Salmonellosis: Let's Discuss

[Tatanko 5591]

So I decided to do a little research today on the inclusion of salmonellosis (as of 0.52). I will lay out what I found below. I tried to be as scientific about the whole process as I could possibly be, but there are still a few question marks. I'd like some input from others who have battled it to see what your experience was.

 

1. First, I tried eating raw fish fillets. I ate two of them, and after ten minutes this had resulted in nothing at all.

2. So then I decided to eat an entire unprepared Carp. I immediately began getting status messages like, "I have a funny taste in my mouth" and "I notice a weird taste". After about three minutes, I began getting the message, "I feel nauseous" in red text but no "Sick" status or vomiting.

3. After about ten minutes, I noticed I was losing color and took antibiotics (according to what I had read online, they are supposed to be the cure).

4. At the fifteen minute mark, I was still getting red status messages and consumed a second round of antibiotics to see if it would help; it didn't seem to. Still losing color. At the eighteen minute mark, I had very little color left.

5. At the twenty-one minute mark, I became yellow "Sick" and lost my previously high levels of energized and hydrated. Almost immediately I became orange "Sick" and vomited, along with red text status messages about feeling light-headed.

6. At the thirty minute mark, I was still orange "Sick" and had zero color left. Still getting red status messages. Took charcoal tabs.

7. At the thirty-five minute mark, I observed that my color was starting to come back. Ten minutes later, I had plenty of color back.

8. After exactly one hour since consuming the whole unprepared fish, I lost my sick status completely and very suddenly. I was able to heal to "Healthy" almost instantly.

 

 

At no point during all of this was my vision blurry, leading me to believe that the total health lost at any given time was very little (despite losing nearly all of my blood eventually). I can't tell if the antibiotics are what actually solved the problem or not, though, and whether or not multiple doses actually helped. Seeing as I took charcoal tabs after thirty minutes, I question whether or not they were involved in curing me.

 

It was exactly an hour since I ate the fish, fifty minutes since I took the first antibiotics, and thirty minutes since I took the charcoal tabs. Hmm.

[krazypenguin 174]

So I decided to do a little research today on the inclusion of salmonellosis (as of 0.52). I will lay out what I found below. I tried to be as scientific about the whole process as I could possibly be, but there are still a few question marks. I'd like some input from others who have battled it to see what your experience was.

 

1. First, I tried eating raw fish fillets. I ate two of them, and after ten minutes this had resulted in nothing at all.

2. So then I decided to eat an entire unprepared Carp. I immediately began getting status messages like, "I have a funny taste in my mouth" and "I notice a weird taste". After about three minutes, I began getting the message, "I feel nauseous" in red text but no "Sick" status or vomiting.

3. After about ten minutes, I noticed I was losing color and took antibiotics (according to what I had read online, they are supposed to be the cure).

4. At the fifteen minute mark, I was still getting red status messages and consumed a second round of antibiotics to see if it would help; it didn't seem to. Still losing color. At the eighteen minute mark, I had very little color left.

5. At the twenty-one minute mark, I became yellow "Sick" and lost my previously high levels of energized and hydrated. Almost immediately I became orange "Sick" and vomited, along with red text status messages about feeling light-headed.

6. At the thirty minute mark, I was still orange "Sick" and had zero color left. Still getting red status messages. Took charcoal tabs.

7. At the thirty-five minute mark, I observed that my color was starting to come back. Ten minutes later, I had plenty of color back.

8. After exactly one hour since consuming the whole unprepared fish, I lost my sick status completely and very suddenly. I was able to heal to "Healthy" almost instantly.

 

 

At no point during all of this was my vision blurry, leading me to believe that the total health lost at any given time was very little (despite losing nearly all of my blood eventually). I can't tell if the antibiotics are what actually solved the problem or not, though, and whether or not multiple doses actually helped. Seeing as I took charcoal tabs after thirty minutes, I question whether or not they were involved in curing me.

 

It was exactly an hour since I ate the fish, fifty minutes since I took the first antibiotics, and thirty minutes since I took the charcoal tabs. Hmm.

Nice.

