[pct-l] Water - it finally caught up with me

[Eric Lee]

Goodness wrote:
>
I got sick three times in 2006. Two could be traced back to a 'bad water
decision' the day before and the third was obvious human contamination.
>

One of the (many) tricky things about connecting illness with where you got
it from is that many of the common food/water-borne diseases have a
multi-day incubation period, so it's rarely so simple as to figure out what
was the last food you ate or the last water you drank before getting sick.
E coli has an incubation period of 2-8 days, with the average being 3-4,
while giardia has a minimum 7 day incubation period.  There are probably
other types of bugs that have more immediate effects but for the two "big
ones" that we worry about on the trail, you usually have to count back
several days to figure out where it came from.

Eric