Numbers & Strains Matter
According to DR. J.E. WILLIAMS, OMD, FAAIM, you need on average, at least 5 billion active organisms. However, if your gut has low of good gut flora , you need more at least 25 billion, twice daily. When starting a good probiotic, start in small doses so that your body has time to get used to it.
Also, look at the labels to see how many different strains the probiotic carries. Different strains have different purposes and some help the gut, some help the skin, some help recover from the flu. In fact, according to microbiologist Gregory Reid, for the flu, you need the strain called: S. cerevisiae boulardii. In studies, it shows helping cure intestinal infections or at least shorten their duration.
The brand we found works great carries 30+ different strains of probiotics and around 85 billion colony-forming units per serving. The company guarantees the bottles are refrigerated from their warehouse to the store . These probiotics are made from all natural, organic sources: organic mild from pasture-fed cows, cultured organic whole foods. There are gluten free probiotics!
Tips To Help You Recover From A Stomach Virus Easier
By Alicia
It is always good to know some helpful tips to help you recover from a stomach virus easier. Stomach viruses are awful to endure there is no doubt about it. They drain your strength and leave you feeling completely wiped out. Following these tips to help you recover from a stomach virus can get you back on your feet sooner.
Stomach Flu Causes And Risk Factors
What are stomach flu causes? A number of different viruses can cause viral gastroenteritis or stomach flu including noroviruses and rotaviruses. First, lets talk about the norovirus, which is said to be the number one cause of viral gastroenteritis in children and adults. If your stomach flu is caused by the norovirus, then the period during which you are contagious starts from the time you start to feel sick up until three days after you are better with some individuals being contagious as long as two weeks following their recovery. The norovirus causes stomach flu symptoms within a day or two of being exposed to the virus. On the plus side, most people who have the stomach flu due to norovirus feel better within 24 to 48 hours.
Another virus, the rotavirus, is the top cause of stomach flu in kids and infants, but it can also affect adults. Symptoms usually begin within one to three days of exposure. However, with this virus at the root, the stomach flu can be caught from someone before symptoms appear and even up to two weeks following recovery! Astrovirus and enteric adenovirus can also cause stomach flu.
How do you catch these viruses and end up with the stomach flu? The stool and vomit of infected individuals contain the viruses that cause stomach flu. The viruses that can cause a case of the stomach flu can easily spread from close contact with infected individuals through the following:
So how do you get rid of the stomach flu?
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Add Moisture To The Air
Dry air can make your symptoms worse. A vaporizer or humidifier adds moisture to the air and can help loosen up congestion.
There are many types of humidifiers and vaporizers available on the market. Examples include cool-mist humidifiers and steam vaporizers. These can be found easily for a reasonable price at your local big-box store, pharmacy, or online.
Looking After A Child With Gastroenteritis
You can look after your child at home if they have diarrhoea and vomiting. There’s not usually any specific treatment and your child should start feeling better in a few days.
You don’t normally need to get medical advice unless their symptoms don’t improve or there’s a risk of a more serious problem.
To help ease your child’s symptoms:
- Encourage them to drink plenty of fluids. They need to replace the fluids lost from vomiting and diarrhoea. Water is generally best. Avoid giving them fizzy drinks or fruit juice, as they can make their diarrhoea worse. Babies should continue to feed as usual, either with breast milk or other milk feeds.
- Make sure they get plenty of rest.
- Let your child eat if they’re eating solids and feel hungry. Try small amounts of plain foods, such as soup, rice, pasta and bread.
- Give them paracetamol if they have an uncomfortable fever or aches and pains. Young children may find liquid paracetamol easier to swallow than tablets.
- Use special rehydration drinks made from sachets bought from pharmacies if they’re dehydrated. Your GP or pharmacist can advise on how much to give your child. Don’t give them antidiarrhoeal and anti-vomiting medication, unless advised to by your GP or pharmacist.
Make sure you and your child wash your hands regularly while your child is ill and keep them away from school or nursery until at least 48 hours after their symptoms have cleared .
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How To Recover From The Stomach Flu
When a stomach bug sets up camp, you need proven methods to bounce back quickly.
The stomach bug is a familiar foe. The telltale signs of gastroenteritisvomiting, diarrhea, nausea, stomach pains and achesaffect 19 to 21 million people every year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . If you find yourself on the sick side of the norovirus , heres how you can cope, recover, and get back to your favorite foods in no time.
