Stay up to date on all things diarrhea. Sign up and we’ll send you the latest news, resources, scientific breakthroughs, events, tips, and much more.
Any fluid that has electrolytes is usually the best thing. Water is obviously good, but sometimes with patients with diarrhea, you're also losing a significant amount of your electrolytes. So any of the over-the-counter sports drinks or anything with electrolytes, is that usually some of the best drinks when it comes to diarrhea. Food? It all depends. You know, when people have acute diarrhea, we recommend patients being on a bland diet. You know, anything with any type of seasoning or any type of spices can definitely exacerbate the contractions and inflammation in the bowel, which can then lead to worsening diarrhea. So most patients that have diarrhea, we tell them, you know, in the acute setting, to take two things that are like bananas, apples, toast, very bland meals that won't affect the GI tract significantly.
Any fluid that has electrolytes is usually the best thing. Water is obviously good, but sometimes with patients with diarrhea, you're also losing a significant amount of your electrolytes. So any of the over-the-counter sports drinks or anything with electrolytes, is that usually some of the best drinks when it comes to diarrhea. Food? It all depends. You know, when people have acute diarrhea, we recommend patients being on a bland diet. You know, anything with any type of seasoning or any type of spices can definitely exacerbate the contractions and inflammation in the bowel, which can then lead to worsening diarrhea. So most patients that have diarrhea, we tell them, you know, in the acute setting, to take two things that are like bananas, apples, toast, very bland meals that won't affect the GI tract significantly.
Diarrhea should be treated if there is any side of chronicity or if there's any specific diagnosis that gives you a reason to treat. What I mean by that is if the patient has a specific infection that shows up in their stool, if the patient has been around anyone that has a specific infection and you have a high suspicion that they have that infection. If the patient is having significant symptomatology and the workup shows that there's a specific medication that you can treat, all of these patients could be treated. It depends on a case-by-case basis. And the treatment also can vary depending on the diagnosis that you make.
When it comes to over-the-counter products that a person can buy in order to help with their diarrhea, you have to be very careful about when to start these medications. Some medications can actually make diarrhea worse. What I mean by that is if you have a C Diff infection or a bacterial infection, and you take some of these over the counter medications, it actually makes things worse because it doesn't allow your body to clear the toxin. Therefore, if you do have severe diarrhea, speak to your physician before using any of these over-the-counter medications. But some of the more common ones that are out there are Imodium or Pepto-Bismol. These are medications that help bind and absorb a lot of the fluid in your GI tract and slow down the motility and the contraction of the bowl. And they helped with the symptoms, but they really don't treat any underlying etiology to what's causing the diarrhea.
So there's many different studies going on right now for the treatment of chronic diarrhea. There's many studies evaluating bacterial overgrowth has a common cause of chronic diarrhea, and there's multiple different types of antibiotics that can be used to treat that. There's multiple studies going on with fecal transplant for patients with chronic diarrhea and recurrent infections, in which stool is actually injected into the colon and the small bowel in order to help increase the flora of the Gi tract and reduce the risk of these recurrent infections that many patients get. Other types of probiotics and therapies are also being studied for the treatment of chronic diarrhea.
There are multiple different types of home remedies and different types of therapies that people use for diarrhea. One of the most common is fiber. If you do have diarrhea, fiber is able to help bulk up your stool and absorb a lot of that water that's coming out, if it's an osmotic diarrhea and can really help with your diarrhea. There's multiple different types of herbal concoctions that people do take for diarrhea. But most of the time, if it's an acute diarrhea and if it's like a viral infection, it'll pass on its own. And if it's a chronic diarrhea, you should definitely get it checked out before just taking over-the-counter medications or any home concoctions.
The amount of fluid that someone needs to take varies depending on your size, depending on your weight, and depending on how much you burn off. You could have a patient that's very sedentary that will be able to do well with three to four glasses of water a day. On the other hand, if you have a patient that's very active, that's burning off a lot of sweat and burning off a lot of energy on a daily basis, they would need anywhere from eight to 10 glasses a day in order to maintain their hydration. Overhydration can lead to diarrhea. So you have to be very careful, especially if you are over hydrating with very osmotic fluids such as sports drinks and fluids with a lot of sugar. Those can definitely cause an acute diarrhea in many patients. So there's a balance in terms of when you should drink a lot and when you shouldn't. If a patient already has diarrhea and they're losing a lot of their fluids, those are patients that definitely need to up their baseline fluid intake in order to, number one, maintain the amount of fluid that they need on a regular basis and number two, in order to make up for all the losses that they're having with the diarrhea. So those are patients that need to drink more fluids with electrolytes in order to make up for that. On the other hand, if a patient is not having diarrhea and they overdo their soft drinks or sports drinks or drinks with a lot of sugar, those are patients that can have something called Dumping Syndrome where they subsequently get a significant amount of osmotic diarrhea.
In regards to restrictions for patients with diarrhea, it all depends on what the underlying cause of your diarrhea is. If the cause of your diarrhea is secondary to Celiac disease, obviously you have to avoid everything that has gluten. If you're a diarrhea is secondary to some underlying Colitis, you have to make sure that your diet coincides with that disorder and you're on the proper diet in order to reduce the risk of exacerbating your symptoms. Everyone is different and every reason for your diarrhea is different. That's why you have to take every patient on a case-by-case basis.
Send this to a friend