Geez, can’t believe I’ve written a whole post about common ‘traveller’s diarrhea’, but I’ve just never been so sick and feel the need to record it :P
Ok, read it again and really only my mother and grandmother should be reading this!
Monday it started with a headache all day, and despite three paracetamols (a lot for me!) wouldn’t go away entirely. Though I still had two beers during the farewell party.
At around 1am I threw up, from bed, awesome (not in bed, into a plastic bag :P ). Also the diarrhea started around then. And the fever. Wow, never shaken so much with a fever I think. I put on my thermal underwear, and was still so cold and shaking. Was up most of the night. At 5am the boat started up again. And I threw up again, just stomach acid I think.
Slept for a few hours, saw some Komodo Dragons, took a loperamide (stopper) and some advil (all from Marta), then slept the whole day. Skipped breakfast and lunch, and for dinner had about two spoonfuls of plain white rice.
On Wednesday morning visited the local nurse in a small village who gave us paracetamol, loperamide and vitamin B. My travel doctor guide told me I needed antibiotics, but I thought as I was starting to feel better that this would do, and it was all a bit difficult anyway as the nurse didn’t speak english and the translator (our guide) wasn’t that great either. We asked the cause and she said ‘food intolerance’, which we realised anyway, well, food poisoning we’d call it. One of the girls said Perama should pay, so they did. Wasn’t much though, these local clinics are supported by the government (I was glad to hear!).
Late afternoon I started feeling worse again, mainly nauseous (though still have diarrhea, and stomach cramps, but can live with that), and while I didn’t throw up till late at night I came very close many times, including on the 2hr bus trip, argh.
So off the boat, but still nauseous and still feeling like I was on a boat at times, I had a very bad night, where I wasn’t even keeping water and tablets down. Feeling very dehydrated I knew I had to be careful to not end up on an IV drip, I talked to people who had! So I needed anti-vomit tablets first, and antibiotics second.
There wasn’t a pharmacy in town so I went to the doctor at the clinic which is in one of the big hotels. He was very nice (had only been here, dealing with tourists, since a few weeks), and gave me about 6 different types of tablets and ORS (oral hydration salts), to put in my water. This all helped immediately. Well, I stopped vomiting and started hydrating, which was the major thing.
Though the ORS was still making me gag, eew, don’t like orange tasting stuff.
So the last few days I’ve been feeling better and better.
My only concern now is my light headed/dizziness. I think I’ve always had slight low blood pressure, and I guess it’s just lower than normal, but in the back of my mind I’m once again thinking I have what grandma and dad have. Some kind of inexplicable menierre’s disease thing (balance issues). But I’m probably just paranoid, seeing I have just been really sick and not eating much for days!
Also now paranoid about everything I eat. I’m mostly avoiding what the travel doctor tells me to avoid, but it doesn’t mention egg, and I’m glad, I could eat eggs every day. But two people have told me they avoid eggs as they think they’ve been sick from them in the past. So arggggh. I had an omelette on my nasi goreng last night…
