Sick as a Dawg, last night

Yo, peeps, can you get sick eating 1/4 cup of watermelon?

Kept in fridge; a week old. Seemed slightly limp, taste ok. Two pieces 1.5"x1.5".

About 1 hr later (hadn't eaten in the last 8 hrs, except for coffee, head started spinning, nausea, bewildered feeling (am I going to barf: why? Actually felt like I was going to black out.))

Yep, 5 min later.

Felt better immediately, then about 10 min later started feeling crappy, and nauseous, but then fell asleep.

Feel GREAT this am about 3 hrs later so no point in seeing an MD.

No other symptoms.

Strangest thing ever. I had forgotten how it feels to be sick! Lemme tell you it is...uh, not ideal.

Aliens? NWO? Pulsed microwave directed at my study?

Badge...you sometimes cannot smell or taste anything in the food which makes you sick.I believe it was the watermelon.I never keep melon for longer than 3 days.Heck aside from ketchup and mustard I don't keep anything longer than 3 days.It's too risky.
Hope you feel Ok now.

Years ago I had eaten a large chunk of watermelon, and I had become extremely sick for about twelve hours afterwards. Before eating the watermelon I was fine, afterwards I was vomiting excessively and had a mean case of the spins. I'm not sure if it was the watermelon that made me sick, but I could never bring myself to eat it again. I can remember that a few months after this little episode, I was around some people who were eating it. Just the smell of it, and the thought of it, was making me dizzy and sick again. I actually had to leave, and once I did, I felt better.

No doubt it was just in my sub-conscious correlating my previous episode of being sick to the sight and smell of the watermelon. But I could not get past it.

And to date, I've never eaten watermelon again.

So I've eaten it once in my life, which was over ten years ago.

Maybe some day I'll give it another shot.

Originally posted by Badge01
About 1 hr later (hadn't eaten in the last 8 hrs, except for coffee, head started spinning, nausea, bewildered feeling (am I going to barf: why? Actually felt like I was going to black out.))

Yep, 5 min later.

Felt better immediately, then about 10 min later started feeling crappy, and nauseous, but then fell asleep.

Feel GREAT this am about 3 hrs later so no point in seeing an MD.

No other symptoms.

Strange. 3 members of my family, myself included had the exact same symptoms in the past week. Serious, debilitating nausea. Even the guy at the local grocer had the same symptoms.

Maybe it's just a coincidence?

Originally posted by Beachcoma
Strange. 3 members of my family, myself included had the exact same symptoms in the past week. Serious, debilitating nausea. Even the guy at the local grocer had the same symptoms.

Maybe it's just a coincidence?

Thanks for the reply (thanks everyone!).

I'll tell you, rarely have I ever been that sick for about 1-2hrs. I never feel like I'm going to just black out, and losing my dinner (except during hard training once in a blue moon) is quite rare.

Besides the watermelon, I ate two med/lg pre cooked shrimps, which had been frozen and stored properly (no unexpected defrostings) The same bag I've used all week; I keep the remaindrr frozen and thaw out 10 at a time.

I ate two more of the shrimp today (had 'em thawed in a sealed cup overnight in fridge), and nothing - feel fine.

The other odd thing - as sick as I felt, I was literally bursting with wellness and vitality this morning (around 4am).

Oh, well, figured it was worth a mention. I've been storing melon cubes like this for about 5 months, and within 2-3 days I've eaten it - never leave it out or uncovered.

Hasn't turned me off to it (sorry Chissler that must have sucked).

I'll letcha know if anything else happens.

In a quick Googling of "watermelon + food poisoning" I found that it can be commonly contaminated with E. coli, or Aldicarb. The E. coli comes from manure fertilizers, and Aldicarb is one of the most popular pesticides, and is a carbamate -- these, like organophosphates, are the most dangerous agricultural chemicals.

Originally posted by Badge01

The other odd thing - as sick as I felt, I was literally bursting with wellness and vitality this morning (around 4am).

Freaky!

The same thing happened to us. But we didn't have any watermelon. In fact, we didn't have much of the same thing to eat. I figured it could've been something in the air, or maybe the water.

It wasn't food poisoning though, I've had that a fair number of times to know it was distinctly different.

Nausea, head-spinning, felt like blacking out, the only "somewhat comfortable" position was lying down. Then felt better after 10-15 minutes, only for the whole cycle to be repeated. It really sucked.

reply to post by MajorMalfunction


Thanks, little buddy. I usually google on these things too, but was still not thinking clearly when I posted.

I had already eaten 80% of the melon earlier in the week, with no problems.

However yesterday was sort of a scheduled semi-fasting day, and I'm well adapted to this. Therefore there aren't really any other 'food suspects', even looking back 18-20 hours. I'm pretty fastidious, practice probably too much hand washing .

Well at least with this post and with your google links, if anyone else comes down with this sudden and short duration 'ickyness'.

Haha, I kept thinking 'so -this- is what dead dog sick feels like,

(oh yeah I also had a Starbucks double espresso with some regular coffee last nigh about the same time, but never have had coffee bother me.)



[edit on 8-9-2007 by Badge01]

Update

Well folks it looks like it was the watermelon. I've not had this reaction since then

Later that day, when I poured out the old melon into the trash, the juice was somewhat syrupy looking.

Of course it should be watery, not syrupy. So I'm thinking some kind of mild toxin being formed by the bacteria. Usually it's fine storing melon in a sealed container for up to 4 days but not this time. I'd tend to think the classic e.coli contamination would take longer and be more severe. It's a guess, though.

Sometimes 'food related illness' can be hard to understand since people tend to react differently than expected. It's also not that easy to get any lab tests in a timely manner - people tend to just stay home and try to get over it.

(The other food I ate that day (shrimp, mostly) I finished up that original bag that was left from frozen and no problems.)

Not trying to restart the thread, just following up and making closure.

Thanks again for all the helpful replies.