Food poisoning? And, was it my cheese?

[destrekor]

Last week, Wednesday (6th): I felt fine waking up. Made my bowl of cereal, started feeling weird in that, I just didn't feel like finishing that bowl. Normally I devour my morning cereal and want a second bowl, but I felt like I just couldn't tolerate any more. I couldn't tell if it was turned off by the sweetness that morning, or what.

Not understanding why, I figured I'd supplement the meal with a protein shake. It was my rest/recovery day from lifting anyway, and I'd need it.

I go about some morning activities, then it just starts to hit me. All of my joints/muscles/tendons start throwing fits, they ache. My skin has that prickly, "oh, you got a fever alright, enjoy!" feeling, and my stomach still is on that split-personality train wreck, asking both "where's my food", and "no, no, don't give me food!". It was just miserable feeling. I stuck to drinking sugar-free powerade, maybe another protein shake.
Laying down watching TV, it hit me in the afternoon - my brain says to my muscles, "it's time to move, your stomach says it's time to immediately evacuate all contents by way of mouth. please move, with haste"

All emptied out, I return to that "so hungry, don't you dare eat anything" feeling and veg out watching TV the rest of the day. I made tomato soup that night, went to bed, woke up feeling fine the next day.

I'm thinking - eh, 24 hour virus, maybe "stomach flu" - but usually, norovirus and most food poisoning also results in some nasty diarrhea. I never once exhibited that at all. My stomach was weird, a style of nausea I haven't really experienced often, but I only ever threw up (once).

I move on, go about life. All is well.

Yesterday. Early in the day, I felt normal. I'm going about some chores, already ate breakfast and protein shake. I'm helping parents all day so I take along protein powder for mid-afternoon shake. I take that, all is well. I've been getting into an always-hungry mode thanks to my gym training, which is wonderful. I feel ravenously hungry, and get hit by a wall of weakness. I've had that before - I was hungry for too long, and blood sugar probably plummeted and that's what I felt. Finish up my tasks, we head to a restaurant.

I have a few beers, have a black and bleu burger. Another thing I've experienced before, but rare, I got so weak/hungry feeling, that when I'm finally eating, I have to go slowly or it all hits me hard at once. I'm not really digging that, but perhaps I simply did not eat enough up until that point, and have to suffer through that.
I eat slowly, and go to my buddy's to watch the fights. I get hit by that wall of hunger again, so I have some chicken, sweet potato casserole, and bread that they cooked up. I only end up having one beer while I'm there.
My stomach (whole abdominal region) starts getting some sharp pangs. I guess it was cramping? It just continues all night. I end up going home after the fights and, seeing as I'm also feeling tired, figured I should just hit the sack, maybe I'll feel better in the morning.
I'm tossing and turning for a good hour, then I'm rudely auto-piloted out of bed, and I quickly realize why: I think I need to vomit again.
Not drunk at all, hardly drank much all night - it's not that. I get into the bathroom, open the toilet lid, and stand in the mirror. I feel a wave hit, and subside... I'm like... "well, I have no idea what..." and a wave hits again, and yep, time to vomit.

Wake up this morning - I'm able to finish a bowl of cereal and a protein shake, but... it's been slow going and feeling a little dangerous.
I feel hungry as hell, but I also get hit by those waves that are reminding me too much of, "if you eat this, it will all come back out the same way."

No notable joint/muscle aches today, however, just the stomach giving mixed signals. I don't really feel feverish, and I also don't know if I ever actually had a fever the last time I had this bout, as my thermometer died and I haven't bought a new one.



I started thinking about this, I think, shortly after consuming a sandwich... I think Thursday afternoon, may have been Friday. I may be lying, and didn't think about it until last night.
Regardless: I have some thin slice provolone cheese in my refrigerator.
The top slice in the package seemed to have a spot in the middle that worried me. Normally, I am very paranoid about food-borne illnesses. After studying food safety, preparation, and the laundry list of dangerous suspects, you pay attention more than you would like.
That cheese... it didn't look terrible, but I had a nagging suspicion about that slice. I grabbed a slice two or three underneath it, it appeared clean on both sides. I made a sammich with it, and quickly stuffed my face with it's glory.

