Hi, Celia,
I'm pretty new to episodes, so my experiences are very limited. What seems to be a hallmark, in my case, is a sharp left sided pain in the lower abdomen and low-grade fever - usually at night. For me, the sharp pain is intermittent and not debilitating. I also get other pains - achy, crampy feeling across the lower abdomen, plank ache, heaviness on left side that feels arthritic, achy legs from knees up. These pains are also sporadic. My appetite goes down; I get sleepy. I can't say how long it (generally?) takes to get over the acute phase because when I was sick last November I had a bad reaction to the first drug, Augmentin, which I stayed on for the full course, because I thought it was the illness making me so sick.