No clue what it was - I blame it on a bad bratwurst in Frankfurt (ironically), but I was felled by something in Alsace.

Day 1 - felt a bit queezy about noon, but drove to our hotel OK and checked in. Dinner that night - I had soup and sweated through my shirt (Mrs. Milepig says dinner was delicious). On the way back to the hotel I got the shakes and couldn't even get the key in the room door.

Day 2 - woke up to a bed with a Milepig shaped sweat outline in the bed. Sat in the shower for a long time. Mrs. Milepig went to look for a drugstore and said "if we were home you'd be in the hospital." Found few drugs and only hospital was many miles away. Did a bit of gentle touring, but kept breaking out into sweats. Any enclosed space sent me over the edge.

Day 3 - better but still sweaty. Dinner OK, but dicey.

Day 4 - fine.

All very strange, still sounds like food poisoning to me, but I thought I was going to die.

I contracted the Shingles while in Hawaii last year.

Given the relative proportion of work time to sleep time to other time during this trip, and the lack of anything remotely resembling fun time, I don't recall any activities that might have caused the latter...:eek:

-coming back from India 3 years ago: I started having diarrhea on my flight back to Europe. As soon as I landed in Frankfurt, I also developed a really high fever and started vomiting like crazy. The paramedics came wearing masks because they had been told I had just come back from India. I had to spend 3 nights in a German hospital. They ended up defining my disease as a strong viral infection.

-After I moved from Europe to Canada, I got Epstein Barr and CMV together. At first the infections gave me a low grade fever that would give me chills throughout the day but I had no other symptoms. Then, I ended up having a really high fever for a week still without symptoms. Eventually, the fever went away and I was left with a low grade fever for at least a year. Even after 1.5 years the fever still comes back every now and then. I was told that it can take several years for this kind of viral fever to go away. That's because I didn't get the virus(es) as a kid; probably because I grew up in Europe where they are less common.

Here's a strange thing. I'm used to living in both Taipei and the UK. Regularly make the trip between the two.

About 2 weeks ago I flew as usual TPE/LHR, arriving evening in London. I was in C on EVA, with an empty seat next to me. It was a comfortable flight and completely as normal. But it seems I picked something up (possibly as I did my usual survey wandering around the plane...)

Felt fine on arrival and slept normally. The following afternoon I got a headache which cleared during the evening.

But this headache has recurred every day for almost 2 weeks now. It starts around 3pm to 4pm, and stops around 7 to 8pm. It happens regardless of what I'm doing, eating etc. Nothing will stop it - though its not so bad I can't continue to function. Outside of those times, I feel completely fine. So it always comes as a surprise when it restarts...

I've eaten street food in Marrakech, all over Europe, at dock-side taco stands and unwashed fruit from vendors in Mexico with nary a problem.

One of my annual canoeing trips to northern Minnesota nearly did me in, though.

Like KarenKay, I apparently ran into one of those nasty deer ticks.

Problem was, it took 13 doctors almost a year to figure out it was Lyme disease. In the meantime, I was hospitalized twice, lost a pregnancy, was tested for everything from lupus to MS to clogged neck arteries to heart disorders and came about two weeks from going on disability.

Once they figured it out (after a liberal helping of me swallowing my internal conversation of 'I've been getting bitten by ticks all my life - no big deal' and instead saying out loud to the doctors: "You know, I got this right after a camping trip where ticks were a problem...") I spent more than two years on antibiotics.

Nine years later, half of my face still goes numb about every four weeks.

KarenKay, I'm pleasantly shocked that your Hawaiian doctor figured it out. I live in one of the top 10 states for Lyme and my various doctors were largely uninformed. Some even said Lyme doesn't exist in Minnesota. By the way, seven of my 13 doctors were at the Mayo Clinic. For reals.

Anyway, don't mess with the ticks, people. They're nasty little brats.

I'm not a doctor, but sounds like it could be a sinus headache. You should have it checked out.

This is for sure. Lyme Disease is no joke. It can be deadly if they improperly diagnose it and are unable to treat it properly. I have a friend who almost died from this as a child.

I was working as a consultant out in Italy; my client was nearing this major project milestone (you know the story) so I was continuing to go into work and put in long hours despite what felt like a bad flu coming on - gotta hate those Milanese winters.

Anyway, I'm sitting at my desk and suddenly my colleague Fabio is asking me if I'm OK, and then the next thing is I'm lying on the floor - having fallen off my chair apparently. :eek:

They take me to hospital in an emergency ambulance (but I don't remember very much of this) because I'm only semi-conscious, and the first diagnosis is suspected meningitis, because I've pointed out that I do also have a pretty stiff neck. I don't have Brudzinski's sign (which is where having your head tipped forward causes flexion of the legs) and I'm not photosensitive: so that is all good but they do take a blood sample.

