Getting A Cold Or An Intestinal Bug With IBS
Has anyone experienced this? How have you dealt with it and how have you tried to mitigate the risk in the future?
I haven't had any kind of intestinal bug as far as I know (well for quite some time. The last one I had was pre-IBS in the early 1990s. A 24 hour diarrhoea bug.)
I also rarely get colds.
But I did get Covid in April 2020. Wow...that was a bug like no other! It hit me like a steam train, and strangely, disappeared rapidly. No cold or flu I'd ever had disappeared as fast as that, or felt as dramatic when it was happening!
And for no reason I could figure out it left my gut alone. I have no idea why. In a horrible way, it was like a holiday from IBS, and I could eat anything I liked. I ate a lot of warming soups and stews, plenty of garlic and onions, lentils, fruit and oranges etc...
How surreal to have "happy memories" of Covid. But I actually have. That tells anyone who doesn't know about IBS, how truly miserable IBS can be.
Covid left my gut alone and it appeared to do that for a good 6 weeks or so after I was more or less over it. That was great as Covid was debilitating and I needed to gain weight back and build up strength.Sorry Daniel. I got a bit carried away and didn't really answer your question. How did I mitigate the risk for the future?
Well one thing I do now which may be eccentric and overkill, is if I'm in a crowded place, supermarket, or any populated place I have to be in close contact with others passing by (rarely) I still wear a mask. I wear a lightweight N95. If people think it's weird, then tough.
I am strict with food hygiene, never eat anything that looks like its starting to "turn". and always make sure I have clean hands before preparing any food for myself or others. I keep my fridge at the right temperature.
Whenever I have been out I always wash my hands when I get home, and am also strict with that so I only touch one door handle before I get to the kitchen sink. Then I wipe that handle. I don't even have to think about it now. It's second nature.
It may be obsessive. I don't know. But I would rather feel as well as possible.
I also re-bag all my delivered groceries as a regular thing. That has become second nature too. It doesn't take long. That way I know that every item in my fridge hasn't been touched by umpteen people as it's in my own clean bags .
I probably sound a bit nuts! But it's been worth it for me.
Thank you so much for sharing what you do to avoid getting sick! I remember that during Covid, we would disinfect all our groceries and it took so long... re-bagging sounds like a much better idea.
I'm glad that Covid didn't affect your gut and that you were able to concentrate on resting and getting better. I had it for the first time in 2022 and also didn't get any digestive symptoms. But I did have a newborn at that time, so that was horrible enough.
I feel you so much on the happy memories of any time when IBS is calm! It always feels like some sort of vacation.
Karina (team member)
For me, stomach bugs are always really bad and it takes me over a week to completely recover from a simple 24-hour bug. I'm always extremely careful with food hygiene and not eating anything risky, but I also have small children so I do get stomach bugs multiple times a year...
As for colds, they don't usually affect my IBS as much. I've found that taking multivitamins and echinacea helps a lot, I always do that when I feel like everyone around me is sick.
Strangely enough, I feel like disinfecting everything actually made my immune system weaker over time, as I've never been sick as much as towards the end of the pandemic, even though I was trying to prevent illnesses as much as possible.
Karina (team member)
