients urgent care unit because of an earring infection. Got given big guns antibiotics (I didn't know at the time), that completely wipe out all the bacteria in you, good and bad. Then developed C-diff symptoms 4 days later. So now on more targeted antibiotics for the c-diff (praying it stays away with 1 course cause I know it can come back), and gonna work on building my gut microbiome back up as fast as I can!

Fasting will kill it, for sure. Just drink water, but nothing else. I'd go at least 24 hours. Don't just take my word for it, do a bit of research first.

@justasking111 sorry you've been struggling, hope the second test comes back with some answers. I didn't know mushroom was a common offender?! GF, Lactose, Garlic and Onion I have heard of. I was GF and Dairy free before this C-diff situation and it is a pain.

@sidsparrownew that's interesting.... I will look into it!

I second this.

There is a ‘diary of a CEO podcast with Mindy Peltz who says that cells stop the spread of viruses if not ‘fed’ for 24 hours. Longer if possible for a reset.

I am currently reading her book which explains how food affects the body

@Jtdoyoveme It was Dr Pelz book where I read this too, interesting the research into cancer cells and fasting.

I did the fasting sadly didn't work.

I have a sensitive gut anyway. What did work once before was pre colonoscopy the moviprep and fasting. It was like a reset.

I wonder if the fasting applies to bacterial infections too or just viruses. I don’t know enough about how they work..

I recently had this, it lasted 6 days, then came back a couple of days later. Immodium helped it.

I don't think it was food poisoning as DH and I eat the same and he wasn't ill.

There are lots of bugs doing the rounds at this time of year. Hope you feel better soon.

I had this last year. I was up during the night with the shits. It was horrendous. I took immodium after 5 days.