Stomach Virus or IBS

[Sweeney230]

Hello, for the last week I have a had a nasty bout of flu, the last couple of days I’ve started to get diarrhoea but the strange thing is I can go for all night or 6 hours from one watery stool to the next so I don’t think it’s a bug. Should I take Imodium to try and settle my guts down or should I just let everything run its course. I have eaten anything either so I’m feeling pretty weak but I’m too scared to because of my stomach. I suffer with bad IBS anyway and do use Imodium to cope but I’m just hesitant because of the flu, I don’t want to make things worse.

[Hidden]

Hi there Sweeney230 , my personal opinion is that it's still the flu but it's now hit your tummy. The reason why I'm saying this is I've always has the opposite with my IBS but since 22 November I've been getting diarrhoea and had loads of nausea and my appetite has literally gone down the pan. The doctor has carried out blood tests and they've all come back fine but I've now had a stool test and will see the doctor on Tuesday to chat and get the results. The reason why I've told you this is that I'm convinced mine is food poisoning and not IBS - I am a Vegan and I had a veggie pot from the supermarket and unbeknown to me it contained rice, now I know rice is notorious for food poisoning so that's my thought anyway. What I've got is no way IBS as I was perfectly healthy before and had a very healthy appetite but now I cannot stomach anything other than crispy thins/plain biscuits or toast and that's all I'm eating.

Therefore I do honestly think it's still the flu and I would definitely take anti-diarrhoea capsules.

I hope you are better very soon.

[Kilgh]

Does the watery stool feel the same as your IBS watery stool? You could have a Campylobacter infection. I had that once and had watery stools for days after just as you describe. Some food poisoning nasties like this one can take up to 10 days to go away. I didn't wait. After 3 days I went to my doctor and he gave me antibiotics and I was on the mend within 36 hours. However, modern thinking is to let it run it's course. But you should see your doctor. It is a notifiable disease. You didn't specify if you had influenza or stomach flu, so my post is more about the latter.