Food Poisoning Causes Long-Term Health Problems

It is known that food poisoning, E. coli, and other food borne illnesses can cause serious health problems for months or years after the person survives through it. High blood pressure, kidney damage, and full kidney failure could happen even 10 or 20 years later in people who had a severe E. coli infection as a child. Arthritis could happen after suffer from Shigella. A mysterious paralysis could happen to people who had mild symptoms of campylobacter.

The late effects make up a small amount of the 76 million annual food poisonings in the U.S. Other illnesses could possibly be linked to food poisoning. Some people that had food poisoning earlier in their life have to get kidney transplants later in their life. Some people get scarred intestines that cause long term digestive problems. About 10 percent of people that have suffered E. coli develop a very severe problem called hemolytic uremic syndrome, where their kidneys and other organs would fail.

Some people who suffer from campylobacter, which is a diarrhea-causing infection that is spread by raw poultry, develop Guillain-Barre syndrome at least a month later. Their body would attack their nerves and cause paralysis that would require intensive care and a ventilator to breathe.

Some people develop reactive arthritis at least six months after they have salmonella. It would cause joint pain, eye inflammation, and possibly painful urination. It could also cause chronic arthritis.