Paranoia!!!!!

October 10, 2006 10:51 AM

help me with my paranoia! as its making me terribly unhappy.

ok i know you'll all think im paraoid but i already know that.. anyway. my boyfriend had what he thinks was food poisoning starting in the early hours of yesterday morning. quick onset of diarhea and vomiting with stomach pains, and was feeling well again by late evening. i have a severed phobia about being sick and have found myself pancking over the prospect that it may have been a stomach bug and i will catch it.. which do u think is more likely and would i be likely to have come down with a stomach bug by now if it were in fact one?

posted by angelmouse3003 to health (18 comments total)

MeTa
posted by Doohickie at 11:03 AM on October 10, 2006

It might be a stomach bug. Maybe you've caught it. Does it matter? I had the same sort of thing a year ago and figured it was something I ate, but several people in my office had the issue over a week so we decided it must have been some sort of 24 hour flu.

More than likely the ever-present paranoia of *maybe* getting sick is more threatening than the actual possibility of being sick. He was only ill for one day. Is it going to kill you to be ill for one day?
posted by mikeh at 11:05 AM on October 10, 2006

meh.. easy for you to say.. i cant help being a lil nuts. he's had food poisoning 2ce before. he tells me im being silly as he knows what it is!
posted by angelmouse3003 at 11:09 AM on October 10, 2006

Try the "worst-that-can-happen" trick. Always works for me. Worst here would be you catch it and get sick. A few days down and lots of fluids and rest and you get better.

Come to terms with the worst case scenario and accept it, and your paranoia will disappear.

(I'm printing this post for later, btw.)
posted by routergirl at 11:11 AM on October 10, 2006

the short legnth of illness would point, to my uneducated mind, to food poisoning as the culprit. viruses tend to hang around for a few days. i think it's safe to kiss him now.
posted by lester's sock puppet at 11:15 AM on October 10, 2006

I'm assuming, as stated in Doohickie's callout (which I'm starting to think might be the direction this should go), that you're wondering when you can officially know that there's no chance you'll catch the same thing? There's no certainty here, but if you want to just feel better, assume that you would have caught it at the same time since anything that is over that quickly is going to run its course. If you do get it after that, you can assume it's a fluke and you caught it from wherever he did, at a different time.
posted by mikeh at 11:16 AM on October 10, 2006

I used to be exactly like you. It would drive me up a tree if someone got the stomach flu/food poisoning. All I could think of for days afterwards was when was I going to get it, how sick was I going to be?

After dodging the bullet many times, I got sick...and guess what? it wasn't that bad, and It doesn't bother me anymore.
99 times out off 100 the worrying is worse than the sickness
posted by HoldFast at 11:24 AM on October 10, 2006

Take some activated charcoal capsules. These will absorb any poison in your system, bind it up and carry it away.
posted by Riverine at 11:27 AM on October 10, 2006

Take some activated charcoal capsules. These will absorb any poison in your system, bind it up and carry it away.

WHAT??
posted by spicynuts at 11:31 AM on October 10, 2006

activated charcoal capsules?? where can i get em and what exactly are they/do they do?
posted by angelmouse3003 at 11:32 AM on October 10, 2006

actually just looked that up.. charcoals for ingested poisons...
posted by angelmouse3003 at 11:36 AM on October 10, 2006

If your question is dealing with the paranoia, I'd advise you to take a couple deep breaths and look at things logically. It sounds like he had a minor bout of food poisoning. Even if it was a stomach bug, it doesn't automatically mean you will get it, and you'd likely have it by now as these things seem to travel fast.

Another thing to consider: He has had food poisoning (was that twice?) before and is familiar with it. Food poisoning is not catchy unless you ate what he ate. Again, if you had food poisoning, you'd likely have experienced symptoms by now.

If you are quite concerned about getting ill, I'd advise you to speak to your doctor and describe exactly what you told us. I don't know if I would recommend the activated charcoal without speaking to a professional (pharmacist, doctor) first for this particular case, but you could certainly speak to your doctor about that as well.

Wrapping up: Relax, think, call your doctor if you feel it's necessary or will be reassuring.
posted by jerseygirl at 11:41 AM on October 10, 2006

thanks jersey girl.. prob most helpful reply yet.. boyfriend has found me mildly amusing. he's 99% sure he had food poisoning and has told me to stop worrying or i'll myself ill! lol.
posted by angelmouse3003 at 11:49 AM on October 10, 2006

oh 2ndly gotta see doc 2moro anyways... on wait for it... panic attacks.. im pretty sure im just a fruit case.. you'd all be wise to ignore me. *laughs*
posted by angelmouse3003 at 11:52 AM on October 10, 2006

If the fear of getting sick bothers you to the point where it affects other things, it might be more beneficial to talk to your doctor about your anxiety than the likelihood of gastroenteritis. This is especially true if others telling you to "snap out of it" is ineffective.

On preview: Glad to hear it. Best of luck.
posted by gnomeloaf at 11:59 AM on October 10, 2006

I don't have an answer to your question, but I think the word you're looking for is "hypochondria," not "paranoia." It would only be paranoia if you irrationally suspected that someone had deliberately tampered with the food to make you and/or your boyfriend sick.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 12:00 PM on October 10, 2006

This is meant as helpful: You will get far better answers on AskMe if you show us the respect of using proper spelling and punctuation.
posted by LarryC at 6:00 PM on October 10, 2006 [2 favorites]

LarryC: while it might be meant as a helpful bit of advice, it doesn't really belong in AskMe.

As for answering the question: with many illnesses, once you're symptomatic, it's too late for people around you to avoid you. Chances are, if you kissed him the day before he got sick, if it was a stomach bug, you've already got it. So worrying about it is pointless. In fact, you might stress yourself out so much worrying about it that if you *didn't* have it, you could very well make yourself sick just from worrying about it!
posted by antifuse at 6:09 AM on October 11, 2006