Shouldn't I be all better now?

January 2, 2008 9:46 AM

I puked my guts out on New Year's on my way back to my car. I had nothing alcoholic to drink. I ate at Wendy's before the party. All day yesterday and this morning I still feel like I've got a lead brick in my stomach. How should I treat this at home?

WebMD hasn't been much help, actually. So far I've eaten mainly bread, saltine crackers and a little chicken soup to try to absorb the stomach acid. About the biggest improvement is that this morning I found that if I lie still the pain goes away.

Luckily, I had yesterday & today off.

Home remedies, anyone?

posted by scaryblackdeath to health & fitness (23 comments total)

Club soda always helps to settle my stomach. The bubbles bring on a series of hearty belches (well, in other folks; I'm too dainty to do such a thing, of course) which relieves that brick-in-the-stomach feeling. Do you have pain anywhere else, like your lower abdomen? Are you running a fever? (Do you still have your appendix?) Of course, if your symptoms persist or get worse, you should see a doctor. Hope you're feeling better soon!
posted by Oriole Adams at 9:53 AM on January 2, 2008

A spoonful of apple-cider vinegar will taste awful, but usually settles the stomach in those situations.
posted by blue_beetle at 10:02 AM on January 2, 2008

I'm guessing you are not a parent, otherwise you would know about the BRAT diet for gastrointestinal distress.

Bananas
Rice
Applesauce
Toast

Plus make sure you stay hydrated. Dehydration will only make you feel worse. And yeah, if it persists another day or so I'd think about seeing the doctor.
posted by COD at 10:04 AM on January 2, 2008

Coke syrup (Coca-Cola minus carbonated water) over ice always helped me to feel better when I was a wee one. Should be available over the counter.
posted by cowbellemoo at 10:06 AM on January 2, 2008

Try some flat coca cola. Apparently, the phosphoric acid will help settle your stomach.
posted by Solomon at 10:06 AM on January 2, 2008

I also 2nd COD's menu. Toast, toast, toast.
posted by cowbellemoo at 10:07 AM on January 2, 2008

Whenever a friend of mine is sick like this, I bring over:

Gatorade
Water
Saltine Crackers
Green Grapes

Those always seem to help the most. You definitely need to be re hydrated. If you can't hold anything down at all, try sipping Gatorade slowly in very tiny sips instead of gulping it. I've found that this can fool your stomach into keeping it down.

Feel better!
posted by pazazygeek at 10:10 AM on January 2, 2008

I'd recommend the BRAT diet as well, and plenty of water or gatorade. Also, have you tried Pepto Bismol, or something similar? It's pretty disgusting to drink, but the whole point of it is to soothe the digestive system.
posted by vytae at 10:13 AM on January 2, 2008

A friend of mine got food poisoning at Wendy's just before Christmas. Like others have said, make sure you stay hydrated, and if it doesn't get better soon, see a doctor--you may need antibiotics.
posted by statolith at 10:17 AM on January 2, 2008

Did Pepto on the first night, and while I had a touch of diarrhea the morning after it generally went away... of course, I haven't eaten a lot.

A banana sounds good right now. And I don't even like bananas. :P

Got some Gatorade after I posted this. Rol-Aids, too, which seemed to have a pretty immediate improvement.

As for the rest--I've had some congestion for awhile now, which was what I first thought brought all this on (I get some ugly post-nasal drip when I'm sick, and I couldn't really spit it out a lot at the party...). But now I'm not so sure, as that has lessened.

Head hurts some, particularly at the ears. And my lower back is killing me, but I think that's from having been horizontal so much in the last 36 hours or so.

Thank you all for the input.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 10:21 AM on January 2, 2008

N-thing the BRAT approach, with the twist that "Tea" can stand in for "Toast". We used to get flat ginger-ale as kids, and it still works well for me.

Hope you feel better.
posted by jquinby at 10:23 AM on January 2, 2008

Ginger ale, left to go a little flat, might help.

Stay hydrated, perhaps take one of those electrolytes solutions you can buy at the pharmacy to keep your sodium levels up.