How Can You Tell The Difference Between Stomach Flu And Food Poisoning
If theres little to no difference between stomach flu and food poisoning symptoms, how do we tell them apart? In my experience, the main way to tell the two conditions apart is by taking a careful look at the patients background and recent history. With food poisoning, there is often a history of eating food that is contaminated or suspected to be contaminated. Food poisoning usually comes on quite quickly after eating contaminated food and tends to go away within a few hours to days. Meanwhile, depending upon the person and severity, stomach flu can last up to ten days.
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What Can You Do At Home To Support Gut Healing
Fluids and food are central to helping your body regain its strength after the stomach flu or food poisoning. Though your appetite may be non-existent, drinking the right liquids and eating the right foods can help speed up your recovery. This is because your body has lost a lot of fluids, nutrients and electrolytes due to vomiting and diarrhea. You need to replace them to prevent dehydration, otherwise youll feel worse.
Whether youre suffering from the stomach flu or food poisoning, or whether youre vomiting or have diarrhea , the main rule is to do your best to hydrateand stay hydrated. In fact, drinking is something you should try to do from the time your first symptom rears its ugly head. While water is best, you can try herbal teas, sports drinks, or Pedialyte as long as you are able to keep them down. Small sips every few minutes will go a long way to help stay hydrated.
What Should I Do If I Catch Norovirus
If you catch norovirus, here are some top tips on looking after yourself and getting on the road to recovery.
Here at Bupa we understand how important your family is. So with our family health insurance you can rest assured knowing that eligible treatment and support is available to you and your loved ones when you need it.
- Norovirus. NHS Inform. www.nhsinform.scot, accessed 23 October 2019
- Gastroenteritis in adults and older children. Patient Professional Reference. patient.info, last reviewed December 2014
- Gastroenteritis. MSD Manuals. www.msdmanuals.com, reviewed June 2019
- Norovirus. Patient Professional Reference. patient.info, last reviewed December 2014
- Gastroenteritis. NICE Clinical Knowledge Summaries. cks.nice.org.uk, last revised March 2019
- Viral gastroenteritis. BMJ Best Practice. newbp.bmj.com, last reviewed September 2019
- How are oral rehydration solutions used in the treatment of dehydration? Medscape. www.medscape.com, updated December 2018
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Take It Easy On The Tummy
Your stomach needs rest from spicy foods after a stomach virus. Take it easy for about a week or so after you have been sick. Start with the BRAT diet and then gradually add in other foods until you are completely recovered. It is best to stick with bland foods for that period of time so that you will not risk upsetting your stomach again. It is very possible to get sick from eating foods that are too spicy or foods that are too rich too soon.
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How Do You Get The Stomach Flu In The First Place
Are you sure you want to know?
Like many viruses, norovirus is transmitted through the delightful-sounding fecal-oral route, says Keith Borg, M.D., Ph.D., an associate professor in the division of emergency medicine and pediatric emergency medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina.
When a guy with the bug has diarrhea, microscopic viral particles get transferred to his hands after going to the bathroom. If he doesnt scrub up well enough at the sink, those particles will persist.
So when he touches something nextthe doorknob, the water cooler, or your dinnerthe tiny specks hop off and wait for their next host.
Eat the infected food, or touch one of those surfaces and bring your hands to your mouth, and the virus has entered your body.
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The bug can also be spread by miniscule vomit particles, says Dr. Borg. So if youre sharing utensils with someone whos thrown up recently, you can pick up the virus from their mouth and transfer it into your own.
Once it enters your body, it makes its home in your GI tract, where it begins to multiply and make you feel sick. Your body senses the infection and wants it out of therewhich is where things get messy.
Your body tries to expel it and get rid of it, Dr. Borg says, but diarrhea and vomiting also help with the transmission of the virus.
How Gastroenteritis Is Spread
The bugs that cause gastroenteritis can spread very easily from person to person.
You can catch the infection if small particles of vomit or poo from an infected person get into your mouth, such as through:
- close contact with someone with gastroenteritis they may breathe out small particles of vomit
- touching contaminated surfaces or objects
- eating contaminated food this can happen if an infected person doesn’t wash their hands before handling food, or you eat food that has been in contact with contaminated surfaces or objects, or hasn’t been stored and cooked at the correct temperatures
A person with gastroenteritis is most infectious from when their symptoms start until 48 hours after all their symptoms have passed, although they may also be infectious for a short time before and after this.
