The Real Deal on the 24-Hour Flu

(Hint: There's Not Much Else to Do Except Sit Back and Wait)

Is there really such a thing as a 24-hour flu? I've always had my doubts, that was until...well... about 24 hours ago. On New Years Day -- actually the evening of New Years day -- my family and I had dinner with my sister-in-law and her family. We ate broiled rabbit. In Italy, rabbit is one of those things you eat on New Years and Easter and its cultural significance escapes me at the moment. All I know is I wasn't too keen on eating rabbit that particular evening. Something abut what was staring back at me from my plate just didn't look right. Now maybe it was coincidence or maybe my mother-in-law was trying to poison me, but by the time I woke up the next morning I was feeling seriously sick. So was my daughter and so was my wife.

Not that it made me recover any faster, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (www.cdc.gov) points out that there isn't any such thing as a 24-hour flu. There is however, food poisoning -- better known as Clostridium perfringes - which can strike several hours after ingesting poorly prepared food and which will underscore itself by blessing you with intense abdominal pain and diarrhea (begins 8 to 22 hours after eating foods that contain these bacteria). The CDC goes on to say that the illness is usually over within 24 hours but less severe symptoms may last longer for some people - especially very young or older people.

Needless to say - all the symptoms hit home - severe stomach cramps, body aches from head to toe, constant vomiting and a high fever. Did I leave anything out? How about my kidneys feeling like someone was pounding on them all day. But sure enough, about 24 hours later -- which would mean earlier this morning - my fever as gone, the aches and pains are pretty much gone, I wasn't spending all my time curled up like a fetus in front of the toilet and to top it off, here I am writing about my exploits with the 24-hour flu.

Except as we al learned in paragraph one - there's no such thing as the 24 hour flu.