Diarrhea happens from time to time in any normal person, but when it happens too often, you need to sound the alarm. What are the causes of frequent diarrhea in an adult and what should be done about it?

Causes

Diarrhea, indeed, happens to anyone. The reason may be the consumption of stale food or the abuse of foods that cause a laxative effect. This phenomenon is temporary, and usually after such a kind of "cleansing" of the body, diarrhea disappears.

But if there is a more serious problem in the body, diarrhea can drag on, last, for example, two or even more days.

This requires immediate medical attention, especially if the diarrhea is accompanied by the following symptoms:

  • severe pain and bloating;
  • excessive gas formation;
  • an increase in body temperature to 38 degrees or more;
  • severe weakness, exhaustion, up to trembling in the knees;
  • discoloration of feces, mucous or bloody discharge.

If something like this is observed, it makes sense to call an ambulance. The doctor who arrived after the call needs to describe the situation in detail and tell what you ate, drank and what medications you took the day before.

Too often

In addition to prolonged diarrhea with fever, frequent cases of diarrhea are also very dangerous. By this, the body very eloquently declares some serious "malfunctions" in its work.

One of them in adults may be chronic gastritis. It is caused by a bacterium called helicobacter pylori.

Periodically occurring after ingestion of fatty foods or an excessively plentiful dinner, attacks cause intestinal upset, which is accompanied by diarrhea.

Along with it, the patient can be tormented severe pain under the ribs, heaviness in the stomach, fever, nausea, sometimes there is an unpleasant aftertaste in the mouth.

Frequent diarrhea can cause dysbacteriosis or malabsorption of fluid in the large intestine. This happens under the influence of pathogenic bacteria, viruses, often recurring stressful situations, intoxication.

By the way, periodically recurring diarrhea can also accompany such stressful situations, such as, for example, a session with students. Due to excessive overstrain in a person, the hormonal system functions too intensively, which causes too active work of the intestines.


But most often, frequent diarrhea in adults is caused by various diseases. In this case, it is simply pointless to take home "fixing" remedies or pharmacological preparations for diarrhea: until the very cause of diarrhea (ie, the disease) is eliminated, it will repeat all the time.

Help

How can you help yourself in a situation where "grabbed"? First of all, you need to drink more pure boiled water, broth, chamomile tea.

To cleanse the intestines of possible toxins and dangerous microorganisms, you can take an absorbent. Activated charcoal is fine.

After that, you should call your doctor (especially if there is any chronic illness) and consult with him for further treatment.

Video

Adults quite often tend not to pay attention to any of their ailments and, due to being busy, think that everything can go away on its own, you just have to wait. But there are such symptoms, in the manifestation of which it is not only impossible to hope for a chance, but it is urgently necessary to sound the alarm. One of these symptoms is persistent diarrhea in an adult, the causes of which can be very different, but always very serious.

Here we will look at why an adult can suffer from incessant diarrhea, what consequences it can lead to and how to treat it.

Classification of diarrhea

Permanent diarrhea in an adult can be classified in several ways: by the frequency of its manifestation and by the reasons that caused it.

If we talk about how often this rather unpleasant symptom manifests itself, then we can classify:

  • chronic diarrhea when a person visits the toilet about 3-4 times a day. It is usually associated with a change in the normal amount of special enzymes that are most directly involved in the process of digestion of food. There can be both an acute deficiency of such enzymes, and, conversely, a fairly strong excess of them.
  • acute diarrhea, when the patient very often experiences urges and visits the toilet room up to 10 times a day. It can be symptoms of various poisonings, as well as a variety of intestinal infections and the presence of worms in the body. A very debilitating symptom, the main consequence of which can be dehydration.

As you already understood, diarrhea cannot be ignored, even if you are not tormented very often, but regularly. Moreover, the reasons that caused it are rarely frivolous. We will talk about them below.

Causes of diarrhea in adults

When your daily visit to the toilet "by and large" begins to regularly exceed twice a day, and the nature of the discharge becomes liquid and of a strange color, then you should immediately contact medical specialists. This is a prerequisite, since the causes of such disorders can be very serious diseases.

What causes diarrhea and vomiting in an adult? How to treat them?

So, they usually distinguish:

As a rule, diseases are accompanied by several symptoms at once. For example, you may be tormented by nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, weakness without fever or, conversely, with its increase. Whatever it is, you should definitely and very urgently see a doctor, since such symptoms can be the result of very serious diseases.

Diseases with symptoms of diarrhea

Let's look at what diseases are accompanied by symptoms such as persistent diarrhea. There is a fairly large list of them, and all of them are treated over a long period.

Now you see that diarrhea is not just a harmless manifestation of eating something stale, but also a symptom of many extremely unpleasant diseases. Therefore, if a high temperature and diarrhea appear in an adult, which are accompanied by some other symptoms, then a visit to the doctor should not be postponed.

What does the color of stool mean?

Diagnosing and prescribing treatment for oneself is not only a thankless task, but also a very dangerous one. And yet, by the color of the feces and its consistency, one can roughly imagine what causes diarrhea.

  • Black diarrhea in an adult. Causes can be: stomach ulcers or internal bleeding after stomach surgery.
  • Gray, oily and shiny stools may indicate a lack of enzymes secreted by the pancreas.
  • Swamp-colored stool indicates the development of a disease such as salmonellosis.
  • Yellow diarrhea in an adult almost always indicates poisoning. The same can be said about water diarrhea in an adult. The reasons for departure may lie in the use of inedible products or spoiled, expired.
  • In addition, the state of our nervous system and mental balance. When they say that all diseases are from nerves, this is very true. Yellow or watery diarrhea and nausea in an adult without fever are usually sure sign overwork, constant stress.

