Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Food Poisoning...

I would like to preface this post by saying that if you are easily grossed out, then you might want to skip this one. As the post title and past posts state, I had food poisoning, and I will be describing some of the symptoms. However, most importantly, I will be describing what I did to deal with it in a timely manner. So, you've hopefully been warned...

If you are going to adhere to strict definitions, then what I had might not be referred to food poisoning so much as Traveler's Diarrhea. Upon arriving in Turkey, I broke just about every rule there is pertaining to eating in a foreign country. My 5 days went ok, so I didn't really think about it so much. The food was tasting great, so why should I be cautious. That was until I ate this for dinner....



Later that night, my stomach startled gurgling and starting to slightly cramp. My stomach has become sensitive to the grease while I was in Istanbul, but I just took some Tums and Immodium and it was fine. Well, the Imodium seemed to make my stomach cramp worse. Needless to say, I was soon using the bathroom until I had purged everything in my body. After that things kinda calmed down, but I was still having problems with diarrhea. I talked to Sertan the next day, and he said that during the summer, since the students were gone the food doens't get eaten as quickly at the mall on campus and food sits all day. This has the worst effect on chicken and things made with yogurt. If you look at the picture above, that's two of the most prominent portions. By taking Imodium (by now which was helping), and drinking lots of water, my stomach started to get better but not by any means cured. What wasn't helping was the Cay and greasy food that is everywhere. Well, on the third night, I ate this...



Now, this was a bad idea because the chicken curry was really really greasy. In fact, the sauce was thickened by grease alone. I thought I was ordering something light with veggies, and that came out. I ate light, and tried to eat as much of the not so greasy things on the plate, but low and behold the cramping and diarrhea came back. I actually started to get a little scared because I wasn't sure what was really going on. I was in a country where I don't speak the language, and I only have two dosages of Cipro for this very problem. We the next morning, I decided to start taking Cipro. Well, studid me once again, I didn't read the bottle carefully. There was a colorful sticker saying not to take calcium based antacids 2 hours before or 6 hours after taking Cipro. Well thankfully, it didn't effect it too much. Throughout the day, I drank massive amounts of water and ate light foods. And now a few days later, everything seems back to normal.

Now, here is some of the things I learned through this ordeal. First, it is way easier to get "prescription drugs" here than in the States for two reasons. You don't need a prescription, and they have cheap generic drugs here. I was able to get 14 pills for 7.50 YTL or about 7 bucks. Second, finding Imodium is not as easy here. I think I'll have to switch to Pepto, if I can find that. Third, you can't actually prevent Traveler's diarrhea no matter how hard you try, if you are going to eat local food. I mean, you might get lucky, but if you're going to be in a country where food is drastically different from you own, then you'll probably get some degree of this problem. So, if you're reading this, one of the most important things you can do before you trip is get a prescription of Cipro to carry you through until you can manage to figure out what diet is safe and find a larger supply of Cipro. :)

Sorry that may have been disgusting, but I was hoping to convey that getting Traveler's Diarrhea isn't the end of the world. Hopefully, people will feel better about coming to countries that have different standards when it comes to food. The reason the locals don't get sick is because their bodies have developed cultures to deal with the bacteria. So, by all means, go out and eat, but just keep in mind that you might not want to be too zealous without taking some precautions.

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