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Campylobacter jejuni
Usually from one’s own kitchen via board and hands rather than the meat itself — and the after-effects often last longer than the illness.
Also known as: campylobacteriosis · Campylobacter diarrhoea · food-borne infection · cross contamination in the kitchen
Open in the tool — with search and all the links →This compilation is for information and replaces neither medical diagnosis nor treatment. If you have symptoms, see a doctor.
The commonest bacterial cause of diarrhoea in our part of the world — more common than salmonella, and most cases arise at home in one’s own kitchen. The source is almost always raw or undercooked poultry; infection often comes not from the meat itself but from the board, the knife or the hands that afterwards touched the salad. Other routes are raw milk, untreated water and young pets. It begins two to five days after exposure, and the sequence is characteristic: first fever and a feeling of flu coming on, then violent cramping abdominal pain, often worse than the diarrhoea itself, and only then the diarrhoea, sometimes bloody. After about a week the worst is over. Antibiotics are usually not needed. More important than the acute week are the after-effects, because they are so often not connected: some keep a sensitive, irritable bowel for months, others develop joint trouble — and rarely, one to three weeks later, a nerve condition follows with tingling and rising weakness.
With fever, blood in the stool, severe pain or more than three days of diarrhoea. Identifying it changes the advice and later explains the after-effects.
Water alone does not replace the losses. A rehydration solution from the pharmacy or made at home replaces exactly what is lost.
Most people need none. They make sense with a severe course, high fever, long duration or weakened defences — and then early, because later they barely shorten anything.
The splashing spreads the germs across sink and worktop. Heat kills them reliably; washing only spreads them.
A separate board for raw meat, wash it hot afterwards, wash hands before touching salad or bread. That is where infection happens, not at the table.
Weeks with a sensitive belly are normal. Knowing that stops the search for a second disease — and calprotectin is only rechecked after some weeks.
If tingling in the feet with increasing weakness in both legs starts one to three weeks later, that belongs in hospital the same day.
The rare but serious after-effect: one to three weeks later, tingling in the feet and increasing weakness in both legs.
Six level teaspoons of sugar and half a teaspoon of salt in a litre of boiled water — sipped through the day.
Cook oat flakes long in water, eat lukewarm; grate an apple, let it brown, then eat.
An antibiotic shortens the diarrhoea by only about a day and so is usually not worthwhile — it comes into question with a severe course, high fever or weakened defences, and then azithromycin, because resistance to quinolones is high. Loperamide is not the route with bloody stool. What counts is fluid with salt and sugar. In one in a thousand, Guillain-Barré syndrome follows two to four weeks later — hence the attention to tingling and weakness afterwards.
It is the most common bacterial cause of diarrhoea in Europe. From ingestion to the first signs, two to five days pass; the diarrhoea lasts about a week, and the belly pain can come first and resemble appendicitis. A few hundred organisms are enough for an infection — which is why juice from raw poultry on a chopping board suffices. The organism is still shed for two to four weeks after the symptoms end.
Cramping pain that precedes the diarrhoea and outweighs it. It is regularly taken for appendicitis.
One or two days of fever and aching limbs like flu starting, before the gut reacts at all.
Not rare with this organism and in itself no reason to panic — but a reason to have the stool tested rather than wait.
Chicken, poultry strips, a barbecue, raw-milk cheese, a stream, a young dog. A look at the last five days usually finds the source.
Some keep bloating, changing stools and pain for weeks to months. That is a known course after such an infection, not a new disease.
One to three weeks later joints can swell — or tingling starts in the feet with increasing weakness. The latter needs immediate assessment.
Raised during and after the infection. A high value shortly after diarrhoea therefore says little about chronic bowel disease — wait a few weeks and measure again.
Rises more clearly than with most viral diarrhoeas — a hint, not a proof.
With heavy diarrhoea over days the first value to tip — especially in older people and on water tablets.
Shows whether the fluid loss has reached the kidneys. If it rises, drinking alone is not enough.
Fever, sweating and faster breathing clearly raise the need. Drinking enough keeps the mucus thin and the circulation steady — in children and older people it is the most important point of all.
With low levels airway infections occur somewhat more often; correcting a deficiency makes sense, a high single dose during the infection does not act on it.
Needed by the defence cells. For lozenges at the start of a cold there are hints of a slightly shortened duration; at a high dose over months zinc lowers copper.
Antibodies and defence cells are protein. After several days with little appetite it is worth at least keeping the protein up — soup with egg, quark, yoghurt, lentils.
The only measure that really counts with diarrhoea. A solution with sugar and salt is absorbed better than water alone — the sugar opens the transport route for the sodium.
With infectious diarrhoea it shortens the duration by about a day in the pooled studies. In people with a weakened immune system or a central venous catheter the yeast is not harmless.
In children zinc measurably shortens acute diarrhoea — 10–20 mg a day over 10–14 days is the international recommendation. In adults in well-supplied countries the effect is not shown.
Clearly worthwhile and well studied when deficient; fewer data for the wider uses. Fat-soluble — check blood levels at high doses.
Sugar and salt are taken up in the gut through the same carrier — which is why a drinking solution works where water alone does not. With any diarrhoea that is the measure that really counts.
Weeks after this infection a reactive joint inflammation can appear, and in rare cases Guillain-Barré syndrome. Anyone getting new complaints weeks later should mention the connection — otherwise it does not get made.
The most common transmission is not through the cooked meat but through the chopping board and the hands afterwards. Poultry cooked to 70 °C in the core is safe; washing raw poultry spreads the germs instead.
A temporary lactose intolerance is common after the infection and lasts 2–6 weeks. That is not permanent — dairy is reintroduced step by step afterwards.
After the infection the gut flora needs weeks. Probiotics are studied for recovery with small effects — the temporary lactose intolerance recedes anyway after 2–6 weeks.