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Home  >  Travel  >  My Speedy Recovery: Food Poisoning Abroad Is Still A Thing
Travel

My Speedy Recovery: Food Poisoning Abroad Is Still A Thing

Matthew Klint Posted onApril 16, 2022April 16, 2022 33 Comments

Just an update to my personal health trials. Earlier in the week, I wrote to you from my bed at the Four Seasons in Istanbul, sick as a dog. I’m happy to report I recovered very quickly and have to conclude that it was food poisoning…though it certainly gave me a scare.

Food Poisoning Abroad: Riding It Out

Let’s review the timeline. In the evening I ate dinner, feeling great. Three hours later, I felt nauseated and bloated, with a strong urge to vomit. I almost induced it by placing a finger in my throat since my stomach was so tumultuous, but instead decided I would just let it come naturally. It never did, which probably prolonged my suffering.

I slept, hoping I’d feel better in the morning. Nope, I woke up the next morning and felt the same. I just remained in bed and ordered a PCR COVID-19 test from the hotel because these days we think everything is COVID-19. A lady in a hazmat suit swabbed my mouth and nose and promised the results in a few hours.

They arrived, negative. This wasn’t a surprise because I still just wanted to vomit…it felt like food poisoning.

Meanwhile, the frequent trips to the restroom were dehydrating me, but even sipping water upset my stomach further.

So I slept some more. A whole lot more, for me at least.

Early the next morning, I woke up…and felt great. I was hungry, though I did not eat just yet.

I took another COVID-19 test. Negative. For good measure, I took an at-home test…negative.

Feeling 100%, I ventured outside for some fresh air and enjoyed a strong cappuccino and a smoothie.

(one nice thing about staying at the Four Seasons Istanbul at the Bosphorus, and most other Four Seasons for that matter, is that you can request things like custom smoothies)

I rounded out breakfast with a bowl of berries, which is really sad considering the hotel offers such an amazing breakfast spread, but I did not want to push myself and was able to keep it down fine.

CONCLUSION

I’m feeling 100% better and all symptoms have dissipated. Getting sick is never fun and getting sick while traveling is even worse. But whatever I had, which seems likely to be food poisoning or some sort of 24-hour stomach bug, has now passed.

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About Author

Matthew Klint

Matthew is an avid traveler who calls Los Angeles home. Each year he travels more than 200,000 miles by air and has visited more than 135 countries. Working both in the aviation industry and as a travel consultant, Matthew has been featured in major media outlets around the world and uses his Live and Let's Fly blog to share the latest news in the airline industry, commentary on frequent flyer programs, and detailed reports of his worldwide travel.

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33 Comments

  1. jcil Reply
    April 16, 2022 at 10:48 am

    It was Covid–3 negative tests prove nothing. I know people who have had up to 5 negative Covid tests but swear they had it. Glad you are better, not being able to venture too far from the bathroom is a very bad situation when you are traveling.

    • Santastico Reply
      April 16, 2022 at 1:02 pm

      @jeil: I just burped reading your post. Is that Covid? Wake up and get help.

      • jcil Reply
        April 16, 2022 at 2:38 pm

        Just for the record, I was being facetious. But I guess some folks don’t get it.

    • Jan Reply
      April 16, 2022 at 1:15 pm

      Dude, the flu and the cold didn’t just go away. Please stop the implications.

      • Santastico Reply
        April 16, 2022 at 5:48 pm

        Do you get tested for clod and flu? No. So stop with the BS. I am here watching the NBA Playoffs. 20,000 + people in each arena 1 inch from each other and no masks. Covid is over. Life goes on.

  2. SMR Reply
    April 16, 2022 at 10:59 am

    I had a 24 hour stomach bug last week. It sucked bad, same as you.. I did not vomit which his very weird. At urgent care they said ti was going around everywhere. I did not take a COVID test because what they heck does a stomach virus have anything to do with COVID!?

    • Jan Reply
      April 16, 2022 at 1:16 pm

      When the OG Rona showed up they mentioned that the runs is an not-uncommon symptom. I’m not so sure if that’s still true with BA.1/BA.2 though.

