FOOD POISONING? WORRIED!! :( NURSES LOOK

the size of it was probably and inch
around [--------------------------] this much of a piece IF i swallowed one

Thanks frances...
But it said 12-72 hours shows symptoms of infection..?
2-6 hours sounds better though

I really doubt you will get food poisoning, symptoms would have started by now. Try not to over think it.

take care, Maz XX

Shia you need to take a breath. I think if it was food poisoning you would have already been feeling sick. I think you are just going to end up making yourself sick, if you continue with this train of thought. Just take a deep breath and let it go.

Good luck,
Gail *Nanners*

Good Morning,

I do believe you will be OK and medical professionals that are members of the site are not allowed to give out professional adivice, thus no nurses have given you their profesional opinion.

You are ok today so I believe you will be fine. Knervous went through a bout of this recently and I see he has posted to you.  He would be a good resource for you re this problem.

Happy Holidays

Kitt

Shia,
Everybody here loves & cares about you. You will be okay.

I do get how you can be afraid of medication. I am completely terrified of anesthesia.

I know it is horrifying to think of taking your medicine. Perhaps you could start off with a very small dose (I don't know what you have been prescribed -- maybe it's already a small dose) just to get used to the idea. The meds aren't going to do anything horrible to you. You don't drink & you're not on any other meds, so that will help protect you from added depression/anxiety. You have a proper diagnosis, so you don't have to worry about them making you panic. You don't have a history of wanting to harm yourself or others, and that's not going to change from anti-depressants.

You won't get any benefits or any side effects until you've had them for some time. Maybe you could make a pact to try them for 2-3 weeks and then talk to your doctor about your fears. That time will be safe no matter what anyways.

I want to encourage you that Seratonin Syndrome, the cause of all the serious side effects, is extremely, extremely rare (don't go google it. ask your doctor). I actually got it b/c I was misdiagnosed with depression when I actually had a hormone imbalance (the fact that my "monthly friend" was visiting me 25 days of the month really should have been a clue, but no one caught it). Seratonin Syndrome is so rare that my psychiatrist, who is the head of a major psychiatric hospital, had *never* seen it in his 25 years of practice. My neurologist, who is from the Mayo Clinic, and has practiced almost 20 years had only seen it a few times over the course of his career. Once I was diagnosed, I stopped the meds immediately & all the side effects were completely gone within a couple days.

My point is 1) almost no one gets the problems on the black box label and 2) even if you do get them, they can be resolved by stopping the medication. Give the medication a try! You will feel better. :)

Take your medication. You aren't going to know if it will work, if you don't try it. Like Frances_2008 said if you get any kind of side effect you can just stop the med. But you will not start to improve at all if you don't at least try the med. Why let the anxiety/panic control your life, why not try TODAY to say enough is enough and take your medication. I wish you good luck!

Well I sympathize with you on all counts.

For one, it took me WEEKS to start a medication that has a very tiny side-effect profile! I went to college and majored in political science which required a lot of statistics. So I'd look at the clinical data on the drug and KNOW in my practical mind that nothing was going to happen, but I couldn't get it through the thick skull of my anxiety mind. Basically there are three ways you can approach it. You can do like I did and wait around forever. You can not take it at all (and that's not really an option, I don't think). Or you can just suck it up and start them. Now I've been where you are and know how hard it is so I'm not going to tell you to rush right to the bottle and pop the pills. I will, however, say that I wish I had done just that. That was three weeks of my life that I kinda wish I had back!

Secondly, I understand your fear of food poisoning, too. In line with what another poster said, I'll mention a few things for you to think about:

1. There are lots of food poisoning cases reported every year. That's true. But every one of us eats several times a day, so when you think about it the odds of any given person acquiring food poisoning is statistically EXTREMELY remote. From CDC: "about one out of every 1,000 people get food poisoning from Salmonella. Of these, two-thirds are under age 20, with the majority under age nine. Most cases occur in the warm months between July and October."

2. You could eat raw chicken but for it to make you sick it would have to be infected with something. It is not likely that yours was infected with salmonella or anything else. Even if it was, there's a very good chance your body would fight it off. Especially no more than you ate.

3. If you did get food poisoning, it actually may not be as bad as you think. Most people hear food poisoning and think of throwing up for hours on end. That happens, but very often it's a few hours of diarrhea and that's it. While that may not be a very fun few hours, I've sure experienced worse things in my life and I'm sure you have, too.

In short, we can always trust statistics to put things in perspective. The odds of you getting legitimately ill from a single bite of undercooked chicken are very, very low. And the odds of you getting a really nasty case are even lower.

Lucky me, I've had food poisoning three times in my life. Once it was sort of bad, but really what made it so bad was where I was at the time and what I was doing. The other two weren't all that bad.

I think the media really hypes the whole food poisoning thing up. I mean it's good in a way...restaurants and stuff are more likely to handle food better when there's scrutiny. But for anxiety sufferers it's, well, not so good.

I'm sure you're going to be fine. Take care.