 

I don't know about how this works, but if it's the same as the "sick" effect you get from using sewing kits to infect your wounds then it's a 4 stage process and whichever product it is that "cures" it (I guess charcoal tabs since it's a food sickness) simply jumps you to stage 3, effectively shortening the duration of being ill.  If it is the same then simply maintain high levels of energized and hydrated will let you get through it if you don't have charcoal, it will just take longer.

[BrainlessZombie 190]

It sounds like food poisoning to me, since it got fixed with charcoal tabs, just the same as if you eat the wrong kind of berries.

[Tatanko 5591]

It sounds like food poisoning to me, since it got fixed with charcoal tabs, just the same as if you eat the wrong kind of berries.

That's what I'm thinking. It doesn't seem like the antibiotics actually did anything, but it's hard to tell. With normal food poisoning, you just skip straight to charcoal tabs, right? This seems like it was behaving like normal food poisoning, which would mean it's not really a separate disease I guess (or perhaps a placeholder). I dunno.

[B4GEL 175]

It does sound like normal food poisoning, I didn't even realize they had started adding more complex sickness. Diseases are coming this quarter, I'm very much looking forward to this stuff getting fleshed out.     

[ChainReactor 922]

That's what I'm thinking. It doesn't seem like the antibiotics actually did anything, but it's hard to tell. With normal food poisoning, you just skip straight to charcoal tabs, right? This seems like it was behaving like normal food poisoning, which would mean it's not really a separate disease I guess (or perhaps a placeholder). I dunno.

 

After i tried to verify your results by datamining the gamefiles, I realised you messed up your own experiment. :)

 

I found that antibiotics indeed cure salmonelosis, however, i can neither confirm nor deny that the actual disease is in the game yet. You screwed it up by eating charcoal tabs, because those cure medium food poisoning. Eating raw fish can cause both. So, by eating raw fish, you either got salmonellosis or medium food poisoning, and you took measures shortly after each other to treat both of them.

 

Conclusion: Eating raw fish made you sick, but we don't know what exactly was wrong, and that either antibiotics or charcoal tabs saved your ass. :)

[Tatanko 5591]

Conclusion: Eating raw fish made you sick, but we don't know what exactly was wrong, and that either antibiotics or charcoal tabs saved your ass. :)

That's where I'm at with this, too. Inconclusive. More research must be done.

[Kirov (DayZ) 585]

How do you know about salmo and antibiotics working? When I joined dayz it was like .46 and I took some pain to learn exactly what medic stuff was implemented back then. Antibiotics, vitamins, painkillers and that injection vial sure weren't. I check change logs with every update and there is no mention of additional diseases so I was under heavy impression that nothing has changed yet - what you really need is bandages and morphines, and epi/defi/blood/saline when working in groups. The pills are still useless AFAIK. If you think there's something new, let me know and we can check.

 

As for the above study - what you wrote matches exactly my severe food poisoning I got from eating a pile of guts. On the other hand, the solution of dayz to any body trouble is always losing blood in the end (starving looks the same), so I don't know if we can tell the difference by effects. They should put different messages, though.

[Tatanko 5591]

How do you know about salmo and antibiotics working? When I joined dayz it was like .46 and I took some pain to learn exactly what medic stuff was implemented back then. Antibiotics, vitamins, painkillers and that injection vial sure weren't. I check change logs with every update and there is no mention of additional diseases so I was under heavy impression that nothing has changed yet - what you really need is bandages and morphines, and epi/defi/blood/saline when working in groups. The pills are still useless AFAIK. If you think there's something new, let me know and we can check.

 

As for the above study - what you wrote matches exactly my severe food poisoning I got from eating a pile of guts. On the other hand, the solution of dayz to any body trouble is always losing blood in the end (starving looks the same), so I don't know if we can tell the difference by effects. They should put different messages, though.

I don't know that they are working, unfortunately. I was hoping to be able to tell by trying it out for myself, but given the results I would say I experienced food poisoning and not a unique disease. Based off what has been said in dev blogs recently, I don't think diseases are actually in yet. Salmonellosis may have been included incorrectly on a changelog a few versions back; that will happen from time to time (the changelog being wrong).