  3. Rich Reply
    April 16, 2022 at 11:02 am

    Most food poisoning takes 24-36 hrs to occur. Exceptions are things like shellfish which can hit you in about 20 minutes. Lots of time people want to blame the last thing they ate when it really was something from a previous meal.

    It is a miserable feeling. Getting sick while traveling is terrible.

    I once ate some food that I realized later was contaminated by rodents. Had a slight fever, chills and nausea. It was a house I just moved in and didn’t realize they were around. I had left food out.

    I can’t drink either when I am feeling like that but you have to be careful of dehydration and sometimes need an IV. Good luck.

  4. Bob Reply
    April 16, 2022 at 11:15 am

    Yeah this is not food poisoning take 48-72 hours to appear. Prob take more Covid tests. To go to the restaurant and put other lives in danger is pretty careless.

    • Matthew Klint Reply
      April 16, 2022 at 11:20 am

      You are part of the problem.

      Why don’t you just stay home? Please. As long as you’ve thrown out all reasonableness, just lock yourself in the basement and throw away the key – your paranoia is a danger to others. I declare it a threat to public health.

      You think I didn’t eat 24-36 hours before? Whatever it was, there are still other sicknesses than COVID-19. This was food poisoning. I’ve had COVID twice. This wasn’t it. My stomach can attest to it. So can my negative tests.

      This was several days ago…I’m still negative. So go bark up a different tree you fear-mongering poon.

      • derek Reply
        April 16, 2022 at 1:12 pm

        I have a different fear mongering concern. Lack of specialist medical care. I now am concerned that there is no experienced neurosurgeon or orthopedic surgeon in Benin or similar country. If there is an orthopedic surgeon, they might be limited to casts, not various ways to operate on hip fractures. ICU care for a brain bleed is beyond Benin. In fact, it is beyond Russell, Kansas but at least if you’re in real trouble you might be airlifted to Wichita, Kansas.

        I know for a fact that Palau lacks a neurosurgeon based on a news report of a high ranking government official who was treated by a vacationing doctor who had him flown to Taiwan for emergency surgery.

    • Santastico Reply
      April 16, 2022 at 1:03 pm

      @Bob: make sure you get your Metamucil, don’t forget alcohol gel, a N95 mask and go get mental health help immediately.

    • JW Reply
      April 16, 2022 at 7:48 pm

      China son, the communist will welcome you with open arms for such thoughts.

  5. MeanMeosh Reply
    April 16, 2022 at 11:19 am

    Been there…it sucks. Thankfully the few times it’s happened to me, it was on one of my long-term work trips to India, so I just end up missing a day of work rather than having a vacation impacted. Sprite or some other type of lemon/lime soda and plain crackers helps me a little.

    Glad you’re feeling better and hope you get to enjoy a little of Istanbul. Love that city.

  6. JoeMart Reply
    April 16, 2022 at 11:21 am

    An Easter miracle! At least the GI colitis didn’t happen while flying nonstop from USA to Singapore 🙂

    • Matthew Klint Reply
      April 16, 2022 at 11:38 am

      Don’t remind me! 😉

  7. RetiredATLATC Reply
    April 16, 2022 at 12:29 pm

    I flew back to the US in October from Germany, in TK J, after a combined ten day bout of food poisoning and a partially blocked intestine, which included a night in a Munich ER, still sick as a dog. Worst 11 hour flight in my life.

    Ended up 3 nights in our local hospital once home. Traveling while sick is horrible.

  8. HkCaGu Reply
    April 16, 2022 at 12:40 pm

    Frequent toilet trips can drain you and dehydrate you. When you drink water and it goes right through the wrong tract, you need to drink something more than water to replace what you lost from the liquid your lower digestive system didn’t want to retain. I’ve been told Gatorage-type sugar-and-salt beverages are the best for that situation,.

  9. BKAloha Reply
    April 16, 2022 at 12:45 pm

    Glad to hear you got better! I always travel with Pepto Bismol pills in case of emergency. Ugh, bad food memories never go away.

  10. Santastico Reply
    April 16, 2022 at 1:05 pm

    @Matthew: finger in the throat immediately after the first symptoms is key. It never fails. Glad your are better.