Anyway, a few hours later, after a long inspection by an ENT specialist (the Italian for which is the most excellent otorhinolaryngologo) the blood test is back and they want me to see a consulting neurologist! And the first thing he wants to know is if I've recently completed a strenuous athletic event like a marathon (uh no). I have incredibly high levels of creatine phosphokinase in my blood, which is an enzyme released by muscle injury.

I get a barrage of fascinating diagnostic tests where I'm electrically shocked to determine the response time of my nervous and muscular system, and one where a very long (like 6" long) thin needle/electrode was inserted into the middle of my quadricep thigh muscle and then the amplified electrical impulses of the individual muscle fibres being recruited to flex my leg were piped out of a speaker. The doctor was listening to my leg muscle!

Despite all this, they can't find anything wrong with me, and my symptoms are much better. At the end of the day, they send me home with ... an anti inflammatory and a shrug. Never did find out what the problem was, and when I was re-tested again by my doctor at home, the CPK count was down to basically normal.

My worst sickness left me temporarily paralyzed and in a hospital in Chile for 10 days. Came down with Guillain-Barre syndrome two weeks into an 8-month RTW trip. I'd been on a 24 hr bus ride from Calama to Santiago; when I got off the bus my legs buckled under me, just thought it was muscle cramps and thought nothing of it. When it happened again later that day, and I couldn't get back up, then I knew something was wrong. Went to the hospital where luckily one of the doctors had studied it in the US.

GBS occurs when the immune system attacks the nerve cells and strips off the myelin coating; causing loss in nerve conductivity. I could move, but didn't have any strength to it at all, couldn't stand up on my own and it got to where I couldn't squeeze toothpaste! They put me on immunoglobulin IV which started working after about 6 days. They also did nerve conductivity tests like NickW above had. Very painful!!! Finally left the hospital after 10 days to go back to the US; I could walk with support. Took me probably 9-10 months though to fully recover, I couldn't run or jump for quite awhile. So far no known effects, but I do get motion sickness now and never did before. Not sure if those are related though!

Not an illness, and not me, but...
a colleague of mine told me of returning from a trip to Africa, having a sore on her side...it festered, she squeezed it, and a fly flew out of the sore!
EEEWWWW.

Lucky you! Guillan Barre can be much more severe and often progresses to the point where you need to be on a ventilator for weeks to months until you recover. Imagine being on a ventilator for weeks in a foreign hospital... I wonder if any medical transport companies would risk transporting a ventilated patient back to the US. You'd probably need a family member to sign a waiver because the airplane is so noisy it's hard to confirm and diagnose ventilator issues should a problem arise.

It's Never Lupus.

My travel problems always seem to be with the digestive system. Food poisoning from a Subway at ABE gave me diarrhea for a few days. Caught some kind of a flu in SPI back in March - couldn't stop vomiting until I called my doc and got him to write a prescription for an anti-emetic.

Travel companions had a bad case of "Montezuma's Revenge" in Mazatlan, Mexico. My first stop upon arrival was to a local pharmacy to purchase medication to fight the non-potable water disease. Whatever the pharmacist gave me seemed to work great.

This wasn't exactly an illness, but . . . .

My wife and I were on vacation in Ireland, in 2000. We were in Kenmare, in County Kerry, southwestern Ireland. We decided to kill some time before dinner by walking over to the stone circle. There was a booth there to collect a fee, but nobody was there. We deposited our coins anyway, and walked around.

I took some pictures, and it started raining. Ireland, you know.

When we were done, I was walking down a grassy slope, with wet grass, and was putting my camera away, when my left foot slipped out from under me. In trying to stand up, my right leg hyper-flexed, there was a loud crack, and down I went. I felt no pain, but my leg didn't work.

My wife went off in search of help. I dragged myself over to the booth - it was still raining - and pulled myself to my feet. I could stand, but not walk. My right leg would not extend properly from the knee down.

Some people came in a car, wonderful Irish folks, and took me to a doctor's house. (Remember when doctors had offices in their houses?) He examined me, but could not tell what was wrong. We got some ice from a pub and hoped for the best. The next day we transited from Kenmare to Dublin, and my wife drove the whole way. We got a hotel with a handicap bathroom! Hadn't asked for it, but it was serendipitous. I could walk as long as I had something to hold on to, but to cross an open space was impossible. The trip home was very difficult. Some BA folks were outstanding in helping me navigate LGW's long hallways.

The long story ended when I finally got into an orthopedist's office. I had a complete tear of my quadriceps tendon. I had surgery to repair it, and six weeks in a brace before starting therapy. My knee looks like I had a complete knee replacement, from the scar, but it's the same old knee. It's maybe 95% of what it was, in range of motion, but I have no problems with it. I ran 5 miles this morning, in fact.

But now, let me tell you, if I want to kill time before dinner, and I'm in Ireland, I go to a pub and have a pint. No use taking chances! ;)