Food poisoning remedy?

[big_swede]

Hi All!

Anybody got an viable natural remedy against food poisoning? Heard from a colleague at work that a serious case of food poisoning ruined his 2 week canoe trip, and thought "what would I have done?". I know coal/ashes can be forced down to cure the green apple splatter, but is there any better ways? If you happen to suffer from severe vomitting I imagine eating coal is the last thing you would want to do.

I'm talking natural remedies now, not carrying medications. We're men, aren't we?

So, enlighten me with your wisdom!

ps, I didn't really know were to put this one, maybe flora & fauna or food section? Feel free to move it.

[spamel]

The best way is to stop where you are and get over it. Keep hydrated by sipping water, strictly no food and be very careful with regards to sanitation. Ensure all water is boiled and clean if coming from a live source such as a stream, and the charcoal/chalk routine can be very helpful if your stomach is growling. Keep salt replenished by using diaoralyte type sachets in your water.

Apart from that, you've just got to grizz it. Hygiene would be the number one thing though, and of course prevention is better than cure at the end of the day. Ensure you cook all food thoroughly and don't leave anything out which flies can get amongst. Move camps regularly so that you don't start living amongst a load of flies and insects, keep the camp clean and sterilise your eating and drinking equipment before use with a sterile solution or if it is metal by passing through the flames of the fire for a few seconds to kill any nasties.

[Pict]

I've had two episodes of severe food poisoning one in the US and one here in Brazil. The first time in the US I ended up missing two weeks of work and should have been hospitalized. I couldn't even keep down water for days. If I took a drink it came right back up. I should have been on IV fluids. I ended up drinking constantly, just tiny sips or sucking on ice but all the time. Dehydration is the worst effect. The body is trying desperately to eliminate the poison so you don't want that to stop.

My first day back at work my boss had me on light duty, I just had to weed a big flowerbed that didn't need to be weeded. They found me passed out in the grass.

Basically the body's reaction is to send everything out from both ends as fast as possible and that is the only natural remedy I know of. You have to keep the person hydrated while this is going on. If it ever happens again with me I'm going straight to the hospital to get stuck with a bag of something. Once the poison is in your system I don't think there is anything else to do about it.

To make oral rehydration fluid mix two tablespoons of honey or sugar, a 1/4 tsp of salt and a 1/4 tsp of bicarbonate of soda in one liter of water. If you don't have bicarbonate double the salt to one 1/2 tsp. Mix well and have the person drink as much as they can keep down. BTW this mix works wonders on ordinary heat induced dehydraton as well. Mac

[crazydave]

he he he - back to rectal infusion again

[w00dsmoke]

I nearly died while working on a nature reserve I caught Salmonella B. The first signs were a feeling of faintness and gidyness, then shortly afterwards, very strong smelling farts and then severe runs with sickness which lasted about 6 days non stop. I was hospitalised in an infectious diseases unit for ten days and given 26 bags of iv and nil by mouth over 8 days. Nothing natural would have helped with that. At the time I remember thinking to myself while lying in hospital "thank the gods I wasn't on a multi day canoe trip or I would never have made it out using my own steam. It left me with Reiter's for 3 months and unable to walk without the aid of crutches for those 3 months (reactive arthritis).

So this is not only life threatening but life changing afterwards with pretty serious consequences in some. In my case without IV, I wouldn't have made it. So to be realistic in many cases nothing in the wild is gonna help!

[irishlostboy]

i had a nasty bit of food poisoning about five years ago. i got hot food from a deli counter while heading out the road to hitch the 30 miles home. i made the first leg of my journey fine. the food was down 20 minutes. i got dropped off on the intersection for the next leg of my journey and within a space of a minute went from feeling fine to being unconcious and vomiting (nasty mix) on the side of the road. i was found and brought home eventually, and was back in action the next day, but i had re-occuring sickness every two or three months since. i eat something totally harmless (other people eat same meal and are fine) and imediately get sick and pass out with the same simptoms as my food poisoning. but am fine the next day. even now i get this about every six months.
any idea what is with this?

[firecrest]

In the middle ages, people used to eat powered bird droppings before and after consuming some types of mushrooms, to neutralise the poison. I suspect that works the same way that eating clay or charcoal does.
Perhaps a good bit of advice, if you cant get medical attention, is to listen to your body. The body records the value of the foods you eat, that is why pregnant women crave certain things such as coal or sucking chalk and iron - they ONLY crave these things if they have tasted it before! (usually as babies) Thats why we dont see coal cravings so much anymore because most people do not have coal fires.
I remember being very young and when I felt sick I craved gingernut biscuits which I would suck on slowly, even though I dont really like them that much. I learned many years later ginger is often taken for sickness and travel sickness as well because its an antiemetic. Perhaps if you were feeling sick or had the runs and your body is craving something, you should go ahead and eat it. Likewise, if you dont want to eat anything and want to lie very still, its probably best respond to that as well. After all, responding to the bodies direct requests is how the rest of the animal kingdom deals with illness.

[Chopper]

Yeh, don't let my wife cook for you.