  11. Santastico Reply
    April 16, 2022 at 1:30 pm

    And since when eating something bad and having vomit and diarrhea had anything to do with cold and flu? Mental health issues has been the biggest problem of people in this pandemic. My neighbor still wears surgical gloves and a N95 mask to walk from her home to the mail box. Before getting inside her house she sprays the mail with what I believe is alcohol gel. She drives alone with gloves and a mask on. Alone!!! Go figure what has been damaged inside her brain.

  12. Skylash Reply
    April 16, 2022 at 2:06 pm

    Do you know that food poisoning is not just an “abroad” thing?
    You can get food poisoning in the US just as much as you can get it overseas.

    • Matthew Klint Reply
      April 16, 2022 at 2:10 pm

      Yes, I can personally attest to that. But it also tends to happen, at least in my case, when I am away from home.

  13. Joe Chivas Reply
    April 16, 2022 at 2:28 pm

    You shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Travel is not safe right now. We need to give Biden some more time to defeat this virus before we can start to think about a transition to a new normal that might possibly include travel.

    • Santastico Reply
      April 16, 2022 at 2:43 pm

      Hahahahahhaha the old coot is sinking hanging to his approval ratings on his way to nursing home.

      • MeanMeosh Reply
        April 16, 2022 at 6:29 pm

        While the pandemic porn is sadly alive and well in the comments section here, check out Joe Chivas’ posting history. I’m about 103% sure (+/- 3% margin of error) that this is more sarc from LALF’s sarc master. To his credit, he’s usually pretty amusing.

  14. Robert in SF Reply
    April 16, 2022 at 2:48 pm

    Damn the COVID-trolls are strong here…I haven’t read the comments on posts in a while, so this does disappointment me.

    I do wonder if we will ever know/confirm the amount of bots and foreign trolls that are on the USA-popular websites whose whole purpose was to sow dissent and present an image that were sooo many people out there with these serious, sincere, heartfelt, honest, true beliefs being pushed via the comment and post trolls. Just astounding numbers, variety, and coordination I think.

    There are too many passionate idiots on these and other websites saying patently hyperbolic histrionic claims, and I wonder how many of the commenters and counter-commenters to them are real people and not agents. Cause it’s just over the top how many and how far spread these crazy comments are…they are fracturing our support and trust and faith in one another for common human decency.

    And the statements I am referencing go both ways…they ramp up real commenters, influencing them socially to either entirely dismiss others who differ in opinion or beliefs as traitorous *enemies* or “demons”, or to go over the top in the extreme’s of their own beliefs.

    I just wonder if there has been a cold war going on for a long time, and agents placed early on are now on the prowl to cause internal dissent and chaos.

  15. Greg Reply
    April 16, 2022 at 3:31 pm

    At least you had a beautiful place to recuperate – best Four Seasons urban hotel in the system by a country mile

  16. Greg Reply
    April 16, 2022 at 3:43 pm

    You might want to pack Pepto as a *prophylactic* for future trips – seems to cut the risk in half taken twice daily each day abroad

    https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2017/05/22/528802722/tips-for-staying-healthy-when-traveling-abroad

  17. David Reply
    April 16, 2022 at 8:24 pm

    Getting sick at home sucks. Getting sick on the road really sucks. I spend a lot of time in the third world. I NEVER leave home, for anywhere, without my “kit” which contains Imodium and Azithromycin. I can only recall needing it twice in 15 years but thank Jesus it was there when I did. Both times just getting out of bed to take meds was a major effort.

  18. PM1 Reply
    April 17, 2022 at 1:42 am

    Getting sick while traveling sucks big time. I still have nightmares of the time I got food poisoning while traveling. Didn’t realize it until I woke up in the middle of the night on a wet bed. Glad you’re feeling better!

  19. cs22 Reply
    April 17, 2022 at 10:34 am

    Glad it quickly passed. That’s one way not to gain weight while traveling!

  20. Mr G Reply
    April 17, 2022 at 1:39 pm

    “I’ve had COVID twice”

    You’re vaccinated and I’m sure boosted and you still got Covid twice. Tells you something doesn’t it?

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