Be alert to food-poisoning symptoms needing medical attention

Source: The Columbus Dispatch, OhioAug.迷你倉 25--There's no delicate way to put this: When you feel that you're spending more time on the toilet than off, there's a good chance that something bad hitched a ride on your food and into your digestive tract.Almost all cases of food poisoning include diarrhea, sometimes bloody and sometimes lasting several days or longer. Depending on the bug, contaminated food also can cause vomiting, fever and more-serious problems, including kidney failure.In most cases, extra time in the bathroom, plenty of fluids and some bland food will get you back to normal, experts say. Only in severe cases, or when signs of dehydration set in, is it time to think about seeing a doctor or going to a hospital, they say."The biggest thing is making sure that you stay hydrated; and when you decide to start challenging yourself with foods again, start with something bland, small and not too fatty," said Dr. Chad Braun, the program director of the family-medicine training program for Mount Carmel Health System.A classic suggestion is the BRAT diet: bananas, rice, applesauce and toast. Noncaffeinated beverages, preferably water or a sports drink, are good for replenishing fluid, Braun said.Good hygiene to protect others from infection also is in order. Norovirus, in particular, is easily spread to others if strict attention isn't given to cleaning up after bathroom visits or when changing diapers. It's also good practice to avoid preparing food for others when you're actively sick.More-serious cases of food poisoning are usually accompanied by high fever, severe pain, bloody diarrhea and/or severe vomiting, Braun said. That calls for medical attention, he said, as does an illness that doesn't clear after a few days."Forty-eight hours can be a dividing line. That doesn't mean you should expect to be 100 p ercent, but hopefully you're at least turning the corner," he said.Signs of dehydration in adults include dark urine and decreased alertness. In young children, parents should watch for a normal number of wet diapers, and for tears if the child is crying.Dr. Dennis Cunningham, an infectious-disease specialist at Nationwide Children's Hospital, said that 儲存倉eight change isn't the best measure of whether a child needs medical attention. Losing some water weight and clearing out the intestinal tract isn't necessarily a crisis.He recommends beverages with some salt, sugar and potassium, such as Gatorade."If a child seems really severely ill and not making urine very often, they need to see their doctor. Bloody diarrhea would be another reason to bring a child in," he said.People with weakened immune systems -- both adults and children -- are at higher risk.The sick are often quick to blame the last thing they ate, but figuring out whether you were poisoned and by what can be tricky. Some things can make you sick within an hour. Others don't sicken a person until a week or more later.One of the quickest ways people become sick is through Staphylococcus aureus, which can send you running for a bathroom within the hour, said Dr. Julie Mangino, an infectious-disease expert at Ohio State University's Wexner Medical Center.Another, Clostridium perfringens, tends to cause illness about six hours after a contaminated meal."You often wake up with the cramping in the middle of the night," Mangino said.Those two tend to be fast-acting because they produce toxins in the food that reproduce rapidly at body temperature, she said.Clostridium often shows up in foods that were cooked correctly to begin with but then are kept at improper temperatures. It can be especially challenging in such places as prisons and nursing homes where large amounts of food are prepared and kept out for serving.E. coli, another common culprit, has an incubation period that can last several days, meaning lunch on Tuesday could make you sick on Friday.Detective work can be difficult when just one person is sick, but when something has sidelined two or more people, it's important to report it and attempt to figure out the source, Mangino said.She recalled an OSU potluck in which about 20 people got sick. "I picked up the phone and called the health department."mcrane@dispatch.com@MistiCraneCopyright: ___ (c)2013 The Columbus Dispatch (Columbus, Ohio) Visit The Columbus Dispatch (Columbus, Ohio) at .dispatch.com Distributed by MCT Information Services迷你倉沙田