[Matthew.Passmore]

What about eating raw acorns or drink oak bark tea? get plently of tannins, won't cure it but might help with the vomiting a diorheea (sorry for spelling) if you should be unlucky enough the be in the wilderness and have food posioning, I has it once in spain, I had to be wrapped in towels soaked in cold water as I was so hot with fever.

[John Fenna]

Avoid Kebabs!
Aint that so Jed?
Otherwise - pepermint oil helps with some of the symptoms, clay helps absorb some poisons etc
but prevention is much better than cure!
I once had a bad go while climbing at Stanedge - being halfway up a route , strapped into a harness, is not a good place for having explosive guts!

[big_swede]

I nearly died while working on a nature reserve I caught Salmonella B. The first signs were a feeling of faintness and gidyness, then shortly afterwards, very strong smelling farts and then severe runs with sickness which lasted about 6 days non stop. I was hospitalised in an infectious diseases unit for ten days and given 26 bags of iv and nil by mouth over 8 days. Nothing natural would have helped with that. At the time I remember thinking to myself while lying in hospital "thank the gods I wasn't on a multi day canoe trip or I would never have made it out using my own steam. It left me with Reiter's for 3 months and unable to walk without the aid of crutches for those 3 months (reactive arthritis).

So this is not only life threatening but life changing afterwards with pretty serious consequences in some. In my case without IV, I wouldn't have made it. So to be realistic in many cases nothing in the wild is gonna help!

Yes of course, medicine where medecine is due. Your and Picts cases are on the worst-thing-that-could-happen end of the scale, I was thinking in more subtle terms.

So far it's great reading here.

[Grooveski]

Recognising that you've eaten something wrong and bringing it back up again might class a remedy I guess. Sometimes you just know that you've eaten something amiss.
Have never poisoned myself but last years little helicobacter encounter did leave me wondering what chance you stand if you're out and about instead of hooked to a drip.

[Arth]

Cold toilet paper or better still wet wipes. As everyone knows your seat can get a little sore with all that wiping.

[littlebiglane]

My advice would be to start taking acidophilus before you go. This could help reduce the risk of stomach upsets. I use them when I go abroad and swear by them. I just had look out across the Channel and I would get a dicky tummy. Now when I travel abroad I take this and have (fingers-crossed) never gone done with a stomach upset since.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactobacillus_acidophilus

I would also take s small supply of each of the following:

activated charcoal tablets

dioralyte - for proper rehydration

manuka honey (which has anti-bacterial properties) and good for energy and killing bugs in tummy/gut.

Oak bark tea - as previously mentioned is of some use...

[firecrest]

Ive heard that actimel and yakult have been shown to reduce the risk of upset stomach if taken for a week prior to departure, but their effects only last a week at best.

[sandbender]

When I'm traveling I always carry a few small tin foil sachets of 'wasabi' or Japanese horseradish and if I think my host has provided foodstuffs that my delicate western digestive system may have a problem with I'll swallow the contents of a sachet (ideally without the mixture touching my tongue in the process).

Not sure how the science of this solution works, but it has kept me healthy so far

[mariobab]

I always have rehydration powder and carbo medicinalis(charcoal).,but I've heard that clay neutralize poison.In our tradd. medicine recipe is;
2 tablespoon of clay in 1/2 liter of water,stir and drink during the day.Should be good for diarrhea,too.But I've never tried.

[fishy1]

To make oral rehydration fluid mix two tablespoons of honey or sugar, a 1/4 tsp of salt and a 1/4 tsp of bicarbonate of soda in one liter of water. If you don't have bicarbonate double the salt to one 1/2 tsp. Mix well and have the person drink as much as they can keep down. BTW this mix works wonders on ordinary heat induced dehydraton as well. Mac

Just wondered, what's the purpose of the bicarbonate? The only thing I could think of would be to neutralise excess acid in the stomach.

[madelinew]

Ensure you cook all food thoroughly and don't leave anything out which flies can get amongst. Move camps regularly so that you don't start living amongst a load of flies and insects, .

Just how dodgy are flies? Really. I used to live in Malaysia for a while and I've eaten the dodgiest of foods from the dodgiest of food stalls. The only time I got food poisoning out there was in hotels or airports from food that had been kept for long periods of time. I've bought food from markets which is very freshly killed but has flies buzzing around and dried fish that is left out in the sun and definitely has had flies around it.

Now I have a bit of a sensitive stomach but anything with flies hasn't affected me. I've also eaten roadkill.

An aside - I really miss Nasi Lemak for my brekkie from the foodstall down the road from my apartment in Kuala Lumpur

[spamel]

Depends on your hygiene. Flies spread disease, (so keep yours closed! ) but if you have open latrines and rotting food near to your camp site, and more importantly your food prep area, then you increase the risk of flies tramping your own fecal matter over your halibut and chips! This will not go down at all well!

[crazydave]

well my hotel in sharm el sheikh had the health poeple in the week before we got there as so many poeple were sick and ****ty - they supposedly got the all clear but everyone we talked to had one thing or the other as there semmed to be a few different versions doing the rounds.