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Beat Bugs With A Prescription For R& r
Getting a cold, the flu or a stomach bug can put a halt to your plans and leave you sitting at home trying to recover.
But when the worst of the stomach discomfort, coughing, fever or congestion is over, you might be anxious to spend time with friends and family again, get back to work or start exercising.
With cold weather comes cold and flu season, says Dr. Susan Werner, a primary care physician at Geisinger Nanticoke. When it comes to being sick, there are remedies that work and others that dont. For most illnesses, there are a few common tips that can help you get back to your normal routine.
Here are some tips to help you bounce back after a bug.
How Can I Take Care Of Myself
- Rest your stomach and intestines by following the suggested guidelines for your diet during the illness, but make sure you prevent dehydration by drinking enough liquids. Drink just small amounts or sips while you are having vomiting.
- Do not take aspirin, ibuprofen, or other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medicines without checking first with your healthcare provider.
- Your symptoms are getting worse.
- You keep having severe symptoms for more than 1 or 2 days, or you are just not getting better after a few days.
- You start having symptoms that are not usually caused by stomach flu, such as blood in your vomit, bloody diarrhea, or severe abdominal pain.
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What Is Viral Gastroenteritis
Gastroenteritis means inflammation of the stomach and small and large intestines. Viral gastroenteritis is an infection caused by a variety of viruses that results in vomiting or diarrhea. It is often called the stomach flu, although it is not caused by the influenza viruses. Many different viruses can cause gastroenteritis, including rotaviruses, noroviruses, adenoviruses, sapoviruses, and astroviruses.
What Causes Gastroenteritis
Gastroenteritis is often triggered by:
- Person-to-person contact with a person infected with the norovirus or rotavirus
- Consuming contaminated food or water
- Touching contaminated objects
Infection may also be spread through contact with particles that disperse when an infected person vomits.
Healthy adults can usually recover from gastroenteritis without any complications. However, gastroenteritis can be life-threatening for infants, older adults and people with compromised immune systems.
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How Can You Beat The Barf
After you puke up the contents of your morning breakfast, you may be tempted to immediately grab H2O to rehydrate.
Resist the urge: The number one problem Dr. Masket sees in norovirus patients is drinking too soon after an episode.
When you throw up, your stomach is really irritated, he explains. And the only thing that putting something in your belly is going to do is probably make you throw up again. And then youre going to get even more dehydrated.
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So follow his rule: Wait one full hour before taking in any liquid by mouth, which will allow your stomach time to calm down. Then start with just a sip of something like juice or a sports drink.
If your stomach doesnt rebel, follow with another sip 10 minutes later. Then keep following the 10-minute rule, gradually adding a little more fluid when you can tolerate it. And no solid foods until youve stopped hurling.
What Is Stomach Flu & How To Avoid Getting The Stomach Flu
What is Stomach Flu?
If you experience vomiting, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain as well as diarrhea that you have, youre likely to feel miserable. It is possible to wonder whether youre suffering from stomach flu or if there is something else that causes you to feel sick. Youre likely to get better, however, you might not be able to answer this question.
The stomach flu isnt actually a flu virus in any way. Flu is a short form to mean influenza that is a virus that targets our respiratory system. The more precise term to describe stomach flu would be gastroenteritis that occurs when the stomachs linings and small intestine are inflamed. The majority of stomach flu is an infection of the viral gastroenteritis.
The majority of the time, it passes quickly and doesnt cause long-lasting consequences. Because of this, medical experts do not recommend you seek medical treatment. In general, youll be more relaxed at home and less likely to contract illness from other people.
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Avoid Making Things Worse
What do cigarettes, allergens and certain remedies have in common? They can all make your cold or flu stick around longer.
Cigarettes and allergens can both cause airway irritation, which can prolong your sickness, says Dr. Werner. Cut down on smoking or quit to get over your sickness quicker. If you can avoid contact with allergens, youll probably get well sooner, too.
These tips will help you recover after being sick and can even help you from getting sick if you stick to a healthy, balanced diet, drink plenty of fluids and get plenty of sleep each night.
How Can I Protect Myself And My Family From Getting Sick With Viral Gastroenteritis
People can reduce their chance of getting infected by frequent hand-washing, prompt disinfection of contaminated surfaces, prompt washing of soiled articles of clothing and avoiding food or water that is thought to be contaminated. Persons who have viral gastroenteritis should not prepare food for other people while they have symptoms and for 48 hours after recovery from illness.
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