When you are not feeling well, it is rare that you know exactly what is going on. Unless you have been in direct contact with someone who is sick or your symptoms are unusually distinct, chances are that you wait until you are surer of what is happening to you before you take action, such as heading to your doctor’s office. After all, in the early stages of medical distress, you could potentially be suffering from anything from food poisoning to chicken pox and it often pays to know what you are dealing with before attempting to manage the situation in specific ways.
Frustratingly, it is not always easy to understand what is happening to your body, even if you wait until you are uncomfortably symptomatic before trying to treat your condition. For example, it is often difficult to discern whether you have food poisoning or the flu if you are experiencing gastrointestinal distress.
Diagnostic Challenges
Much as the flu and other viral and bacterial illnesses do, food poisoning symptoms generally do not manifest until hours – or even days – after exposure. While Norovirus patients generally become ill within 12-to-48 hours, Cryptosporidiosis patients could be asymptomatic for up to 10 days.
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