I definitely ate raw chicken and am on a downward spiral

[whatanabsoluteidiot]

Hi, I have name changed for this post - I have to post because I’m going absolutely insane and need to talk to someone about this.
we have had a hectic home life lately - lots of work in the evening, ill children off nursery, etc etc. on Saturday I ate a chicken stir fry out of the bowl I’d defrosted the raw chicken in. This is so unlike me - I’m an emetophobe and I am absolutely crazy about hygiene and chicken. As the dinner was ready I just saw the bowl and thought I’d already got myself a serving bowl. I only realised straight after finishing dinner when I was stacking the dishwasher and realised I was missing the raw chicken bowl. I went absolutely cold. I even remember that the bottom of the bowl was wet 😭 why didn’t I realise??

i ate about 9.30pm on Saturday. Yesterday I thought I was going to throw up in Costa, left, drove home, lay down. Nothing more. This morning I had one short bout of diarrhea. It didn’t happen again. This is frankly not usual for me as I suspect I have mild IBS.

i have hardly eaten since Saturday night and I’m starting to feel quite weird and not knowing whether I am ill or hungry. About an hour ago I had a bit of soup and bread and a malt bar to get some sugar into me.

what is going to happen to me?? My brain is exhausted thinking about incubation times and what I need to cancel for the rest of the week. I think salmonella is now less likely but campylobacter is typically days 2-5. I am going out of my mind. I can’t believe I did this and am terrified I’ll give it to my young children (I’m hand washing crazily). I haven’t told my husband as he’s in the worst week of his work at the moment with a million commitments and meetings - and he ate a bite.

uggggghhhh please please quiet my mind one way or another … or just something calming. This is like a nightmare to me and I can’t even think about the horror.

The Alert Cat makes excellent points here op (I could do with their calming logic in my house at times!)

My DD got food poisoning from chicken from the freezer not heated right though. She was throwing up later same day. Also I have def eaten undercooked chicken and only got diarrhoea that night. Given the time elapsed chances are you will be fine. You didn’t actually eat raw chicken you ate safe cooked food from a contaminated bowl. The bacterial load you got will be much much less. Most likely feeling ill and diarrhoea you had earlier was it.

You would be ill by now.

The raw chicken isn’t going to make you sick if it hasn’t already. You do need to seek help for your health anxiety though.

DH ate a raw chicken skewer (breaded so didn’t realise it wasn’t cooked) and was violently ill within a few hours. It lasted 5 days and was confirmed as salmonella. No lasting effects but was v unpleasant at the time. I’m very sure you’d know by now.

Please eat something else today. You will definitely feel ill if you don't eat enough.

Also you put hot food on, presumably, a very small amount of chicken juices. The heat may well have been enough to kill anything lurking in the bottom.

Use a reputable source of information like the NHS pages. Then turn off google and breathe. You are catastrophising.

Don’t use Chat GPT it just skims from various web pages, some maybe correct some may not. There are plenty of recent examples of GPT and others telling people they don’t need visas for flights when they do, giving incorrect tidal times, and encouraging teens to off themselves. It's not appropriate for some one like op who is already experiencing anxiety or people who are vulnerable.

I was trying to reassure the OP in a light-hearted way.

I am sorry you are so anxious. I am sure by now if you were going to be sick you would have been. As a fellow emetophobe I had food poisoning last year. First time in ages, like years and years. Well I coped - it was not fun - but i had spent years dreading it. And i was all right. And i wasted years of my life fearing something which was not that awful. So please be reassured - if the worst should happen and you are unwell, you will be okay. 24 hours and then it will be all right x

Raw chicken isn’t automatically some sort of poison. You have to ingest bacteria which may or may not be present. I think you’ll be fine!!!!

@whatanabsoluteidiot you're not an idiot, you're worried. But some of the symptoms you are feeling may well be as a result of your worry. That cycle of 'am I ill'; 'will I be ill'; 'it this knot in my gut a syptom of this particular illness'.

That cycle can also cause a feeling of nausea, it can result in diahorrea, or gut cramp.

From the time lines it sounds like you are fine. I wonder if you can use this experience to learn better how to manage your anxiety? 'Remember when I thought this... but actually it was my anxiety that made that happen...'

Not all food poisoning is immediate. Ive been unfortunate to have had it more than once with chicken. (Three times it was 12-14 hours), none of these cooked by myself might i add.

Sorry people are being dismissive this would freak me out too. But as others have said a lot of things we are told not to do isn’t because it’s something that will happen it’s because there’s a risk of it happening.

I think you will be absolutely fine and as others have said it would have happened by now if it was going to.

From a fellow emetophobe I feel your pain. I’d be exactly the same. I think you are probably safe though.
We just have winter vomiting bug season to get through now x

You’ll be fine, especially if you’re not immunocompromised or anything. You’ll be making yourself more ill just by panicking!!

Not all chicken carries salmonella or campylobacter. I’ve eaten raw chicken a couple of times in restaurants when it was served to me and ate a bit before realising. I had the same fears but didn’t get sick at all.

You’d have been ill by now - in my experience food poisoning comes on quickly

@Hoppinggreen thank you - my mind assumed illness was absolutely inevitable. I have no rationality when it comes to sickness!

@Mightymooo how completely terrifying! (For me) - that’s very brave of him and makes me feel much better!

This is very good advice, thank you!

@HumbleWarrior thank you so much for your post. It is so helpful and I agree that a lot of it is about control. The thought of not being able to do all the things I feel I need to do in a day is something I can barely contemplate because it’s so stressful - but of course sometimes I can’t keep everything on my own terms. Thank you. I am going to slow down for a bit!

@AdoraBell in the microwave on the defrost setting

@Toutafait I think I want to hear this story!

@Cantseetreesforthewood and @AlertCat
thank you, I like these theories x

Thanks so much for all your comments. I think half my issue was that I felt I couldn’t tell anyone about it because my food hygiene error just felt so utterly nuts to me. I have been really reassured by all of your messages and one of the things I’ve been surprised about was how calm some of you are - part of the reason I felt I couldn’t talk to anyone about my worries was because I felt my error was so utterly egregious and awful. Now I understand it’s just one of those things - and it is about my anxiety in the larger picture.

im not massively anxious about a lot of stuff but there’s definitely an underlying issue with control (I need it!) and with vomiting in particular (which I’ve had since I was a child). I’ve been surprised by how my response seems extreme to some and due to that I think I will look into getting some help. Is a GP really someone who can help with this? I’ve honestly never thought of asking before.

thanks again! I feel okay and have had no further symptoms. I also felt much better after my small lunch and your messages. I ate a panini for tea and at the moment I feel normal.

THANK YOU

I understand you are anxious. It's very hard to stop it because it's not rational. You may have to wait it out, then when you're better, talk to your GP about long term strategies. In the short term, I find eating what I call baby food helps when I find it difficult to eat. Mashed banana. Yoghurt. Maybe a little toast. Things that are very easy to eat to give your system some sugar etc. Good luck. This will pass but then try to tackle the underlying issue. Anxiety medication has helped me.

You will likely be fine but there is a lot of incorrect information on this thread about incubation periods, it can take days to get sick depending on what the bacteria is