Everything is making me sick!

[optical]

I've been here in suzhou(and china all together) for 3 days now and every single thing I have eaten has made me feel sick, some things more than others. I've had everything from packaged dried chips to cooked cafeteria food to instant noodles with boiled water, all make me sick, the last one made me the most sick.

I am drinking a lot of bottled water and gatorade because I am sweating so much, and trying to sleep as much as I can, but I keep getting sick! What is going on? Is this something that I just have to deal with on my own or is there something I am doing, or is there medicine..?

I am really getting distressed... any help would be appreciated.

[CheukMo]

Try some acidophilus. That's what is used by gringos in Mexico for those symptoms. I hope this helps.

[adrianlondon]

Sounds like something gave you food poisoning. Might even have been something the day before you arrived or on the flight (although that's unlikely considering the tests it all goes under).

Anyway, revel in the weight loss and it should cure utself within a couple more days. Drink lots of water or weak tea, and if you get headaches (despite drinking lots of water) then eat something salty.

[Long Pan]

Better than Gatorade or even tea, I would drink a lot of water, 2 or 3 liters per day (mineral water of course) + eat plain rice ("mifan"); avoid sauce & fruits.

In case you still do not feel good after another day, I would condider the option to go and see a doctor. Try to see a foreign one if there is one around. Otherwise go for a Chinese one, most of them are good (especially I guess in places like Suzhou), and some might speak English.

Let us know about how things are going

[madizi]

Do you vomit or just feel uncomfortable in your stomach? Do you have fever? I don't wanna sound like doctor (I'm not), but it would be helpful if you could provide us with more info.

If you have diarrhoea, then you should eat 粥 zhōu every day (it's rice porrige). It's should also be effective with mild poisoning. But if your poisonig is serious, then you should see a doctor immediately!

[simonlaing]

Hi optical,

My Dad the traveling doctor, tells me that many countries food take a little while to get used to. The reason is our stomach has certain bacteria that is used to eating certain kinds of food. Your stomach is used to your home country food and when you travel to different continent it takes a few days to about a week for the digestive bacteria in your stomach to adjust. (The bad news it is will just be some time and you will be ok.)

Espicially vegetable type street food. Also getting a little diarhea in China is normal every once in a while. Be glad you're not in Hunan where you have the possibility to get spicy diarhea .

Other advice would be to avoid street food (aka people who sell food cooked out of a stall) . Most of the time they don't wash the wok between cooking and sometimes the vegetables aren't washed, as the use of night soil is common on farms this can cause food posioning as well.

Decent looking restaurants and shops , that look very clean are usually a good bet.

One food that seems to satisfy the stomach of some of my western friends that couldn't eat many types of Chinese food is dumplings, Shui jiao. If they are in a soup they are called huntun (won ton soup ). These will be boiled quickly. Be wary of the fried dummplings as they can be oily. Though this kind of fried dumpling isn't common so you don't have to worry much.

There are lots of Chinese and western medicine for stomach issues as well. You may want to think of getting some medicine until your body adapts to the new kind of food.

have fun,

Simon:)

P.S. the Chinese often have similar issues eating Cheesy, and heavy foods when they come to the west.

[mr.stinky]

maybe this will help:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/12604-maos-revenge-the-cure

also a couple other useful products. the one on the right is a powder mixed into hot

water. i think it's a form of bentonite (clay used for drilling mud) that sucks up excess

liquid in all the right places, expands, and sorta plugs the leaks.

your expat insurance should have an in-country number you can call. they may advise

you not to take anything at first, just let it pass.

[CheukMo]

The getting used to the bacteria in foods in other countries is part of what acidophilus corrects. Acidophilos stabilizes the bacterial imbalance. If you can't find acidophilus, try to find yogurt, it does a very similar thing.

[heifeng]

Not to pick on the south, but in the more southern regions of China (Shanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou) my classmates and I would often have more stomach problems than in the North...almost everyday someone would have to stand up and run to the restroom in the middle of class or get sick..the hot weather must make the bacteria in already questionably safe food multiply! Hopefully with your adjustment to your new weather surroundings and cooling temperatures you'll get better soon!

Aside from medicine and rice, you may want to try 果冻...basically individually sealed bite sized jello bits and crackers (not together though of course hehe). i would recommend taiping brand plain crackers, or one of the western brands maybe.

If you are losing a ton of fluids...maybe a banana here and there...a can of sprite...ok wait this sounds like a hangover remedy...

Hope you get better soon!

Disclaimer____

Yeah, I am also not a doctor...I am just giving recommendations based on my own slightly similar experiences. However, if you are continually losing fluids for any more days and feeling really weak you may just not want to chance it and really see a doctor!

[madizi]

Also getting a little diarhea in China is normal every once in a while. Be glad you're not in Hunan where you have the possibility to get spicy diarhea .

Haha, yes. That's why I'm adapting slowly to spicy food. "Turbulent" experience 8 years ago in Sichuan was enough.....

I have a question regarding this bacteria. Does this "Chinese" bacteria, once you get it inside your stomach, stays there forever or does it go out when you're back in your home country? I'm asking this because I have expected to have some troubles with my stomach after my arrival to China (the last time I was in this area, was 5 years ago in Taiwan), but until now nothing dramatical happened. I'm happy because of that, of course. But is there any possibility that all sort of "cramps" will come later? I really would not like to run to a toilet in the middle of teaching a class....

[Eden7]

Beef,potato,and a can of beer are probably what you need right now.

