Surviving Viral Gastroenteritis When You Are Alone

As you may be able to see in this another article from Associated Content, viral gastroenteritis is a temporary but a very painful disease. This disease results from inflammation of the stomach, small intestine, and large intestine. Even until this year, I mistakenly thought that this disease was a type of flu (because of the name, "stomach flu"), but it has no relation to the influenza. This is indeed a common misconception, and I am positive that the term "stomach flu" will persist (since it is a lot easier to say than viral gastroenteritis), but just remember, it is not a flu, and having vaccinations against common flu will not help you.

The details about the diseases can be found by clicking following links from following three sources:

1. Centers for Disease Controls

2. The New York Times Health Guide

3. Medline Plus

Point 1: There Is No Cure

I unfortunately had this disease sometime past the middle of the fall in the freshman year. I had no diarrhea, but frequent vomiting for a little more than a day. Despite my efforts to stay hydrated by drinking water and other liquids with electrolytes, I could not stop vomiting for a decent number of hours, and I reached a point where I was sweating from too much vomiting. A really bad thing about this experience was that because it could easily infect others, I felt like I was being quarantined from my friends. So, if your situation ends up similar by having your colleagues or coworkers keeping their distances for a day or two, do not take it personally by this estrangement even though it will be unpleasant to bare.

When this symptom hit me the second time, I was completely unprepared - mainly because I thought that gastroenteritis only caused vomiting. However, my symptoms on the second year were constant diarrheas, and only one vomiting which lasted for a very short amount of time. One thing that I picked up from both experiences was that with viral gastroenteritis, going to the doctor's office or hospital is useless. Because I was in campus for both times, I visited the college's health office, but they told me the cold truth - there is nothing they could do. I had to survive through a day of pains until my system cleared the viruses out, and I was able to eat and drink again. During that day or two, I felt very languid and lost appetites, so when I became better and ate again, I never really knew how good the college foods tasted (and believe me, you don't hear this from college students everyday)!

Point 2: Prepare Yourself...

If this disease hits you, it really makes you impaired for that short period of time. I highly suggest that if you are a student like me or plan to go abroad, be sure to stock up some Gatorade or other drinks with electrolytes and crackers. You should stay away from crackers that have cheese in them because dietary products will exacerbate the situation. In fact, the last food I had before I became terribly sick for the second time was milk and Apple Jacks cereal. And I can tell you that I stayed away from milk for a couple of weeks until I was back at home even though I recovered much before that.

Point 3: Remember That It Is Called Gastrointestinal Virus

Let me take you to a little introductory biology here for a second. Viruses are not living organisms. Instead, these non-living things take the control of the host cells, and replicate themselves to cause damages. Hence, it is sometimes very difficult to stay away from them because their presence is not easy to know. In other words, if you hear that someone becomes infected with bacterial diseases in your workplace, the first thing you will do is to use hand sanitizers and other antibiotics to keep your work stations clean. This sterilization will work for some bacterial diseases, but much less for viruses. To put it bluntly, viruses are extremely unlike any other things in the world. Perhaps, my previous article on this peculiar thing called virus may explain this point better.

Viral gastroenteritis is obviously not a very lethal disease like other more serious diseases from viruses. But, in that day or two, the hours will feel like years, and minutes will seem like days. So, try to stay clean by washing hands to prevent viruses from getting into your system, but always prepare for this disease because based on my both experiences, you never really know you have viral gastroenteritis until you are sick on the bed.

Works Cited

Personal Experience

Personal Knowledge on Viruses from Academics