It might not necessarily be food poisoning, it could be Norovirus, which is very common at this time of year.
posted by essexjan at 10:24 AM on January 2, 2008

After my last mystery bout of gastroenteritis, I started taking probiotics (lactobacillus, usually, and sometimes other stuff) and was feeling better a lot faster than I have in the past from food poisoning or stomach viruses.
posted by Lyn Never at 10:30 AM on January 2, 2008

The ear pain sounds like you may have an ear infection; lower back pain can also indicate infection as well, or even appendicitis (though I'm not trying to be an alarmist). Does your doctor or local hospital offer a nurses' hotline you can call for some advice?
posted by runningwithscissors at 10:31 AM on January 2, 2008

alka-seltzer would help

but i definitely nth hydration

i had this same affliction over xmas and it took damn near a week to get better

just drink tons of water

also try not to stress about this, i found that stressing over being sick, missing work, etc only increased stomach acids and discomfort

i totally tried to block out negative feelings about being sick, and it helped quite a bit
posted by Salvatorparadise at 10:36 AM on January 2, 2008

Yogurt. Activa is good, but any yogurt will do. It's a natural anti-acid and will also help repopulate good bacteria in your stomach.
posted by samsara at 10:39 AM on January 2, 2008

Oh, also you might be low on potassium which yogurt also has. (Explains the hankering for bananas). Stay away from caffiene, drink lots of water, and get well!
posted by samsara at 10:41 AM on January 2, 2008

Regarding the Toast: Make sure it's dry white toast. Something your tummy can easily digest. Don't go buying whole grain bran fiber uber bread.
posted by spec80 at 11:10 AM on January 2, 2008

How much did you puke? As Lyn Never pointed out above, acidophilus and probiotics can be helpful in these situations. IANAD, but as I understand it, if you vomit enough you can clean out your stomach completely, which means that you've also lost all your digestive flora. Anything eaten after that will just hang out, in your stomach, for quite a while, as there's nothing to help it digest.

If you just puked once, this might not be the case, but if you feel like this might be happening (did the brick feeling continue after regular eating? This might be a sign ...), eat some yogurt or grab some of the probiotic capsules from a shop (better off with the refrigerated ones) and pop them, according to instructions. And stick to gentle, similar foods, until your stomach is up and running again. Fermented milk products, as mentioned, are also helpful, as they have active cultures that can also help to repopulate the stomach.

I had this happen to me once and, in my ignorance, ate a giant bowl of tortilla soup as my first post-vomit meal. Spicy soup, chicken, tortillas, cheese, all lingering there, for well over 8 hours, doing nothing. Not pleasant.
posted by the luke parker fiasco at 11:20 AM on January 2, 2008

I hear Ritz crackers are good for nausea.
posted by infinitewindow at 11:33 AM on January 2, 2008

Quarter teaspoon of ground ginger, quarter teaspoon of ground cinnamon. Let that steep in hot water for about five minutes and you have yourself a stomach-settling tea that's actually kind of tasty. Sweeten if you like. Works for me, anyway.
posted by katillathehun at 11:59 AM on January 2, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

I had a similar-sounding situation last week (worshiping the porcelain god on Christmas morning), and my stomach didn't settle for days. I can't say which of the things we finally tried did the trick, so here's the combination of things that finally put my stomach back where it belongs:

-- Gatorade (we made a "homemade" electrolyte drink from an Internet recipe)
-- yogurt (my toddler son's YoBaby, because it was handy)
-- papaya pills (from our local Whole Foods)

I did those on Thursday night and Friday morning, and everything settled down. So, some of this might be an effective treatment, all of it might be effective, or maybe the last nasty bugs in my stomach died around the same time.

Good luck to you!
posted by flexiblefine at 1:28 PM on January 2, 2008

"And my lower back is killing me"
Does the lower back pain feel like it could be your kidneys?
(I am possibly a bit over-sensitive about kidney infections after being hospitalised just over a year ago. But that was a NASTY 18 hours in Emergency, and two week recovery, so if I can spare anyone else ... The 'I've been sitting/lying wrong' sensation sounds ooh very familiar)

E. coli can find its way to your kidneys through the bloodstream - what is known as a descending infection. Less common than an ordinary UTI, but it does happen, and might be more likely in a male. You don't mention running a temperature, but vomiting is a kidney symptom too (chicken/egg?)

Kidney infection or not, my advice is to make a really serious effort to rehydrate - a gatorade doesn't cut it - think in terms of a couple of litres of water a day. And PLEASE if your back pain is still there tomorrow or you get feverish at all, see a doctor, have a super-simple 5 minute urine test, get on some antibiotics pronto.

Don't do what this idiot did. (Waited out a week of 'back strain' and crawled to a GP on day 2 of a raging fever. Stupid post-colonial cultural relic stiff-upper-lip syndrome thing going on.)
posted by Catch at 7:01 PM on January 2, 2008