Stomach flu or?

 How does one figure out what is a stomach flu (or food poisoning, who knows x_x) and what is something caused by your weight loss surgery?

I'm about 10 months post-op...woke up today feeling blah. Diarrhea all day, stomach is crampy, no vomitting but I also only had one solid meal today (chicken - I had yogurt for lunch and oatmeal + protein shake for breakfast), so there isn't much TO throw up. I'm currently sans insurance that covers my surgeon (lucky I have any insurance at all, I know), so I don't want to automatically freak out and pay the hefty sum because I panicked!

Does this sound like symptoms of anything big? Should I wait before alerting my surgeon to see if it passes (I think the usual stomach flu 1-3 days) or should I give them a call tomorrow? I might call tomorrow just to see what they think anyway. UGH,

Hope everyone is feeling better than I am right now!

for me, if there is no fever, I pretty much assume it was some type of food-borne illness.

I would stick to clear liquids, if possible --- milky stuff is not good with a fever or with a stomach bug.

I would see how you feel tomorrow and then decide to call or not --- they won't charge you to call them.

You might also see if your local hospital has a free 'nurse help line' that you can call for advice.

Again, I am guessing that they will tell you to go to clear fluids for a day or 2 and only call if things get worse.

Wishing you some warm tea and a restful night.

Post-op, we have a tendency to blame everything that goes wrong on our surgery---kinda like pre-op, doctors used to blame all our health problems on being fat, even if it was a rash or an ingrown toenail.

Sounds like a bug to me.

http://www.medicinenet.com/norovirus_infection/chicago-il_city.htm#topic

I've had the symptoms you describe for the better part of 2 years, sometimes very acute for 2-3 days at a time...it is only recently that I've concluded that it was because of what is described above.

I believed that I had become lactose intolerant, allergic to gluten (though my PCP was very much against testing...he attributed it to a reaction to my metformin) or a particularly nasty strain of E-coli or all three...

During that time, I've eliminated dairy from my diet, most whey products that are obviously high in gluten (breads) and I rarely, if ever, eat in restaurants (I just don't trust that the food preparation staff member wash their hands thoroughly)...it has helped immensely...for a while I was popping Lactaid tablets like they were Skittles...

I feel for you...feeling that way S U C K S!!!

 Thank you all for your replies!

I ended up seeing my normal GP today, because I ended up beginning to have UTI-like pain. He checked (via poking at my stomach) to see if there was any issues and didn't find anything amiss. Couldn't do urine test because the 'girls' decided to kick in this week and give me my period on top of all of this, but he prescribed me Cipro because that should clear anything up that I might have at the moment. So hopefully that clears this all up, because man, it hasn't been fun. I worry a little that maybe it's an ulcer, but I'm hoping that's just my anxiety acting up and I'm making something out of nothing.

Hope everyone's having a good day today! On the bright side of all this, I got weighed and am 238 pounds. That makes my total 125 pounds in ten months so far.