Re: Stomach Virus....
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Greg Langelius *</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
Norovirus </div></div>
Seasonally? Most likely enterovirus, which includes several species of RHINOvirus.
Enterovirus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterovirus
I'm seeing this in clinic daily. Mostly crampy stomach upset, some vomiting, usually sore throat, low grade "fever" (99.9 isn't, despite what about 85% of the moms who bring their kids in say, a "fever." And two consecutive quarters of negative economic growth is the literal definition of "recession," I don't care if you ARE a mainstream media outlet pushing your candidate), achey all over, headachy.
Rhinovirus isn't limited to your nose, but it is a causative agent of "the common cold." Thing is, they're freaking common, and no, your symptoms that started yesterday aren't a sinus infection, it's a virus, go home, take medicine, push fluids and get some rest. Come back in a week to ten days if it's worse.
I had this one kid, from Canberra, Australia, a camp counselor, who came in to my camp clinic with a 106.5 fever last week. She felt awful, nauseated, stomach cramps, mildly sore scratchy throat if she thought about it. Overall appearance, all signs and symptoms said "virus." I sent her home with some zofran (for nausea, vomiting if she had some, mostly so she could push fluids - means to pee clear, maybe a cup an hour even if you barf you still retain SOME fluid and don't get dehydrated), told her to take TWO tylenol tablets ever 3 hours and TWO ibuprofen tablets ever 3 hours ALTERNATING and go to the ER if her fever spiked again.
She did, two days later. Spent 6 hours there getting rainbow labs done, blood cultures, lyme test, flu test, urinalysis, chest X-ray, Abdominal CT scan (she had good traveler's insurance). I stopped by to see how she was doing, see if I could learn anything, see if I'd missed anything. Doc came in with test results. Nothing. Said it was probably a virus. We talked or a few minutes, exchanged bona fides and business cards, I told the girl to expect a funny rash in a day or two. She was back to work at camp two days later and yes, she had a weird rash that lasted a day. I didn't see it, but it cleared up. Total time sick? Sunday through Friday. Probably one of the enteroviruses. That's the thing about enteroviruses, is their persistence, duration of illness I mean, same with coxsackie (hand-foot-mouth) which I considered. If she'd never gotten exposed to it as a kid, her immune system would take extreme measures to wipe it out as an adult. I see adults with coxsackie from time to time. Adults also get RSV, another virus associated with kids. You don't get immune to it, ever. Kids get it twice in a season sometimes.
And norovirus? The cruise ship virus? Same thing. Hundreds of known strains, no immunity, spreads like wildfire, persists in the environment for weeks (it's only a package of dried protein and RNA anyway, it's not "alive"), it's why the ships go back into the docks for weeks while teams of people wipe down every surface in the ship with sanitizers and the NEXT ship full of passengers gets sick too.
Do hope you're feeling better.