 

Indeed different/unique messages would be helpful. As of right now, I diagnose patients or myself based on the unique set of symptoms they are exhibiting. Quite in fact this is another area of the game that I've already put a lot of work into documenting for my own purposes :) I have an entire choose-your-symptoms style guide to medicine that allows you to quickly diagnose yourself or another person even if you have zero knowledge of the medical system in the game, and then tells you what to do in order to fix it (usually multiple different ways, too). I wrote the content a few weeks ago, and I would like to turn it into a simple single-page website that uses drop-down menus. I figure it would be helpful to keep it in your bookmarks/favorites tab on your browser for when you run into a problem while playing :p

[Grimey Rick 3417]

If you hadn't taken charcoal tablets or antibiotics, you'd have gotten the exact same results. I've tried it.

Also, charcoal tablets have to be consumed within a few minutes of you swallowing something that leaves a weird taste in your mouth. After a few minutes, they don't do anything. This was the case when rotten fruit was still in the game and I haven't read of any changes made to their functionality since, anyway.

[Tatanko 5591]

If you hadn't taken charcoal tablets or antibiotics, you'd have gotten the exact same results. I've tried it.

Also, charcoal tablets have to be consumed within a few minutes of you swallowing something that leaves a weird taste in your mouth. After a few minutes, they don't do anything. This was the case when rotten fruit was still in the game and I haven't read of any changes made to their functionality since, anyway.

Thanks for your input :)

[mercules 1290]

I think I experienced Salmonellosis. I experimented with raw boar meat just to see. After a bit I got sick. So I did what should have worked for food poisoning in the past, I forced myself to vomit. I then rehydrated and filled myself back up. Normally at that point the sick would go away and you would start getting better. This time it didn't. I forced vomiting again and again replenished energy and hydration. After a bit "Sick" came back. 

 

So now came the hunt for a cure. Luckily I found some Antibiotics next to a military truck crash. I used them, not once, but twice and then after a while the sick suddenly went away. 

[Kirov (DayZ) 585]

So I did what should have worked for food poisoning in the past, I forced myself to vomit.

 

There is a longish youtube video by Merino in which he explains that inducing vomit as a cure for sickness is a widespread myth, and completely false to that. I don't remember his rationale for that, but I'm sure you'd drop dead if you didn't eat and drink to full afterwards. He tested it thoroughly so I kinda have no reason to believe him. You should find those movies somewhere in the FAQ section, a good watch in general.

[Tatanko 5591]

I think I experienced Salmonellosis. I experimented with raw boar meat just to see. After a bit I got sick. So I did what should have worked for food poisoning in the past, I forced myself to vomit. I then rehydrated and filled myself back up. Normally at that point the sick would go away and you would start getting better. This time it didn't. I forced vomiting again and again replenished energy and hydration. After a bit "Sick" came back. 

 

So now came the hunt for a cure. Luckily I found some Antibiotics next to a military truck crash. I used them, not once, but twice and then after a while the sick suddenly went away. 

Hmmmm...

[TheHermit (DayZ) 22]

I finally had my first "sick" for the first time.

 

Character is very healthy, eats canned foods and rice. Sodas and water.

 

I have no idea how I got sick, but I took a few swigs of bottle water, tried morphine and painkillers for the heck of it. Ate few bites of pristine food over the course of an hour while running to and around the next town, and it suddenly went back to bright green energized, hydrated and healthy.

 

Was fun. B)

[emuthreat 2837]

Doesn't salmonellosis cause diarrhea?  You should have had to remove your pants to avoid ruining them, maybe also boots.  That would also cause rapid dehydration, and the possibility to vomit.  

 

That disease should have made you have to hunker down someplace with easy acces to water, that couldn't be polluted by the sickness.

[Kirov (DayZ) 585]

How exactly would we be supposed to run the tests of salmonellosis? The medicine is one thing, but what about the symptoms? As far as I know, all or most adverse conditions in dayz ultimately lead to the loss of blood in their final stage - starvation, either poisoning, hypo/hyperthermia. If there are no separate messages, I guess it all boils down to how fast/how long the screen stays B&W and if the minor regeneration is enough to survive or do you need the major one. Am I missing something here?