[Rincewind]

Sounds like food poisoning to me too. (though I'm not a doctor either). Allot of people get stomach upsets when they first come to china. Back home your resistant to most of the local bugs. When you come here your body get hit by new bacteria and you get sick very easily.

Did you use tap water to brush your teeth? That's one that is easy to forget. Avoid cold foods like salad and cold noodles noodles. Don't take ice in your drinks. Take loads of water with some salt an sugar in it. As mentioned above, yogurt and milk are good (though the Chinese doctors will tell you to avoid them, westerners are used to milks and it's actually good for settling us.)

If you're still sick today, go to the hospital. They'll give you a jag that will cut down on the nausea and let you eat properly. They did that for me when I eat some dodgy squid last year.

[optical]

Thanks for all the replies and insights. I took your advice here and have been forcing myself to drink a lot of water (not ridiculous amounts, but a lot more than I'm used to drinking back in my old hometown of Seattle) and focus on dry foods. And sure enough, it one day just suddenly stopped. It was probably a combination of lack of water, and just needing to get used to the food here, and possibly something I ate on the airplane but honestly who knows.

I have read a lot about avoiding food stalls and while sometimes the smell is disturbingly tempting I have made myself avoid them just for precautionary sake.

Now if somebody could tell me what a pink light in a "barber shop" means then I'll be totally set.

[Jekai]

I have a question regarding this bacteria. Does this "Chinese" bacteria, once you get it inside your stomach, stays there forever or does it go out when you're back in your home country?

I'm not a doctor (like everyone else!) but I think there's some truth to this. When I arrived in Beijing for the first time last year, I was getting cramps and all the fun stuff for a week or two. I've been back in Beijing the last four days and I feel perfectly fine. Though maybe the cramps will stary back later after some resturant visits? Eep, I hope not.

I would bet money on airline food being part of the problem, too. EVERY time I eat a meal on a flight, I don't even want to look at food for the better part of the day.

Also, as for the tap water, I noticed the water in my hotel was crystal clear, so I did some searching, and aparrently as of a few months ago, they decided that Beijing tap water is safe to drink. That's no gaurantee that the pipes the water passes through will keep it clean, but if it seems clean, it just might be.

[heifeng]

So I was debating where to put this post b/c its kinda nasty, but I think it is worth sharing to prevent forum members the same problem and I know that in reflection this has happened to me more than once...and now I know what was going on...

Basically prior to Chinese NY when everything was closed, I stocked on the remnants of food left at wumei. Previously I had discovered they have some really big, yummy mantou that are white with purple speckles (this is important later on).

Anyway, during one of the those chu-something days I think I just chowed down on some mantou for dinner and breakfast, maybe a bowl of fangbianmian too. The next day I slowly began to feel quite ill, but not the standard flu or food poisening ill feeling..it just slowly crept up. Anyway, after about 1-2 days of just not feeling quite 'right'. By day 3 the vomiting began and lasted until absolutely nothing was left...so I thought...and then I started to have massive chest pain like someone was punching me. Then, several fish-ball sized chunks were literally launched. I took note of this b/c usually vomit is at least partially digested (at least everything else was). Anyway I did take a look at this huge chunks and just couldn't figure out what had caused it until I noticed those purple speckles. Anyway, I eventually realized that this was all from the mantou and my failure to 1. eat slowly and chew carefully (general bad habit) and 2. to actually eat the mantou with something else like veggies I suppose...bite of mantou...bite of 'cai'...not just lets just eat a mantou or two and call it quits for dinner, and 3, I dunno if drinking water and actual mantou-expansion had anything to do with this, but maybe the fangbianmian soup didn't help matters. Anyway, I felt better right away, but after realizing what happend I reflected back on other occasions when I would just feel ill in China, which took me back exactly to when I use to eat a ton of mantou at a certain office. Anyway, I have come to the conclusion, that mantou are dense lil' badboys of the bread kingdom, so don't just chow down on them...eat them very slowly and carefully.

Anyway, hope this over share saves someone else from mantou-induced discomfort since it doesn't seem like a likely culprit, but apparently can still cause problems.

[anonymoose]

So let me get this straight, you saw the same piece of mantou again 3 days after eating it?

:oops::oops::oops::oops:

and

:oops:

[heifeng]

well, to be exact the timeline and more thrilling details were like this:

day 1. mantou or 2 for dinner.

day 2. mantou and fangbian mian for lunch. few hrs later feeling a bit odd. Oh well, Dumplings for dinner....

day 3. Not feeling great. oh well, hot pot for dinner. Ignore the pain and attempt to eat.

day 4. now I'm really feeling like crap...ughhhhhh...vomitting for 7 hours and then when absolutely nothing was left and dry heaving and then the huge mantou chunks came up and then everything was fine (just like a cat coughing up a fur ball!!).

day 5-forever onward. Chinese friends just laugh at me for just eating several mantou with virtually nothing else for a meal and tell me not to do that again....and continue to chuckle

However, I will now be staying away from mantou.

[roddy]

day 5-forever onward. Chinese friends just laugh at me for just eating several mantou with virtually nothing else for a meal and tell me not to do that again....and continue to chuckle

Now Chinese friends + the Internet. . .

[heifeng]

yeah, I know. Consider it a lesson learned though!

[gougou]

Actually the best breakfast I ever had was plain mantous with a handful of peanuts. Then again, that was during a rainstorm in a 土楼 in Fujian province, so I had plenty of time to chew!