A Tennessee social media food critic says a severe case of cyclosporiasis left her sick for nearly a month — and so anxious about sudden symptoms that she avoided straying far from a bathroom.
Christina Hart, 29, who hosts the TikTok series “The Locally Owned Series,” told her nearly 160,000 followers that she first assumed she was dealing with food poisoning or a stomach bug. Instead, testing confirmed she had contracted the parasite linked to what many describe as “explosive diarrhea.”
“That’s really the best word to sum it all up, was miserable,” Hart told USA Today.
After about a week of intense gastrointestinal symptoms, Hart said she sought medical care to find out what was causing the illness.
“I got tested. I saw the headlines of cyclosporiasis and I’m like: ‘I’m having those symptoms. I need to make sure I ask for that testing.’ Came back positive,” she said.
“I was sick for three weeks with it. And then around the three-and-a-half-week mark, I started feeling better.”
Although Hart had seen national reports about the “diarrhea parasite” spreading across the United States and sickening more than 22,000 people, she said she had not realized just how debilitating the infection could become.
“The timestamps in between having to go (to the bathroom) was just a little extreme for me,” she said.
“That kind of stopped me from just living my everyday life because I was scared to go out in public.”
Hart explained that during her bout of the parasitic illness, she was “scared to go out in public,” because “you lose complete control” over your bodily functions.
“It’s not a fun experience…you will need to be near a restroom if you have it,” she quipped.
After battling with cyclosporiasis for almost a month, Hart now feels “fantastic” and “completely normal,” but stressed that the food-borne illness that is believed to have stemmed from tainted iceberg lettuce is “very uncomfortable.”
She explained that despite not eating much throughout the ordeal, she dealt with severe bloating and lost 17 pounds.
The TikTok food critic initially thought her “explosive diarrhea” diagnosis would impact her social-media career as she had to put her social media show on pause, which was “kind of depressing.”
However, the cyclosporiasis battle ended up launching her toward more “success,” she said.
The “whole parasite thing flipped everything upside down and then launched it into even more success,” the influencer said, adding that a lot of her viewers initially reached out wondering where she went when she stopped posting.
“It’s not the most pleasant thing to be like, ‘Well, I’m stuck in the bathroom,” she told the outlet.
But “a lot of doors kind of opened unexpectedly through this miserable experience, so I’m grateful for it,” Hart added.
“I hated the whole experience, but now I’m finding the blessing in (it).”
The Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention (CDC) has confirmed more than 10,000 lab-tested cases of cyclosporiasis across the US, which has claimed the lives of two Michigan residents.
The total number of cases throughout the US, however, is much higher — with many states, including the hardest-hit Wolverine State, using different testing protocols that have indicated much higher figures of the foodborne illness.
