The farts of food poisoning...
Farts are just farts. All do them, some people's stink more thanks to bad diets or whatever... but when you get food poisoning.... Now *that's* a fart!

I've been hospitalised with salmonella, so I thought I knew exactly what a food poisoning fart was like. But on a trip to Chile, I'd been cheerfully yomping around at 4,500m, dodging lightning bolts, and generally doing the stuff travellers are supposed to do. But at dinner I felt strangely uncomfortable. I didn't want to eat and left my meal, but I had no idea why there was no space inside me.

Well about 1am, I found out. I'd filled myself up with gas. And I guess at high-altitude it just comes out with even higher relative pressure. The first fart started in bed, but felt like it might about to go, erm wet. A few seconds later I'm on the toilet, making a ferocious noise, and emptying my old bowels of both gas, liquids and solids. It wasn't a good time. But hey, one incident isn't a true fart.

So... for the next six hours I had half hourly squits/farting/vomit sessions, eventually turning to just whatever water I tried to drink.

I kind of hoped that was it. But a night of that will leave you exhausted and I was feeling pretty sick. I said my goodbyes to the expedition and stayed put for a few days to recover. At that point I headed off to a place called San Pedro de Atacama to chill a little. All felt well and my appetite was returning. I even had my first poo.

And that's when I panicked. It felt... farty, yes, but also... stringy. I wiped, looked, and saw WORMS! Aaargh! WORMS! I was freaking out, jumped up, and had to have a good look in the u-bend.

Tip: If you've completely killed your digestive system so it doesn't work properly any more, then an easily freaked traveller probably shouldn't pick, for their first meal, spaghetti.
(clopinettes, Fri 13 Jul 2007, 20:23, Reply)