A sushi meal sparked a medical crisis that left Ecuadorian influencer Yuli Vargas fighting for her life and experiencing paralysis affecting parts of her face and body.
In August 2025, Yuli’s condition severely deteriorated, leaving her hospitalized for 23 days after she ate sushi at a restaurant.
Since surviving the ordeal, the influencer has shared her harrowing experience in detail and warned viewers not to make the same mistake she made.
Amid growing concern over her ordeal, a medical expert explains how foodborne infections can become life-threatening, why raw seafood carries risks, and which symptoms should prompt urgent medical attention.
Ecuadorian content creator Yuli Vargas survived a harrowing medical ordeal after eating sushi last year
Vargas, who shares content about chronic illness and health awareness, described the experience as a turning point in her life.
“It all started when I ate sushi… which triggered a series of complications and diagnoses,” she told Need to Know in an October 2025 interview about her hospitalization.
In August 2025, she contracted severe Salmonella and typhoid fever infections after eating contaminated sushi.
What began as food p**soning rapidly worsened her health.
Yuli said the complications included pangastritis, moderate-to-severe ulcerative colitis, pancreatitis, and gallbladder inflammation.
She also underwent an endoscopy and a colonoscopy during the same week.
“I went through countless tests, procedures, and finally, an extremely risky surgery where I had to face reality: the odds of me making it out of the operating room alive were slim,” Yuli said.
She recalled, “The pain and fear I felt throughout my hospitalization is something I don’t know how to explain.”
“I endured nights of incessant pain where no medication worked; not even heavy sedation could calm me.”
The influencer spent 23 days in the hospital and reportedly went 16 days without eating
She was kept in intensive care for monitoring during part of her hospitalization.
“In those moments, between pain and despair, I was unable to sleep or drink water, unable to breathe properly because of the pain, and I went without food for 16 days because I was given assisted feeding,” Vargas shared.
She said doctors initially placed the feeding line in her arm, but it caused considerable pain.
They later inserted a central line through her jugular vein to continue providing nutrition, “which ended up causing an infection several days later, and they had to remove it as an emergency.”
Yuli said her elevated pancreatic enzymes made the gallbladder operation especially risky.
“[The doctors] didn’t want to operate on me, and I had to accept that I might not survive,” she said.
Hours after the procedure, she suffered an ischemic stroke, according to her account.
The stroke left her with paralysis affecting the right side of her body and face, adding another frightening complication to an already difficult hospitalization.
“The doctors were at a loss for what to do,” Vargas said. “After multiple tests and examinations, they came up with the following diagnoses: pangastritis, moderate to severe ulcerative colitis, and systemic lupus erythematosus affecting the nervous system and pancreas.”
Yuli’s high-risk gallbladder surgery was followed by a stroke, facial paralysis, and impaired mobility
Systemic lupus erythematosus, commonly called lupus, is an autoimmune disease in which the immune system attacks the body’s own tissues.
It can affect different organs, and its symptoms and severity vary widely between patients.
Dr. Alexander Acosta, an infectious disease expert, told Bored Panda that Salmonella can be transmitted through raw seafood, but linking an infection to a particular meal requires evidence.
“Salmonella can come from raw seafood. That said, doctors must have evidence tying Salmonella to a particular food item, and this is often not known,” he explained.
Acosta pointed to a 2022 Salmonella outbreak the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) investigated.
Of 18 people interviewed, 13 reported eating raw fish, sushi, or poke.
Investigators also found the outbreak strain of Salmonella at a fresh-fish supplier.
The findings supported a link between the outbreak and the contaminated seafood.
Typhoid fever presents a related but distinct food-safety concern.
An infectious disease expert explains how Salmonella and typhoid can spread through contaminated food
MICHEL/Adobe Stock (not the actual photo)
It is caused by Salmonella Typhi, which spreads through food or water contaminated with infected human feces.
“Typhoid is commonly transmitted by food/water contaminated by human waste,” Dr. Acosta said. “This could include food handled by someone with Typhoid and/or shellfish (e.g., oysters) living in typhoid-contaminated waters.”
He explained that identifying an infection’s source may involve examining symptom timing, stool-culture results, recently consumed foods, and whether others became sick after eating the same food.
Dr. Acosta said serious infections can trigger complications beyond the digestive system, particularly when a patient becomes severely dehydrated or bacteria enter the bloodstream.
nicoletaionescu/Adobe Stock (not the actual photo)
“Signs that doctors worry about and seek the cause for include severe dehydration, worsening inflammation, and bacteria leaving the gut and entering the bloodstream,” he explained.
“When the germs enter the blood, what starts as a stomach ache can turn into a medical emergency.”
He also cautioned against assuming that an infection explains every subsequent complication in a particular patient.
“Yes, severe infections can plausibly contribute to all three, since they cause inflammation and make other complications more likely,” Dr. Acosta said, referring to pancreatitis, colitis, and gallbladder problems as experienced by Vargas.
Yuli recalled, “The pain and fear I felt throughout my hospitalization is something I don’t know how to explain…”
But he added, “I’m not able to opine on Ms. Vargas’ case as I do not have all of the facts about her illness.”
He noted that pancreatitis is a rare complication of typhoid colitis.
He also explained that Salmonella Typhi can live in the gallbladder, and gallstones may help the bacteria persist there.
Moreover, foodborne illnesses can range from mild, short-lived symptoms to infections that require urgent medical attention.
Dr. Acosta warned, “It’s a commonly held belief that food p**soning is not a big deal, but in fact some people need to seek medical attention when they develop diarrhea/vomiting.”
LIGHTFIELD STUDIOS/Adobe Stock (not the actual photo)
He highlighted several warning signs identified by the CDC, including bloody stools, diarrhea lasting more than three days, a fever above 102°F (approximately 39°C), vomiting that prevents someone from keeping fluids down, and signs of dehydration.
“Severe dehydration can result in kidney injury and can also cause your blood pressure to drop, leading to shock,” the expert explained.
He added that confusion or an inability to keep fluids down for hours should prompt same-day medical evaluation, potentially in an emergency department.
Older adults, young children, pregnant people, and those with weakened immune systems face a higher risk of serious foodborne illness and may need medical attention sooner.
Severe infections can affect multiple organs, and doctors warn against dismissing food p**soning
Dragana Gordic/Adobe Stock (not the actual photo)
Acosta also challenged the assumption that fresh-looking seafood is necessarily safe.
“It’s commonly believed sushi and raw fish/shellfish in general are safe to consume if they’re fresh. However, bacterial contamination cannot be seen or smelled,” he said.
“You may eat at the cleanest, shiniest restaurant and if the fish is contaminated, nothing they do will remove the bacteria.”
Freezing fish can eliminate parasites, he explained, but it does not reliably eliminate Salmonella.
As a result, people at higher risk of severe foodborne illness should avoid raw fish and shellfish.
Nishihama/Adobe Stock (not the actual photo)
For Vargas, leaving the hospital was only the beginning of another difficult stage: recovering from the stroke, rebuilding her strength, and learning to manage a chronic illness.
“I’m currently recovering from surgery and paralysis; I’m trying to get back to walking, eating, and moving,” she told her fans in a statement.
“I’m learning more about lupus and living it to the fullest, because when it hurts, it really hurts,” Vargas said. “I’m being treated with several dr*gs, including some that block the sensation of pain in the brain.”
Notably, while her account highlights how rapidly a serious illness can change someone’s life, it does not establish the exact cause of each complication she experienced.
“Salmonella can also be present in eggs and in other foods. Unfortunately, what happened to her was a tragic accident,” one netizen wrote
