Traveler Diarrhea WARNING

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Traveler Diarrhea WARNING
I am scared; I could have died if I took diarrhea medicine in Niger, or maybe I did take the medicine and this is why my feet tingled for three months. I cannot remember, I was delusional sick.

I am 90 percent sure I had food poisoning in Niger. (I thought Malaria at time.)
I think taking Diarrhea Medicine could help to kill me.

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Bangkok, a.k.a Krung Thep, Thailand Southeast Asia
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Andy of HoboTraveler.com --- Submit Hotel URL
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I have a low-level fear of water; I have a high-level fear of food. I think all this do-not-drink the water noise is annoying. I think the dingalings should be saying,
- DO NOT EAT THE RESTAURANT FOOD! -

An empty restaurant with no clients and only me eating scares the shit out of me. I am 100 percent sure, a restaurant in India, Thailand, Philippines, Ghana, Peru, Jordan, will sell me food that is old. A very busy place is safer and me watching the cook.

I believe food poisoning and low-level food poisoning is 20 times more of a problem than water, people blame the water, when it was the food.

I had a conversation this morning with my Thai Friend who is has masters in Pharmacology and works in a Hospital.

She said, and I am not a doctor, I am not an expert, this information at best is critical speculation on my part.

She said,
- When you have food poisoning a person need to have Diarrhea to clean the body and drink lot of mineral water. If a person takes, Diarrhea medicine all the poison will stay in the body. -

It takes a long time to die from Diarrhea.
It takes a day or two to die from Food poisoning. (I think, I am not sure of any of this.)

My feeling and thought is this, it is never worth the risk to take the Diarrhea medicine. I may just keep poison in my body. I do not die from Diarrhea and most is Type II Diarrhea not the more dangerous type.

People say, go to a doctor, it is 100 times more complicated than you think when traveling, people extremely under-estimate what going to a doctor entails. Plus going to a pharmacist is normally a lot better idea, the pharmacist in 80 percent of the planet do the triage work that saves the lives of the people. The doctor is way too late.

I have said, by the time I find an honest Doctor, I could be dead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triage

Note this is again one of them annoying times where I am positive, I am not perfect, I do not know. I would love to hear experts and critical opinions on this subject. If you know of an expert, please send this email to them or the page link, and ask for help. I really want to learn more about this, and reading lapses full of nebulous conclusions. I want comments, I am in Thailand, not the USA, I am in an no English information vacuum.

The implications about advice given to travelers on diarrhea is amazing, the normal standard advice about how to deal with travel diarrhea could be crazy wrong.

Traveler Diarrhea WARNING

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Reader Submitted Comments | Deleted Comments (0)

ash said on Tuesday November 20th, 2007 10:41:00 PM

Here is a link to the UK National Health Service information pages on Diarrhea: click hereYou can navigate through sections such as 'causes', 'symptoms' and 'treatment'. This is designed for idiots living in the UK, not for travelers. I was always brought up with the advise you and your friend say here: let the crap get out of you. The same is true of vomitting, sneezing, runny nose, watery eyes. Your body is repelling the bad stuff... let it do it's job!When in Goa I got 'acute' diarrhea. after 4 days, I was quite dehydrated, and started taking rehydration salts. Also, living in a hut where the toilet is a long way away, I chose to take anti-diarrheal tablets for the night time, but to let nature take her course in the day time. Eventually I took a course of antibiotics (after 6 days of symptoms: I took Ciprofloxacin 500mg, as reccommended in A Comprehensive Guide to Wilderness and Travel Medicine by Eric A. Weiss, M.D.) and 2 days into the course i was fine. The only time I think I took Imodium constantly through diarrhea was trekking in Nepal: the cause was altitude, not poisoning, so my body wasn't trying to get rid of any nasties. And... I was trekking...

goingeverywhereslow said on Wednesday November 21st, 2007 07:25:00 AM

Andy,Good topic.I carry an anti-diarrhea product but now you have me asking what for.I browsed the imodium website and they have a page on Travelers diarrhea that indicates the most common cause is E. Coli (and its many variants) that can be either food or water born. In their how to prevent list there are more food line items than water related, so I think your are spot on with regard to causes. Things like altitude, stress, fatigue etc. appear to be minor causes.My feeling now is that Ash and your pharmacology friend are onto something that I should pay attention to.Since the cycle usually completes in a week tops, perhaps it's better to risk embarrassment than toxicity.Amazing that I've not considered this more in the past. I'd sure like to hear from a few medical professionals on this subject here as well.Eric

Andy HoboTraveler.com said on Wednesday November 21st, 2007 07:38:00 AM

I told Astid a German girls I was with in Guatemala, you cannot eat 10 Mangos. I told Andrea of Argentina in Brazil, you cannot eat 10 mangos.People over-eat one food, I like Coconut meat, it requires I utilze the toilet the next day.Diarhea in my opinion is a very temporary state, caused from eating too much or one food, or drinking 15 beers in about 95-97 percent of the cases according to the country, I call this Type II diarhea.Food poisoning made me feel like some put lead weight in my body. I did have diarhea in Niger. My brain became impossible to control. I had a low-level of this in Bamako, Mali. I had the same in Mexico many years ago, laid in bed for 7 days.Not enough energy to move.The idea of keeping this in my body longer is scary, diarhea is inconvenient. To me it just seems very risky to take anti-diarhea medicine when I travel.

Andy HoboTraveler.com said on Wednesday November 21st, 2007 10:00:00 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral_rehydration_salt

NIGER1.COM said on Sunday November 25th, 2007 12:01:00 PM

NIGER LATEST NEWS http://www.niger1.com/niger.html