I picked up something viral so had D&V for a day (I know it was viral as thats the only time my nuts ache) then it went to D without V and finally a very loose watery movement in the morning as I got rid of last night dinner. others had cramps and continuous D. I did expect to pick something up or at least have heat induced D but I reckon the hotel was sick. the chemist reckoned there was something in the air which could be right as they keep waste water in cisterns all around the hotel and use it for irrigation so its plausible that the water is breeding nasties and spraying it into the air is working like a giant sneeze due to the heat allowing the virus to live longer in the open - thoughts please.

mind you you cant escape it no matter how much cleaning gel you use as its on the money, glasses door handles etc... we were reasonably lucky but others were struck the day before returning with salmonella type syptoms and were unable to fly home.

mugabe's there now so I hope he catches something

[crazydave]

oh yeah - very few flies as the hotel employed a pest controller

[squantrill]

Triphala...

indians use it for all sorts of consumed bugs!! not sure if its going to work against major food poioning but it helps against general gut rot!

Maybe worth a try its based on three plants and tastes really quite bad.. Nothing you can find in the uk I guess but its available as powder or capsules its natural so as close as your going to get to your requirements I guess..

[crazydave]

one thing of interest is that they reckon the issue with some waters is the mineral content playing havoc with gut. I think the first walkabout episode touched on a similar thing with those salty ground springs.

[303Brit]

Cold toilet paper or better still wet wipes. As everyone knows your seat can get a little sore with all that wiping.

Very true! not to be underestimated,it can be so painful that every step is agony. I always carry a Nappy/diaper protective cream for raw skin wounds ,has a multitude of uses and can be applied on the nether regions.

Having been hospitlized from Salmonella,can only endorse what Spamel,Pict and the others have said,wether mild or major food poisoning ,dehydration is the main factor and you will most likley have to rely on others untill you can move on,In my case i could only drink sweet peppermint tea for about 3 days which helped relieve the stomach cramps.

A question for the more medically trained or knowledgable out there:
Heard that when food is heavily spiced,or curry powder is used it helps reduce any harmfull bacteria in it. True, or travellers tall tales???

[crazydave]

ive heard the spice thing, ggarlic is a natural antibiotic as is onion and most curries are packed with them.

went to the docs today so I can give a sample for a compo claim as soon as I came back home so had the squits so a few more uncomfy days ahead

I am now so accurate I can pass through the eye of a needle without touching the sides

[carla]

when in indonesia i would get the runs for a month at a time. tho not as bad as the other descriptions in this thread. ive found clay and charcoal excellent. chili hasnt been mentioned.
thats what most people in the tropics use routinely to kill off tummy bug organisms.
but when worse came to worse i had a herbal tincture made up by a friendly naturopath that surpassed everything. carla

[JonnyP]

Hi All!

Anybody got an viable natural remedy against food poisoning? Heard from a colleague at work that a serious case of food poisoning ruined his 2 week canoe trip, and thought "what would I have done?". I know coal/ashes can be forced down to cure the green apple splatter, but is there any better ways? If you happen to suffer from severe vomitting I imagine eating coal is the last thing you would want to do.

I'm talking natural remedies now, not carrying medications. We're men, aren't we?

So, enlighten me with your wisdom!

ps, I didn't really know were to put this one, maybe flora & fauna or food section? Feel free to move it.

Castor oil is one of the oldest natural remedies for food poisoning (according to my folk medicine book) but I doubt you have it growing in Sweden..??
Garlic can be taken too...

[hammock monkey]

maybe its because i grew up with mud etc in my gob, grubby little feral mite that i was but i seem to have a fairly strong constitution. I've probably had 1 day off genuinely ill in 5 yrs thank god, and that was after eating food i knew was off but gambled i'd be ok. wrong!

I've also eaten roadkill, food i've found in the street, loads of stuff for dares/ beers etc and pretty much always been absolutely fine. so far so good - plus i dont really do that stuff anymore.

my point is though that i take fairly inert food with me when camping, avoid rich food including most meat if i can and stick to porridge mixed with museli etc or sealed peparami type stuff if i'm hankering for some hog....well, i say hog - eyeholes, earholes and a-holes is more like it.

cut down the chances of things going wrong & put up with semi boring food i say. well, it's boring at home but your senses/ taste buds are much sharper and you're generally pretty hungry come meal times it tastes fantastic day after day to me.

dunno if its just brits but stories of bad guts is bloody hillarious - do any of you non uk people find it the same? not funny for the person with a chewed orange hanging out the back of 'em, granted.

[edispilff]

Might be a bit late with this.. but Juniper berries are excellent for calming the stomach and purifying the intestinal tract... andother tree, which i believe grows north of the 30 deg. mark is the aspen. Every part of the Aspen is usable.. and the leaves have the same ingredients as aspirin. The bark can be used for tanning, and also as a intestinal seditive!

Anything to keep water down will speed the process.. so charcoal (activated or otherwise) will help also (mix it with the water).

Dehydration is really the worst feeling!