Can t keep anything down even water

Symptoms may include abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and fever. People may feel very sick and vomit many times a day. Most people improve within three days. However, sometimes people become dehydrated and need medical treatment. Dehydration is the most serious complication. See also When to Call for Medical Advice.

Transmission:

Norovirus, a common cause of infectious outbreaks, can easily spread from person to person. People are contagious from the moment they begin to feel ill until at least three days after recovery. Good hygiene is critical to break the chain of transmission (see Prevention).  

Specific means of transmission are:

• Having close contact with another person who is infected, for example by providing health care or sharing food or utensils
• Touching contaminated objects then touching your mouth
• Consuming contaminated food or drinks

Self-care for adults:

1. Do not eat or drink anything for several hours after vomiting.
2. Sip small amounts of water or suck ice chips every 15 minutes for 3-4 hours.
3. Next, sip clear liquids every 15 minutes for 3-4 hours. Examples include water, sports drinks, flat soda, clear broth, gelatin, flavored ice, popsicles or apple juice. Do not drink citrus juices or milk. Increase fluids as tolerated.
4. When you can tolerate clear liquids for several hours without vomiting and if you're hungry, try eating small amounts of bland foods. Try foods such as bananas, rice, applesauce, dry toast, soda crackers (these foods are called BRAT diet). For 24-48 hours after the last episode of vomiting, avoid foods that can irritate or may be difficult to digest such alcohol, caffeine, fats/oils, spicy food, milk or cheese.
5. When you can tolerate bland food, you can resume your normal diet.

Retake medications if vomiting occurs within 30 minutes of taking usual medication. If you vomited after taking oral contraceptive pills, use a back-up contraception method for the rest of the month.

If diarrhea is the only symptom, try Imodium, a non-prescription (over-the-counter) medication available at the UHS Pharmacy according to package directions. Follow a bland diet (see 4 above). After the passage of a soft, formed stool, you can resume a normal diet. Call for medical advice if you have no improvement within 48 hours after starting Imodium. 

If you are sick in a Residence Hall:

You can ask a friend to make arrangements to bring you food from the dining room. See information about Feel Better Meals. 

If you have questions or concerns about your food intake, you may call the Dining Services dietician at 734-647-2614 or send email to [email protected].

Notify your Housing director and let your parent/s know if you are ill. If you need assistance, contact the staff at your Community Center. 

“To be honest, the clinical symptoms of stomach flu and food poisoning really overlap a lot,” says Dr. Michael Rice, director of inpatient medicine gastroenterology at the University of Michigan. “You can have vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal discomfort and fever with either.” Often, he says, the easiest way to determine the cause of such an illness is to look back at the person’s recent history.

“If the symptoms are caused by food poisoning, they tend to occur within hours of eating something,” says Rice. So if you can recall snacking on something questionable, or if others who ate the same thing as you have similar symptoms, you may have found your culprit.

If you’re the only one who got sick after eating a certain dish, however, you more likely picked up a viral illness in another way—from a sneeze, a handshake or a contaminated doorknob, for instance.

This type of “stomach flu,” which doctors call acute gastroenteritis, isn’t caused by the influenza virus. While influenza is largely a respiratory illness, stomach flu is brought on by other common viruses that cause more severe GI issues. For these infections, symptoms usually start one to three days after exposure.

When it comes to treatment, says Rice, it may not matter where your symptoms came from. In some cases—when a chef infected with norovirus prepares food and contaminates it, for example—food poisoning and the stomach flu could actually be one and the same.

Regardless, your biggest concern with either type of illness should be making sure you’re getting—and keeping down—plenty of fluids. “Anything involving vomiting and diarrhea can lead to dehydration, so you want to make sure you’re drinking water or a rehydration drink, like Pedialyte or a sports drink,” says Rice. (People with diabetes should ask their doctor about consuming sugary beverages, he adds.)

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If you can keep food down, Rice recommends the tried-and-true “BRAT” diet (bananas, rice, applesauce and toast), or even just cola and saltine crackers. “There’s no real science behind these, but they seem to do well,” he says. “If you’re getting sugar and salt, you’re replacing some of the calories and electrolytes you’re losing.” If you’re sensitive to caffeine or dairy, avoiding these food groups may also help you recover more quickly.

If a person starts to start to show signs of serious dehydration—including dark or decreased urine, lightheadedness or muscle cramping that’s separate from stomach cramping—they should see a doctor, says Rice, because they may need an IV to replace lost fluids. That’s especially important for children or the elderly, he adds.

You should also seek medical attention if you don’t start to feel better after two days, or if you have a fever over 101 degrees that doesn’t break in a day or two. Call your doctor right away if you’re vomiting blood, if you notice blood, mucus or pus in your diarrhea, or if you experience neurological symptoms like numbness or tingling; this could suggest that you’ve ingested a bacterial toxin, says Rice.

Pregnant women, people with diabetes or inflammatory bowel disease and anyone taking immunosuppressant drugs should also let their doctor know if they’re experiencing a stomach illness.

If none of these scenarios apply to you, says Rice, it’s usually fine to wait out your stomach bug at home. An over-the-counter anti-diarrheal or anti-nausea medication, like Imodium or Pepto-Bismol, may make the wait a little easier.

You can also take steps to keep your illness from spreading to others and to avoid getting sick in the future. If you suspect food was to blame, throw out items that may be contaminated, alert others who may have been exposed and be sure to practice good food-safety hygiene—like frequent hand washing and not cross-contaminating cutting surfaces—going forward. And if you think a viral infection is at play, disinfecting surfaces and avoiding close contact with others can help keep it contained.

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