How and how to treat diarrhea and diarrhea: all about treatment

Diarrhea is an abnormal condition in which frequent bowel movements occur with loose, watery stools, possibly with foam, blood, or mucus.

In most cases, this condition does not pose a danger to human life, however, if you do not start treating it in a timely manner, this can lead to dehydration. That is why you need to know how to treat diarrhea?

When can we talk about illness

Treatment of this ailment is necessary for a person only if he is sure of his pathological condition.

Sometimes people confuse diarrhea with banal loose stools, which were triggered by improper diet or overeating. This is a temporary phenomenon, so the person does not need treatment.

However, if a person is faced with such a pathological symptom as systematic diarrhea, you need to pay attention to your health.

Diarrhea can be identified in two ways:

1. The urge to defecate occurs suddenly, their frequency is at least 5 times a day.
2. Feces have an unpleasant odor. There are various impurities in them.

With this ailment, not only the frequency increases, but also the number of bowel movements. Feces have a liquid consistency.

Diarrhea is always provoked by a malfunction of the gastrointestinal tract. Changes in the consistency of stool and the frequency of bowel movements are a consequence of the acceleration of the digestive process.

The human digestive system is directly dependent on the external environment. This means that diarrhea can occur for a large number of reasons, because a person interacts with the external environment every second.

Causes of the disease

Before treating diarrhea, you need to understand what triggers. A complete list of the causes of its occurrence:

1. Viral infections. Some viruses, entering the human body, settle in the intestines, thereby negatively affecting the digestive process.
2. Bacterial infections. For example, salmonellosis or cholera.
3. Lack of enzymes. The body slows down the production of enzymes during certain diseases, for example, with pancreatitis or gallstone disease.
4. Intestinal diseases. For example, Crohn's disease or enterocolitis.
5. Tumors, polyps, and other growths on the walls of the intestines or stomach.
6. Long-term medication intake. Diarrhea often occurs after prolonged antibiotic treatment. Also, an ailment can be triggered by an overdose of a laxative.
7. Autoimmune diseases. For example, rheumatoid arthritis can trigger diarrhea.
8. Intoxication. Diarrhea may appear due to poisoning with heavy metals or pesticides. Such poisoning often occurs when a person has improper contact with household chemicals.
9. Internal bleeding. If a person has a bleeding bowel, they may have a duodenal or stomach ulcer. In this case, he needs urgent hospitalization.

The patient will be treated only in the hospital. Also, the treatment of diarrhea depends on the type of ailment.

Types of disease

• Infectious. We can talk about infectious diarrhea when it is triggered by an infection or a virus entering the body.
• Alimentary. Such diarrhea occurs when a person takes products that are contraindicated for him. In this case, an ailment may be one of the symptoms of an allergy.
• Dyspeptic. This type of diarrhea is recorded with secretory insufficiency of the stomach, liver or pancreas.
• Toxic. This type of ailment is present in the case of human poisoning with arsenic or mercury.
• Medication. Such diarrhea can be recorded with dysbiosis, when the physiological intestinal flora is suppressed.
• Neurogenic. Intestinal motor activity can be impaired by prolonged stress.

When no treatment is required

If diarrhea is provoked by one of the above reasons, the person needs treatment. In some cases, it must be urgent, as the patient's life may depend on it.

For example, urgent medical intervention is required in case of intestinal bleeding in a patient.

However, medical treatment for loose stools is not always necessary. In most cases, diarrhea is the result of a person's inappropriate lifestyle.

For example, it can occur when you overeat or eat high-calorie foods for a long time.

Also, loose stools can result from eating poor-quality foods. For example, a person will definitely face such a problem if they eat a spoiled or dirty product.

Nutritional errors that provoke diarrhea can be associated with the ingestion of foods that cannot be combined in the same meal, such as cucumbers and milk.

All these errors negatively affect the work of the gastrointestinal tract, accelerating digestion.

However, if the ailment was caused precisely by these reasons, treatment is not required for a person, because all errors associated with improper food intake can be easily eliminated.

Also, diarrhea can be caused by psycho-emotional shocks. It is not for nothing that people say that all diseases in people are from nerves. Prolonged stress, fear, nervous breakdown, anxiety, etc.

All this leaves a negative imprint on intestinal motility. What to do if the ailment has arisen on a nervous basis?

The answer is banally simple: a person needs to come to a normal psychological state. There are several ways to bring back the feeling of psychological comfort.

Relaxation therapy includes:

• Interruption of contact with the irritant.
• Taking sedative medications.
• Herbal medicine.
• Relaxation massages, etc.

This diarrhea is temporary, but if it persists for more than three days, home treatment is recommended. There are many ways to cope with this ailment, each of which we will talk about below.

Sorbents

The first remedy that should be taken for diarrhea is sorbent. It is effective to take sorbents for this ailment if it was caused by an infection or toxin entering the body.

The sorbent envelops pathogenic bacteria in the intestines and promotes their rapid elimination from the body.

What sorbents can be taken with loose stools?

• Activated carbon. This is the most common absorbent. Treatment of this ailment with activated charcoal involves taking 10 tablets per day (for an adult).
• Calcium gluconate.
• White clay.
• Smecta. One sachet of smecta must be dissolved in a glass of water. The medicine is drunk at a time. An adult is recommended to drink smecta twice a day.
• Bismus salts. The main purpose of such a medicine is to thicken the feces in the intestines.
• Lignin preparations. These drugs are difficult to dissolve in liquids. However, one sachet is poured into a glass of water. The drug should be shaken well and drunk.
• Cholestyramine.

