Stomach Flu

It happens from one second to the next. A moment ago you were functional, working, eating, talking — and now you're lying on the tiles in front of the toilet, no longer sure whether it wants to come out from the top or the bottom first. Your stomach is cramping. Your forehead is cold and drenched in sweat. Your mouth is filling with water. Everything in you has only one single program: out, out, out.

Medically speaking, a stomach flu is an acute inflammation of the digestive tract. Usually a virus, sometimes bacteria, occasionally food poisoning. The symptoms are unmistakable and brutal in their consequences: vomiting, diarrhea, nausea, weakness, fever. Within a few hours your body is ready to expel everything it contains — from the top and the bottom simultaneously. The entire digestive tract switches into emergency exit mode.