You can narrow down what you have if you have a fever, if you had a headache at onset or if you have bloody diarreah.
I've had food poisoning a number of times. Salmonella almost killed me when I was four, and I seem to be vulnerable to it, so I've read a lot about it. I was hospitalized in 1987 for food poisoning, and last year, I had a staph-type from the company cafeteria. I recovered from that on my own.
Most food poisoning actually takes at least 12 hours to hit you, except staph, which is two-six hours. The most common form in eggs is salmonella:
"Symptoms of food poisoning begin 12–72 hours after eating food contaminated with Salmonella. These include traditional food poisoning symptoms of abdominal pain, diarrhea, vomiting, and fever. The symptoms generally last two to five days. Dehydration can be a complication in severe cases. People generally recover without antibiotic treatment, although they may feel tired for a week after the active symptoms subside."
Take pepto if you have abdominal cramps and drink lots of fluids. Gatorade is excellent, but don't get the red kind because it might scare you coming out the other end.
Last year, I used pro-biotics to build up my own flora and that really helped. Unfortunately, you want to eat very lightly and dairy and fruit are both difficult to digest. Think saltines and broth. This is the advice of the EMT that treated me in 1987. If you eat too much before your system has stopped being irritated, the symptoms can *really* drag on.
Myself, I've never had any of the food poisoning bugs that cause bloody diarreah. E Coli does cause it, as does Campylobacter:
"One to three days after eating contaminated food, the victim with E. coli O157:H7 begins to have severe abdominal cramps and watery diarrhea that usually becomes bloody within 24 hours. There is little or no fever, and rarely does the victim vomit. The bloody, watery diarrhea lasts from one to eight days in uncomplicated cases."
Campylobacter: "Symptoms of food poisoning begin two to five days after eating food contaminated with C. jejuni. These symptoms include fever, abdominal pain, nausea, headache, muscle pain, and diarrhea. The diarrhea can be watery or sticky and may contain blood. Symptoms last from 7–10 days, and relapses occur in about one quarter of people who are infected. Dehydration is a common complication. Other complications such as arthritis-like joint pain and hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS) are rare."
Here's the page I'm using:
http://www.chclibrary.org/micromed/00048630.html
Food poisoning is very common and we should all know how to recognize it and treat it, especially if we expect the STHTF. Doctors aren't much help with it anyway, but it can be dangerous if not recognized. The dehydration caused by it can kill a child or an elderly person.
