Sunday, January 10, 2010

Cross-Contamination or Bacteria?

For the second time in 2 months, I experienced excruciating gut pain and diarrhea after eating a salad from 2 different deli dishes from our local PCC. I had eaten one dish ('emerald salad') many previous times and had no reaction. So I suspect the 'black bean and corn' salad which I added to the 'Emerald salad' to create a complete protein (beans plus corn and wild rice) dish. I still have that pain today even though I ate the deli salads at last night's dinner.

However, I also planned to take another vanco for recurrent morphing c-diff spores (if I still have any) either today or tomorrow. So MAYBE the symptoms are recurrent c-diff?? I have nausea, cramping pain, but not much fatigue. Either c-diff or another bacteria or 'bug' from the deli food could cause those symptoms.

I don't think an allergy reaction caused my symptoms, because I don't have sharp pains like allergens cause. The 2 deli dishes did not contain any allergen ingredients, according to their labels. However, I could have gotten cross-contamination from another deli dish, which may have contained one of my allergens.

So I decided to take a vancomycin with lunch today, NOT eat the rest of the deli salads, but also take some lower dose probiotics. Then I can assess how I feel tomorrow morning.

No comments: