Food poisoning horror stories - share yours?

[Anonymous]

Here is my story:

I had to travel to Africa to work. The kind of place where there is only one flight a week, from Paris. I was travelling with a colleague who I was meant to be mentoring.

on the people mover to the terminal I start to sweat, and feel something at the back of my throat. once we get to the air france lounge I had to run to the bathroom. I was fully open at both exits, never felt so sick. They start knocking on the door to tell me that the plane is going to leave. But I literally can't go anywhere that is more than 6 inches away from a toilet. So I have to stay there as the flight to Paris leaves. Then they want to close the lounge and start banging on the door to get me to leave. Eventually I think I can make it to the public toilet outside. Within an hour or so I am fine.

I call my spouse. She says, "oh, I noticed that the eggs I made for you were past their best-before date, but I thought they would be fine". I had them runny, by the way.

There was no way to get to the country within the next week. My colleague had to go on his own and do his best. The worst part was people thought I had been pretending because I didn't want to go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I got food poisoning at in-office interview during law school. We were at the tail end of lunch at a very upscale restaurant when it hit so I'm assuming it's whatever I ate at the hotel that morning for breakfast, which I don't even remember. It was so awful. The associates were lingering and chatting, while I started sweating and went to the bathroom for a couple extended visits. Then we went BACK to the office for my final interviews. At the first one I said I had to use the bathroom and basically exploded once I got in there. Was completely horrified to come out of the women's room and find my male interviewer standing there waiting for me. I can't even imagine what he heard. I made some apologies to cut the interviews short and went back to spend the night in my hotel bathroom. It sucked because I had dinner plans with a friend in that city and had to beg off. I remember she made some suggestions (maybe just soup?) but I had stuff coming out both ends by that point so anything was out of the question.

Me, too. Well, not technically food poisoning, but I did discover I am allergic to scallops during a 1/2 law firm interview. Had them at lunch, hit me halfway through the afternoon interviews. Worst part was, I told my interviewer (a woman) that I needed to use the bathroom and she said, "Oh, me too!"

[Anonymous]

^ "1/2-day"

[Anonymous]

This was a few years ago. DD 17 and I flew to the midwest for a combo college visit and family event. We toured the college and had dinner at Qubo. An hour after we ate I started feeling off. We went to bed in the hotel. An hour later I woke up and spent the next 6 hours sitting on the toilet while I vomitted in the trashcan. The next morning we had to drive our rental car 2 hours to get to the family event. DD kept offering to drive but it was snowy and legally she could not drive the rental. I didn't want to risk it. We made it to the family event and I lasted 2 hours before I left to go to bed at the next hotel. I tried eating bread at this point but got sick again. Next morning we go to my sister's house for niece's birthday party. At this point I can keep down water and Gatorade. At noon we leave for the airport and fly back east. When we land we have what should be an hour drive home. Halfway home a snowstorm hit and dropped 4 inches of snow faster than the plows could clear the turnpike. To this day I'm not sure how we made it home but we did. I literally collapsed when we got home. DD took that school off of her list and I will never eat Qubo again. On the plus side I lost 12 pounds that trip.

[Anonymous]

To the crab poster. I think you are allergic. I never knew being allergic could cause vomiting, but a co-workers daughter reacted this way.

[Anonymous]

I think what I had was some kind of norovirus or other viral infection, rather than food poisoning, but will never know.

When I was 23 I was living in DC and dating a guy who lived in Leesburg. I had gone to his house for the night and we had dinner plans. I was waiting for him to come home from work and suddenly started getting horrible shooting pains all over my body, terrible headache, sweating, chills. Within a couple hours the diarrhea started, then the vomiting. It did not stop for 10 DAYS.

He was gone at work all day the whole time so I was alone in his house, violently ill. I hadn't brought my phone charger with me and he had no house phone, so I couldn't even call anyone after the first couple days since my phone died. I had to go to the ER twice for IV fluids because I started going into shock (I didn't know it, being 23, but weird things like my fingers/hands uncontrollably curling inward and quite literally feeling like I was going to die seemed to indicate something bad). About 7-8 days in I got suppository antiemetics that allowed me to start keeping down Gatorade. I think on Day 11 I was able to drive home...some 20lbs lighter. It took a few weeks to fully recover.

