Was sick on the plane :-(

phobal

I should be lucky that the only illness I got was being overly-intoxicated.

TimMakins

Wow personally, and from experience on my many travels, I would say you are crazy to go on antibiotics for that. I wouldn't take antibiotics whilst travelling except as a last resort - diarrhoea with the consistency of diluted orangejuice every 5 minutes, and prolonged vommitting. Why ? - because antibiotics kill all the natural flora - the friendly bacteria in your stomach. So although the antibiotic approach results in a quick relief of symptoms, it also lowers stomach performance permanently, which sets up the body for more severe challenges. The end result is that you could take weeks to recover from something that would have sorted itself out naturally in a few days. I remember meeting a Danish girl in Syria who had taken antibiotics like that, and had had the runs for more than a month - the doctor recommended that the only course of action was to go home to recover.

There's lots on the internet about this - a Google search for something like natural stomach flora antibiotics will find plenty of pages.

What to do when you get the runs? well I am not a doctor, so am only giving my own empiric beliefs, but they do work OK for me. As long as diarrhoea is not so bad as described above, the kind where you'd hate ever to be more than 5 paces from the toilet, I go on a strict diet, and keep all acids, fats and spices out of my diet. All I eat are boiled rice or potatoes, dry toast, bananas, yoghurt, and drink lots of bottled water. Nature does the rest.

Tim in Ireland.

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Nick-H

Oh Tim, I really can't imagine that Passingby would be taking all that without having been advised by a doctor.

I would put money on her also being well aware of the downside of anti-biotics.

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Just one member of the IndiaMike Mod Team

Indojingai

You made a mistake, when going to India bring ALL your supplies with you.

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I need your clothes, your boots and your motorcycle.

passingby

oh yes I did see a doctor who prescribed me the medication.
the reason why I saw a doctor was that i was scared I had some mild ulcer. I had some mild ulcer last year and I thought that the problem returned since I experienced high acidity in my stomach for almost a month now in India.
I really hope that I will recover from the runs soon. I hope that I will not experince the runs for a month like the Danish girl, although I remember a friend in India 2 years ago who got stomach problems for a month but never went to see a doctor.
I think one has to be very careful with the food in India, do not eat on trains stuff that is not packaged. who knows where it comes from.

TimMakins

Well I really hope that all goes well for you, but if you read some of the pages that the Google search finds, it says that antibiotics, whilst providing a temporary fix for a stomach ulcer, have side effects as well, so is not the best idea. Getting advised by a doctor is not always as great as it seems - sure they are informed and qualified, but I think that sometimes they are pressured into providing the quick fix, or what is expected of them, rather than the best treatment for the patient. Antibiotic dispensing in the UK is through the roof these days, and all the authorities are trying to get the doctors to cut down, with little effect. Use a thing unnecessarily or too much and you generate problems, like these hospital superbugs they are now having such problems with.

Food - Sometimes its possible to get sick without being sure of the cause, but usually you can make a good guess where it came from. On one trip a few years ago, I was most violently ill from a vegetable biryani sold on Lucknow platform. It was warm, and in a tin-foil box, but who knows how many times it had been heated up before. Another time, I ignored the fresh coriander sprinkled on a dish, with pretty immediate results, but the worst time was in Bodhgaya, when I saw a jar of peanut butter - boy was that terrible - I was in a fever for 2 days - not much fun when you are by yourself.

The best advice is to eat fresh food from a place with a high turnover. I've always been happy in station refreshment rooms for that reason. Cheap, too.

Tim in Ireland.