I realized that, the last time I made a sammich with that cheese, it was a lunch a day or two before that previous Wednesday that I was out sick all day.

Now I'm wondering... is this just coincidence, or am I getting some kind of illness from that cheese?
More importantly, what the hell am I getting? Most food-borne illnesses leave you crippled and tied to a toilet spewing fire out your rear, sometimes bloody.
I haven't had that.

I got to thinking about listeria - but that seems wrong. I guess it COULD still hit early, but it seems that's a weird bug in that more often than not, it's a month after consumption. It DOES produce the "common flu" symptoms, like I had that first go around - nausea, vomiting, muscle soreness, fever.

More likely though, as it seems odd for listeria (though it does love the refrigerator)... what about pure mold? Or to be more direct: mycotoxins?
I'm actually not familiar with the physiological effects of excessive consumption of mycotoxins. I know usually your liver and kidney are more involved than anything with symptoms of acute mycotoxin poisoning... but not much known from there.


Since I at least suspect that cheese, and that it has been opened for, shit... probably at least two months... I think I can't go wrong tossing it.
Would anyone logically reach the same conclusion, that it is the cheese?

And more than anything, because I have that scientific curiosity - any clues that help pinpoint just what I'm dealing with? Is it simply a type of mold/toxin my stomach dislikes? Is it bacteria? Can you get norovirus without diarrhea? And, get it back to back within a time frame of two weeks?

 

[Mixolydian]

Sound like listeriosis. But I'm not a doctor.

Yes you can certainly have Norovirus without diarrhea.

There are also some less common types of food poisoning that could cause the symptoms you describe. Bacillus cereus and Staphylococcus aureus come to mind.

 

[BladeVenom]

I doubt it was the cheese.

 

[destrekor]

I doubt it was the cheese.

:hmm:

 

[destrekor]

Well whatever it was, I think there's something still lingering.

This is just weird. It's like I'm sick, sort of... but not entirely. I mostly feel fine.

However, most of the time I'm left eating very slowly. I can eat, and feel like I am eating my caloric requirements (and TRYING to go "plus" - but generally meet maintenance and growth requirements - since I have starting a lifting routine and do feel more hungry due to that and that alone).

I mean, just two hours ago, I finished eating a "fancy" grilled cheese with an egg over easy in it (the sunrise - at a specialty grilled cheese sports bar ), as well as a 23oz Guinness. Right before I left, I had a small protein shake.

I had to eat slowly because I was still getting that "oh boy.. feeling weak, little worried something might come back up..." so I'd take a few bites and then pause and sit it out for a few moments.
Got home, and between then and now, I've still had a few little waves of "is it hunger, or is it nausea?". I've never had blood sugar problems at all, but, from my physiological knowledge, it seems almost like the feeling of a drop in blood sugar.
And it seems like classical "you let yourself get too damned hungry. eat, but take it slow" - except, based on my consumption already, it makes no sense whatsoever.


I mean, I'm all for being hungry all the time - that's a sign I'm destroying my muscles enough for the body to respond with "feed me - I've got work to do repairing these tissues, and I need materials!" - but, in the way this has been recently, it's quite unsettling. I mean, it basically starts first thing in the morning, feeling like I'm deathly starving but have a little bit of a challenging "forcing" that first meal down.


I'm not trying to be a hypochondriac or assume the worst - I'm really pulling for the infection/foodborne illness route. I know a thousand suspect bugs that can cause varying degrees of infection, so this could be a low-grade infection of one of many possible infectious agents. But I've never really had it like this before, where it seems to locally restricted - I feel fine in every other way, save for the moments when that wave is hitting me.