Campylonacteriosis

Diagnosis

Your doctor may suspect that you have some sort of food-related illness based on your history and symptoms. However the only way to confirm that you definitely have been infected with Campylobacter is to collect a stool sample and examine it in a laboratory. Some patients have symptoms that are not typical, and the doctor may need to do further tests to check for other intestinal disorders, such as appendicitis, ulcerative colitis, or Crohn's disease.

Expected Duration

In adults who have normal immune defenses, Campylobacter infection is usually a self-limited illness that goes away on its own within seven to 10 days. With antibiotic treatment, symptoms often stop sooner, usually in about five days.

Without treatment, the illness returns in up to 5% to 10% of otherwise healthy people. Such relapses are more common in people with weakened immune defenses.