Sorbents not only remove toxins and viruses from the body, they also contribute to the removal of excess gas.

Care should be taken when taking sorbents with other drugs.

The fact is that drugs of this group can remove from the body, along with pathogenic bacteria, the active substance of previously taken medicines.

However, if a person, due to an illness, must take other drugs, the sorbents should be drunk after 2 hours.

Medicines that decrease intestinal secretion

These medicines belong to the group of anti-inflammatory drugs. Treatment of loose stools with such drugs is prescribed if a dangerous pathogenic bacterium has entered the body.

Drinking drugs that reduce intestinal secretion should be in the first day after the onset of the disease. What specific drugs are we talking about?

• Diclofenac.
• Sulfasalazine.
• Indomethacin.
• Metipred, etc.

Diarrhea can be treated with these medicines for diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, for example, with Crohn's disease.

Enzymes

It is necessary to take enzymes if the diarrhea was caused by a slowdown in the body's production of natural enzymes. They are prescribed to the patient if the absorption process has been disrupted in the stomach.

For diarrhea, only enzymes that do not contain bile acids should be taken. What drugs are we talking about?

• Mezim-forte.
• Creon.
• Pancitrate.
• Pancreatin, etc.

It is not recommended to prescribe enzymes yourself, since only a doctor should prescribe them.

Medicines that affect intestinal motility

The most common drug in this group is Lopedium. Such medicines are taken for functional disorders of intestinal motility.

They are also drunk with diarrhea, provoked by diseases of the gastrointestinal tract. It is not recommended to treat infectious diarrhea with Lopedium.

Probiotics

You cannot prescribe probiotics for the treatment of loose stools; only a doctor can do this. Probiotics help to normalize the intestinal absorption process, so with their help you can quickly cure diarrhea.

Also, drugs in this group have a positive effect on the work of the gastrointestinal tract and normalize its functioning.

It is necessary to resort to the use of certain medications only as a last resort, if the diarrhea does not go away for more than 3 days.

However, as practice shows, the elimination of the problem of loose stools occurs after the patient makes some changes in his diet.

Diet for diarrhea

Treatment of this ailment is impossible without a strict diet.

Foods not allowed to eat:

• Coffee and other drinks containing caffeine.
• Food that is too hot or too cold.
• Grilled meat. You should also refrain from any fried food.
• Food is fat.
• Foods that promote flatulence in the intestines. For example, beans, chewing gum, or soda.
• Fatty dairy products, including milk.
• Fruits, vegetables, raw.
• Nuts.
• Whole wheat bread.

Why shouldn't the foods and drinks on this list be used for diarrhea? The fact is that such a diet will negatively affect the digestion process, thereby aggravating the stomach upset.

These foods irritate the digestive tract, so it is not recommended to eat them during this illness.

Foods you can eat

• Low-fat chicken broth. It is advisable to cook it not from homemade chicken.
• Weak tea.
• Apple juice or nectar.
• Bananas, baked apples.
• Low-fat cottage cheese.
• Low-fat yogurt.
• Jacket potatoes.
• Crackers.
• Beef. You can lightly fry the meat before boiling it.
• Asparagus, beets, carrots.
• Mushrooms.

Can food be salted? Yes, in case of upset stool, you can add salt to the dishes.

Also, during the diet, the patient must remember that diarrhea leads to dehydration, so it is important to replenish the body's fluid supply.

A person should drink water after each bowel movement, as if this is not done, there is a risk of dehydration.

Drinking liquids should not only be after a bowel movement. A person can replenish the water-salt balance in the body throughout the day.

Also, this diet has one more important rule: you do not need to load your stomach with a lot of food.

It is recommended to increase the number of meals, but at one meal, a person should eat no more than 300 grams of food. Thanks to this, the stomach will not be overloaded.

Alternative treatment for diarrhea

How to treat diarrhea at home? Diarrhea will go away much faster if medicinal herbs are used in its treatment.

Dill water

It is one of the most effective natural medicines used to treat indigestion. Even newborns can be given such water.

Taking dill water allows you to relieve stomach cramps, as a result of which the process of gas movement in the intestines is normalized.

To prepare this medicine, pour boiling water over fresh or dry dill. Dill is infused under a closed lid. Next, the liquid must be filtered.

Diarrhea will go away within a few days if you drink one glass of dill water a day.

Carrot seeds

To prepare a medicine from carrot seeds, they must be crushed. For convenience, you can use a coffee grinder. The resulting powder should be eaten one spoonful before each meal.

Melissa

Diarrhea can be quickly cured with lemon balm, as it normalizes the gastrointestinal tract, improving digestion.

Essential oils, which are part of lemon balm, help to remove harmful microorganisms from the body, due to which loose stools have arisen.

To prepare a medicine from this plant, four tablespoons of the herb need to be poured with a glass of boiling water. Then 1 container with infusion is placed in a water bath for 25 minutes.

After that, the infusion is filtered. You need to take lemon balm infusion three times a day, one spoonful.

Garlic

One clove of garlic is poured into a glass of water. It is desirable that the water be cold. After that, the garlic should be infused.

A glass of garlic water is drunk before the first meal in the morning. For diarrhea to go away, you need to continue treatment for at least 10 days.

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