[Anonymous]

Overdue memo to U.S. Embassy in El Salvador control officer for my official visit in the late 1990s. When the person whose visit you are managing has to run out of government meetings to be sick, gets to the airport but is too Ill to board the departing flight due to food poisoning, then vomits in a plant in the hotel lobby...when this person does not respond to the driver for a flight the next day, check it out.

[Anonymous]

Once in Mexico, several times in America. It's a nightmare. The only food it truly put me off is those pick-your-own-salad ingredients places that were popular in the late '90s/early 2000s. Feel better, OP!

[Anonymous]

I had a very bad food poisoning one time in Greece. I believe it was the seafood that was in the market/cafe.

I woke up at night and ran to the bathroom. I did not need to sit on the toilet, everything came out the other way. I swear I puked everything in me. It started in the sink because I thought it was just something minor. oh man! it filled up the sink! and more. Then i tried to move to the toilet fast but i was exhausted but eventually got to the toilet. And threw up more into the toilet. By the time I was done, I crawled back to the bed. Don't remember much after that. I woke up and didn't do anything the following day. I just sat there in a daze. Not even sure if I drank or ate anything. I was surprised the sink and toilet still worked!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To the crab poster. I think you are allergic. I never knew being allergic could cause vomiting, but a co-workers daughter reacted this way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To the crab poster. I think you are allergic. I never knew being allergic could cause vomiting, but a co-workers daughter reacted this way.

My sibling has a pretty severe shellfish allergy and gets nauseous and throws up. In some ways, I think this is your body's way of protecting itself and getting rid of it.

[Anonymous]

DH and I take the girls for a Christmas Eve dinner at Medium Rare. nothing fancy. I have a bit of the salad and DH eats his entire salad. two hours later I’m queasy and DH is sick. we ended up sick for all of christmas. we called the in-laws who said they would be right over but they didn’t show for hours and then wanted to be entertained. I couldn’t even muster any anger. I told the girls (3 and 5) they could open their presents and play. DH and I were in bathrooms the rest of the night. my M-in-law was not pleased.

I will never go back there again. we called them but they said they didn’t hear from anyone else. I will never forget that christmas. I just wanted to puke and feel better but it wouldn’t happen.

[Anonymous]

Not me but my sibling, about 10 or so years ago. Had expired seafood salad from a deli before getting on an international flight. I was sitting next to sibling on this flight. Do not recommend.

[Anonymous]

I ordered take out when I was postpartum and it was that night I learned what it’s like to vomit constantly in the toilet so hard it came out of my nose while also breast feeding a newborn.

That night I thought to myself, literally there is no way life can get worse. And I was right! Even in the darkest days of 2020 I was not nursing a newborn w a towel over them so my nose vomit didn’t get on them

[Anonymous]

My future sister-in-law and I were driving back to college together, a 12+ hour haul. We ate at some burrito place for lunch, and pushed on hoping to make the drive in one day. It snowed heavily, and traffic came to a halt on the highway as folks had to chain up to cross a particular mountain pass.

At some point, my stomach started to ache terribly and I started bleaching. Embarrassing! But it got worse - both the snow and the stomach ache. Traffic was dead stopped. I started to vomit. We scrambled to find me a bag to puke in. It sucked. But then I started to have a terrible, horrible urge to poop. Like it wasn't a choice at all, it was going to happen. Traffic was not moving, there was no where to go. I got my future sister-in-law to hold up a sheet in an attempt to cover for me, and I proceeded to have terrible, farting, smelly diarrhea on the highway. It was humiliating.

Finally traffic started to crawl up the hill, and we continued on. I puked and shat my way to the next highway turn off about fifteen miles later, where she stopped at a bunch of places before she found TWO mediocre motel rooms and we waited it out for about a day until I could stand upright again. She was very kind about it, but she still teases me to this day.