What you must know about diarrhoea..
First and foremost, let me ask you what do you understand with the term ‘diarrhoea’?I’m sure every people who read this article must have had diarrhoea at some point in their life.Or at least once in your life??Am I not right?Or is it as frequent as once a year?? :-p
Ok,I think you must know very well if someone asks you the details about what happens whenever you get diarrhoea.So,let me define the term 'diarrhoea' first.Diarrhoea is a condition in which you have increase in bowel activities or movements and production of loose stools.There must be increase in frequency of defaecation than you normally have and the stool itself is more liquid and watery in nature.
What causing diarrhoea?
There are many conditions that contribute to diarrhoea.However,the most common reasons are food poisoning and food-borne diseases.What is the differences between these two?
Food poisoning happens when you eat foods that contain toxins released by certain microorganisms,like some species of bacteria.While food-borne diseases is where the organism itself causing the illnesses and thediarrhoeal symptoms.The consistency and appearance of stool in diarrhoea differs based on what type of microorganisms involved in your situations.In either conditions,diarrhoea is related to food or water which is unhygienic and lack of proper sanitary.
Besides that,you can also get a condition mimicking diarrhoea by consuming certain types of food or beverages.These type of foods or drink are called laxatives.They induce your bowel activity to function actively and faster than normal.If you ever notice,whenever you eat foods rich in dietary fibres,they make you easily to defaecate.However,in a normal conditions, these foods do not cause diarrhoea unless you take those in a very high amout or doses.Other than that,certain drugs and diseases can also cause diarrhoea.
Other symptoms that you might get when you have diarrhoea are abdominal pain,fever,nausea and vomiting.You may not get all these symptoms but may have one or two of them.Again,the symptoms that you have depending on what organisms that involved.Usually,you will also lose appetite,appear lethargic and may have generalised body weakness.This is because you lost a large amount of fluid which contain water and electrolytes like sodium.In addition,you also lost nutrients since the foods are not absorbed into your bowel (gut).As a result,you become dehydrated and having electrolyte imbalance in your body.
That is the reason why the doctor will give you Oral Rehydration Salt (ORS) or therapy which contains salt(sodium) and sugar(glucose).You are given salt to replenish the sodium loss.But,why must glucose be given together??This is because,glucose is needed in the absorption of sodium in the bowel.So,the role of glucose here is to aid the absorption of sodium.It is also important that you drink a lot of water during this time to rehydrate your body and maintain the volume of fluid in your blood.
In some of developing or underdeveloped country,diarrhoea can be the cause of death in many patients,due to dehydration and loss of body fluid.This is happen especially in acute cases,where the diarrhoea occurs in the course of few days or less than a week.So,you know that it is important to restore your hydration status once you get diarrhoea.
There is one lesson I learnt when I got diarrhoea not long before this.I have diarrhoea for a day then I went to see a doctor the next day.She asked me what did I eat that morning.So,I answered that I just drank my usual morning drink,which is a pack of chocolate milk.Then she said that I shouldn’t drink milk when I get diarrhoea.I never know about that.Do you know why???Well,I will give the answer in my next article.This is quite a long article..:-p
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