Food Caused Dizzyness?

FormerHangie

FormerHangie

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FormerHangie
Yesterday evening, after enjoying a track day at Atlanta Motorsports Park, I stopped at a Panda Express for dinner. I had some chow mein, orange chicken, string bean chicken, and iced tea. I've eaten all those things numerous time with no problems. I drove home, and about two hours after I ate I started feeling a little lightheaded, then a little dizzy, then a lot dizzy, like I'd never experienced in my entire life. I tried lying down, but that was intolerable, so I sat upright on the bed with a trash can nearby. After about 15 minutes, that trash can became useful, and a few minutes after that, the dizzyness abated and I was able to get to sleep.

Has anyone else experienced something like this, and what do you supposed the cause was. My wife suggested I may have had some mild food poisoning, but I've never heard of that causing dizzyness.
 
I hope the doctors on the forum chime in, I “know a guy” who started having the same issues when he got married and his wife used a lot of a specific Hispanic food seasoning that was mostly monosodium glutamate. After extensively recording everything he ate and when he had the symptoms there was a 100% corilation to the msg and symptoms. Asian cooking also incorporates the use of msg. He still has to be very careful to avoid glutamates in his diet, almost like it has become a developed allergy.
 
although never formally diagnosed in my cases, I've experienced it a few times. The worst couple of events, in those moments just before the "trash can" became useful, I knew with absolute certainty exactly what the culprit was..... no question it was food poisoning.
My first and worst case was so bad that in hindsight I should have gone to the hospital. It lasted days over a Thanksgiving break. Good thing I was visiting my parents for the holiday so my mommy could take care of me... I was young and single at the time so I was glad it happened on my way to their house. It hit me when I was about an hour out, I probably shouldn't have driven the rest of the way but I was in the middle of nowhere and had no idea where to get help.
 
Not the best food but I’ve never gotten sick from it. You might want to give the restaurant a call ,so others don’t get ill
 
Chrisgoesflying said:
I just had Panda Express. I'm glad I read this AFTER eating my meal.
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I had some knock-off Panda Express wanna-be at DAL last night. After I ate it I thought "Oh no. What have I done!?" Luckily, I had been upgraded to Comfort+, so I was able to get enough alcohol to kill off any errant bacteria.
 
I've had serious food poisoning a few times, and mild a few times. Yours was mild.
Food poisoning can be random. One of my episodes stemmed from a spiral cut ham on Easter. Over a dozen people ate it, and only half got poisoned. It hit me about 24 hours later--with a vengeance--at an expensive hotel--on a mini-vacation. My wife has never forgiven me, although I didn't cook the ham.

My wife has had food poisoning at least twice. Once, she picked it up at a restaurant the night before we flew to Honolulu for a wedding. It hit her hard at the hotel and she stayed in the room for three days. I remember multiple trips to the ABC store for Jello Cups.

By the way, there is no such thing as the 24-hour flu. It's generally food poisoning.
 
CJones said:
I had some knock-off Panda Express wanna-be at DAL last night. After I ate it I thought "Oh no. What have I done!?" Luckily, I had been upgraded to Comfort+, so I was able to get enough alcohol to kill off any errant bacteria.
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Manchu Wok. Every time I almost get food there, I realize there's a Whataburger right behind me.
 
Probably all of the MSG they put in that stuff.
 
I'm fairly resistant to food poisoning. When I'm in SE Asia, I don't have a problem eating at places where westerners are advised not to eat. It took a while to build up a tolerance though.
 
frfly172 said:
You might want to give the restaurant a call ,so others don’t get ill
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If a cafeteria serves 900 children lunch and one of them throws up is it food poisoning? Not likely. Perhaps they have a food sensitivity or intolerance to certain foods, seasonings, or other items used in food preparation. Not saying it wasn't poisoning but that wouldn't be my first guess unless there were other cases reported.
 
Two things:
1) Don't be quick to blame MSG.

2) Don't be quick to blame Panda Express. The vast majority of food poisoning cases never point the finger in the right direction because almost everyone blames the last meal they ate. Food poisoning takes between an hour and a few days to kick in. So if this was a case of food poisoning, unless you've had the food tested, it's basically impossible to say which of the most recent 15 or more meals was the cause.
 
Half Fast said:
@172andyou makes a good point. @FormerHangie , were you recently on a commercial flight and had the fish?
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I haven't been on an airplane since July, and haven't eaten on one since coming back from Germany in September 2022. We didn't eat on the flights to/from Keflavik, we had dinner at JFK on the outbound leg and in Reykjavik on the way back, plus a hot dog at the airport. It turns out that Icelandic hot dogs are a thing.
172andyou said:
@FormerHangie never has a second cup of coffee at home...
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You are correct. I'm not 100% sure I have a first cup of coffee considering all the non-coffee stuff that's in there.
Ventucky Red said:
Was that your only meal that day?
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No, I had my normal breakfast of scrambled eggs and a starchy item, in this case a bagel. I had kind of a light lunch since I was going track driving and didn't want to be too full. I left the track feeling great.

