Food Poisoning

Food poisoning is a term that means quite a lot of different things to different people. Dr Joe Kosterich talks about food poisoning, including what it is, what its symptoms are, common foods that cause food poisoning, how to prevent it and how to treat it.

Transcript

Food poisoning is a term that means quite a lot of different things to different people.
Hi, I’m Dr Joe and in this video we’ll go through some of the key things that really we might understand to mean food poisoning. Firstly of all it’s essentially a term that describes an illness that you get and generally that will be a vomiting or diarrhoeal type illness, after eating food which is contaminated or has bacteria in it. Some colloquial terms are things like Bali belly, travellers’ diarrhoea, there’s a number of terms that are used around this.
Typically we eat something and within a period, usually between six and twelve hours, people will often experience nausea, they will then get stomach cramps or pain and usually vomiting. That will last for anywhere between 12 and maybe 24 hours and somewhere in amongst that they also develop some diarrhoea which again can persist for up to a number of days or perhaps as little as twelve hours.
The key thing about what we describe as food poisoning is that it’s not caused by a gastric virus which you might have caught when the gastro bug is doing the round. It is something that has been in the food.
A couple of the differences between viral gastroenteritis and food poisoning is that generally a virus will come on more gradually, and may last a longer period of time. Food poisoning will start quite acutely. You can literally be quite well at dinner time and at two in the morning, you know, feel really quite unwell. And it’s often the people that come into see me who say, you know, “I was okay, I ate dinner, and at two o’clock I was up vomiting.” Those people will generally be the ones with food poisoning as against a viral gastro.
A food poisoning type illness is often more dramatic. The vomiting can be more full on, as can the diarrhoea. On the plus side it can run a shorter course. Whereas a virus might run a course of five or six or even a week or so, food poisoning will typically be one of these 24 or at best, 48 hour wonders. Yes there are exceptions but those are the averages with it.
So you’ll be quite acutely unwell with a food poisoning in most instances but it’ll get better more quickly.
Common foods? Look I don’t think it’s fair to say that there is. Often chicken gets the blame. It can be chicken but it doesn’t have to be. You know sometimes meats are at fault but again you can’t always say there is one particular type of food that does it, nor can you point to a particular food type. So it’s not a certain type of restaurant which is more prone to it. Obviously if you read about problems in the paper at a particular place then that might be one to steer clear of, or at least until the situation has improved.
Prevention of food poisoning, again, obviously cooking your food properly sounds obvious but is important. In terms of if you’re eating out, if you are eating something and you’re like, “whoa, I’m not sure that this is quite right or off,” look, don’t be shy about asking them to take it back. Again, not just because you don’t like the taste, you can’t claim that as an excuse, but if genuinely you think something is off, it’s better not to proceed with that.
Treatment of food poisoning, fairly straight forward. Most of the time it really is about resting up and making sure you’re keeping up with the fluids. Now you can buy fluid replacement sachets at the chemist and make those up. If it’s in the middle of the night and you don’t want to run out to the chemist which is fair enough, just drinking plenty of water is important. Even if it’s little sips at a time. Icy poles have their supporters. A bit of juice or cordial and you can throw a pinch of salt into that, is also very simple, it’s effective as well.
There are some medications that can be used to help with vomiting and diarrhoea. Anti-diarrhoeal tablets can often be bought over the counter at the chemist, there are also ones on prescription. And obviously anti-vomiting tablets can be got on prescription from your doctor.
Next question, when should you see your doctor? There’s no absolute answer to that question. If you’ve had vomiting overnight and it’s settling buy the morning and turning into diarrhoea, you probably don’t have to go and see your doctor. If you’re not sure about what is going on with you or you’re concerned about the symptoms, than that is always the time to go to the doctor.
In many instances by the time people come along to see me for example things are already on the improve, and there’s no absolute cure for food poisoning. There are tablets to take to help the symptoms as we mentioned but no absolute cure.
So in simplest terms if things aren’t settling or you’re concerned, that’s the time to go and see your doctor. But do be aware that there’s not cure. Your doctor can offer you some medications that may help a little bit with the symptoms.
Alright so to sum up, food poisoning, not pleasant. In Western countries at least it is almost never fatal. It’s a little bit different to what can happen in the third world but here in Western countries that’s not the case. It will be unpleasant for a day or a few days. The symptoms can be controlled by medication if that is necessary but often will resolve by themselves.
Keeping up plenty of fluid and hydration is really, really important. If you don’t want to eat for a couple of days that’s fine. If you want to eat you can and starchier type foods, you know, bread, rice, potatoes, pastas, noodles, that sort of thing is best, but that doesn’t matter, as long as you’re taking in plenty of fluids.
So food poisoning, not pleasant, does pass, fairly simple treatments if need be.

More information

	For more information on preventing food poisoning through safe food preparation, see Food Poisoning Prevention and Food Safety
	For more information on the symptoms, risk factors and treatments, see Salmonellosis (Salmonella enterocolitis; food poisoning)