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Admittedly, I never visited Delhi, but I sure has hell had my fair share of what’s known as Delhi belly.
I spent two months in India in 2018 (read more of that in memoir!), and believe me when I tell you I tried every food that was put in front of me. I was never worried about getting sick from anything, because frankly I figured any sickness would be worth the tasty food.
It wasn’t until two weeks before I was going to leave that I finally fell victim to a stomach bug, which is incredibly common among foreign traveller’s in India, referred to as Delhi belly.
Due to a combination of bad luck and poor choice by yours truly, I ended up being bed ridden and ill for about a week with Delhi belly in Bangalore.
Today’s blog is a bit of a follow up from last week where I talked about travel diseases, because today’s story has to do with doxycycline, a drug commonly used for malaria prophylaxis.
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A bit of background...
Before leaving for my travels, I had a small supply of doxycycline with me in case I were to travel to a place where I needed it (since I had only vague plans before leaving Toronto).
When my time there was nearly up, I hadn’t used any of it, and knew it would expire long before I would be in a situation where I’d need it, so I decided to do something that I wouldn’t suggest for any of my readers to do.
I’ve been suffering from adult acne since I was about 21 (I wear a lot of make up in most of my pictures and videos—don’t be fooled!) and if I’m being honest with you, it does cause me a lot of stress and confidence issues.
Another interesting thing about having adult acne, is the conversations you find yourself in with new people you meet abroad. It seems the understanding of hormonal adult acne is less common in places I’ve travelled to. I’ve found that people back home in Canada have great filters when they see my naked skin, but in other places…not so much.
“What kind of food are you eating?”
“Do you not wash your face?”
“You should try Clean and Clear!”—this is possibly my favourite comment ever that I received while in Nicaragua.
I digress…back to the Delhi belly incident.
I had a few comments similar to those above while I was in India, and so I decided to put the doxycycline I had on hand to “good” use.
Doxycycline is an antibiotic prescribed to people mainly for two uses—malaria prophylaxis or acne. Because my mother had used a similar drug for years for her adult acne, I figured it would likely do some good for me too.
Less than a week after taking the antibiotics...
I had some momos and a Kathi roll with my housemates, and later that night, I started to feel the wrath of a stomach bug.
My nausea was unbearable. I also developed a fever rapidly, and by the next morning, I couldn’t sit up at my desk. After about an hour of work, my boss told me to go lay down,.
My muscles ached, and every cell in my body was completely exhausted with no energy to spare. I hardly had the energy to get up and go to the washroom, or lift my head and shoulders up to drink or eat.
I spent two days like this, insisting to my coworkers that I would be fine, until one of them decided to take matters into their own hands.
He walked in to my room with some fruit I think we both knew I wouldn’t bother eating.
“I’ve make an appointment with a doctor this afternoon. Get ready, I’m taking you there.”
Off to the "Motherhood" hospital to assess the Delhi belly
This is one of the greatest things about this story. It just so happened that the closest general physician available to us was at the hospital designated for expecting mothers down the road.
Here’s the part where I, the fair skinned foreign young lady, is sitting beside her Indian coworker who is only two years older, among a group of expecting mothers and their significant others.
Incredibly comical, I know. Fortunately for me, I was so sick I didn’t really care about it at the time, but I imagine my coworker felt a little awkward in front of all those other people. He was a good sport though and accompanied me to the doctor.
The doctor took one look at me and massaged my abdomen.
After about 30 seconds he said, “Yeah, that’s definitely a stomach bug you have.”
He prescribed me a handful of things. Antibiotics for the bacteria that was wreaking havoc, medication for the fever, medication for the pain, and last but definitely not least, probiotics.
And here's where I facepalmed myself
I quickly realized I essentially destroyed all the good bacteria in my stomach that could potentially fight off the Delhi belly bacteria when I took the doxycycline. The timing of when I got sick made this obvious.
So after I finished the prescribed amount of probiotics from the doctor, I took it upon myself to get other probiotics to take for a little while longer.
But apparently that wasn’t enough.
I got sick about a week later, this time the nausea ended in a massive vomiting spell.
The vomiting was so intense that my other coworker’s daughter said from outside the bathroom, “Papa, did Aunty eat stones?”
In the end, I suffered from several more episodes like this for two months after the initial Indian stomach bug attack. My entire two months in Nepal afterward, I think I had about 5 severe incidents, luckily none of which caused me to be bed ridden like the first time.
Do I regret eating the momos or Kathi roll that likely made me sick?
Absolutely not, and I still continue to eat any street food I feel like trying.
Do I regret taking the doxycycline?
Yes. I realize in hindsight it was not wise to take antibiotics and eat random street food simultaneously.
The Do's and Don'ts to Avoid Delhi Belly
Firstly, don’t be using medications in ways you weren’t intending to use them—something bad is bound to happen. I feel like this is bad karma or something. One might argue that I even deserved this bout of Delhi belly.
Second, when using doxycycline, or any antibiotics for that matter, make sure you get some probiotics in your system to help adjust your system back to normal.
Lastly, be aware of any side effects from medications you are taking, and don’t take them randomly like I did! I wasn’t even thinking about my GI tract when I started taking it, and didn’t consider that the food there would make me sick, because it had already been over a month living there where I was eating everything and anything.
I will end off saying this. Do be careful of medications you are taking, and what foods you are eating. But don’t let fear of Delhi belly stop you from eating delicious things that cross your path.
In my opinion all the delicious food I ate while in India was 100% worth all the pain and stomach episodes that occurred because of it. I’d do it all over again, because in my biased opinion, Indian food is the best food in the entire world. Feel free to argue with me on this one, but I won’t budge too far, trust me.
I might be sharing more blogs like this about moments of sickness and lessons learned, so stay tuned. Leave me a comment if you found this one funny and interesting!
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Thanks for reading, and happy future eating adventures abroad!
Much love,
Danika