I was talking to my daughter the public health major about this, and she suspects food contamination. I looked up the symptoms of nicotine poisoning, and they line up with my symptoms.
Nicotine poisoning symptoms can include nausea, vomiting, excessive salivation, abdominal pain, sweating, headache, dizziness, muscle twitching, seizures, rapid heart rate, and difficulty breathing.
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I wonder if somebody's vape juice wound up in the food.
 
frfly172 said:
Not the best food but I’ve never gotten sick from it. You might want to give the restaurant a call ,so others don’t get ill
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By the time I was sick, the restaurant was closed, hopefully no one else had the same experience.
 
FormerHangie said:
Yesterday evening, after enjoying a track day at Atlanta Motorsports Park, I stopped at a Panda Express for dinner. I had some chow mein, orange chicken, string bean chicken, and iced tea. I've eaten all those things numerous time with no problems. I drove home, and about two hours after I ate I started feeling a little lightheaded, then a little dizzy, then a lot dizzy, like I'd never experienced in my entire life. I tried lying down, but that was intolerable, so I sat upright on the bed with a trash can nearby. After about 15 minutes, that trash can became useful, and a few minutes after that, the dizzyness abated and I was able to get to sleep.

Has anyone else experienced something like this, and what do you supposed the cause was. My wife suggested I may have had some mild food poisoning, but I've never heard of that causing dizzyness.
Click to expand...
I have worked all over the world (and eaten all sorts of food) - and do not recall ever having "food poisoning" I do recall seeing a co-worker rolling on the floor in pain after having
consumed a bottle of a local soft drink in Indonesia. The doctor said it was food poisoning. Glad I missed that.

However, much later I had a couple of curious dizzy spells after having lunch at Costco. Sometime later on the first day of a family trip we had lunch at a Filipino restaurant. Mid afternoon I
started feeling dizzy, and had to give up driving. Fortunately, our son was available to take over. Just as we arrived at our accommodations for the night, I "lost my lunch" in dramatic fashion.
I was out of it for the remainder of the day - but was back to normal the next morning. Later in the trip I had another dizzy spell midmorning - but got over it by sitting for awhile. Thinking back
on these events it occurred to me that the common item of food involved was sausage. I am no expert on such matters, but am aware that Sodium/Potassium Nitrites are used as preservatives
in sausage - and perhaps the portions I ate contained excessive amounts thereof. It is by no means proof of the assumption that eating sausage caused my dizziness - but I have avoided eating
that food item ever since - and have had no more dizzy spells. YMMV.

Dave
 
FWIW, nicotine or nicotine derivatives used to be really popular as pesticides, and I don't know of many restaurants that actually wash their veggies. Maybe your beans got higher than the average dose somehow.
 
Doesn't sound like your issue, but I've found that some (not sure which) ingredient in diet soft drinks and other artificially-sweetened drinks will give me severe dizziness and headache if I consume too many in a single day. So, I limit that to usually 2 a day. I found this out by accident after eating at a restaurant with free refills. And I believe somehow their syrup concentration (or whatever it is) was a little higher than off-the-shelf, canned soda.
 
mark.staggs said:
Doesn't sound like your issue, but I've found that some (not sure which) ingredient in diet soft drinks and other artificially-sweetened drinks will give me severe dizziness and headache if I consume too many in a single day. So, I limit that to usually 2 a day. I found this out by accident after eating at a restaurant with free refills. And I believe somehow their syrup concentration (or whatever it is) was a little higher than off-the-shelf, canned soda.
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Probably stevia or stevia substitute or possibly xylitol. My mom is incredibly sensitive to artificial sweeteners, and those were often the two warning signals she got that something she was eating had artificial sweeteners in it.
 
Zeldman said:
The restaurant will most likely ignore the call and continue serving.
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Last time I had a food illness, I contact the local health department via their website.

Next day I got a call from a food inspector that told me they went to the store and found one of their fridges (containing chicken) was too warm. Store got to throw EVERYTHING from that fridge out.
 
FormerHangie said:
Yesterday evening, after enjoying a track day at Atlanta Motorsports Park, I stopped at a Panda Express for dinner. I had some chow mein, orange chicken, string bean chicken, and iced tea. I've eaten all those things numerous time with no problems. I drove home, and about two hours after I ate I started feeling a little lightheaded, then a little dizzy, then a lot dizzy, like I'd never experienced in my entire life. I tried lying down, but that was intolerable, so I sat upright on the bed with a trash can nearby. After about 15 minutes, that trash can became useful, and a few minutes after that, the dizzyness abated and I was able to get to sleep.

Has anyone else experienced something like this, and what do you supposed the cause was. My wife suggested I may have had some mild food poisoning, but I've never heard of that causing dizzyness.
Click to expand...
Food poisoning
 
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