Of course, according to these signs, you cannot make a diagnosis for yourself, but it will not hurt to have a rough idea of ​​\u200b\u200bwhat is happening to your body.

Consequences of persistent diarrhea

If you give up on such a symptom as diarrhea, and do nothing to stop it, then this can lead to the most sad consequences.

The main one is dehydration, especially if you visit the toilet more than 4 times a day. Of course, in this case, it is necessary to remove the symptoms along with the treatment of the underlying disease that caused diarrhea. What you can drink for diarrhea, your doctor will tell you, but do not forget to drink enough fluids so that your dehydrated body gets enough moisture.

Home remedies for diarrhea

The most important question of those who are faced with diarrhea is how to stop diarrhea in an adult quickly. There are several options (medication and folk remedies), which will help you get rid of diarrhea at various times. But taking any medication is still worth it under the supervision of a doctor and only with his approval.

So, how to cure diarrhea at home?

  1. If the causes of diarrhea in an adult are food allergies, taking medications, some diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, then sorbents are called to help fight diarrhea in this case. These include drugs such as activated charcoal, enterosgel, smecta.
  2. If you need to quickly relieve the symptom, then the best remedy for diarrhea is loperamide. It will "fix" the body and allow you to rest for a while. But you should not abuse it, otherwise you can achieve the opposite effect and you will have to treat constipation.
  3. In case of violation of the intestinal microflora, doctors usually prescribe drugs such as hilak-forte, linex, narine and others.

You can prepare remedies for diarrhea for adults at home and for folk recipes. For example, these:

  • decoction of pomegranate peel. Finely chopped peel in the amount of two tablespoons is poured with a glass of boiling water and boiled over low heat for about half an hour.
  • to stop diarrhea, a powder made from dried chicken ventricles is a good remedy.
  • a decoction of oak bark will also have the desired astringent effect and help stop diarrhea.
  • what else helps with diarrhea at home is rice water. Rice has long been known for its fixative properties. You need to pour a handful of rice in a thick-walled pan with three glasses of water. When the rice is boiled, the water from under it is not poured out, but poured into a separate container and filtered. This remedy can be taken 3-4 times a day.

Now you know what you can drink from diarrhea at home. But we advise you not to engage in self-medication, but for any slightest symptoms, contact a doctor who will prescribe the appropriate treatment. And don't think that these symptoms are temporary and will go away on their own. If you have yellow diarrhea and a stomach ache, then these are clear signs of ill health that do not allow you to waste time and postpone a visit to a specialist.

To quickly get rid of harmful substances, bacteria and viruses that have entered the intestinal lumen, the body has come up with such a protective reaction as diarrhea - frequent liquid stool, arising from accelerated peristalsis and impaired absorption of water by damaged intestinal villi. For an adult, more than 3 bowel movements per day with a change in the consistency of feces are considered pathology.

It happens that diarrhea becomes prolonged or recurs periodically. Frequent diarrhea exhausts a person and can lead to unpleasant consequences for the body.

What's the matter

Acute intestinal upset most often occurs with viral or bacterial infections, it completely resolves within 2 weeks, but within 3 weeks, it is already prolonged diarrhea.

Persistent or recurrent loose stools in an adult lasting more than 3 months indicate a chronic problem.

Why is this happening?

The causes can be very diverse, depending on them, there is a division of diarrhea into groups:

The pathological stool has not only a liquid consistency, but also a changed color, as well as additional inclusions.

Sometimes a preliminary diagnosis can be made already by appearance bowel movements and characteristic symptoms.

For example:

  1. Cramping pains in the abdomen, frequent urges, including false (tenesmus) to defecate, stools are liquid, but in small portions in the form of "rectal spitting" of mucus streaked with blood - this is dysentery.
  2. High fever, vomiting, frothy, fetid green stools, and a significant deterioration in the general condition are characteristic of salmonellosis.
  3. Abundant foamy watery stools of bright yellow color are typical for escherichiosis. The same, but with flatulence and high temperature - it looks like a rotavirus infection.
  4. Yellow stools with a greasy sheen and undigested food residues, but without temperature, often occurring after nutritional errors, indicate an exacerbation of chronic pancreatitis in adults.
  5. Liquid black tarry stools should alert in terms of bleeding from the upper gastrointestinal tract, but can also cause bismuth and iron-containing drugs, vitamin complexes.
  6. Frequent, anemia and abdominal pain are a reason for testing for ulcerative colitis. If diarrhea has been going on since childhood, but conventional treatment does not help, there is a lag in physical development (short stature) - you should be examined for Crohn's disease.

Frequent loose stools in an adult or a child is not a harmless condition that can cause disruption of other organs (kidneys, heart). Such people often have anemia, hemorrhoids, prolapse of the rectal mucosa (with chronic dysentery), and hypotension.

What to do

Frequent diarrhea is a reason for a mandatory visit to the doctor and an in-depth examination.

In addition to external examination and history taking, the doctor prescribes additional methods:

  • coprological research;
  • analysis for dysbacteriosis;
  • bacteriological examination (sowing on pathogenic pathogens);
  • analysis of feces for occult blood;
  • blood for general and biochemical analysis (protein, vitamins, cholesterol, electrolyte ions);
  • instrumental research methods are often carried out in adults, but taking into account the available indications - sigmoidoscopy, colonoscopy.

After the examination, it is necessary to carry out treatment appropriate to the diagnosis in order to stop frequent stools and the consequences of prolonged diarrhea:

  1. Diet - should be sparing, but complete. All products that enhance peristalsis are excluded, as well as non-digestible ingredients - gluten, lactose or others that cause diarrhea in a particular person.
  2. Probiotics (Enterol, Normobact, Hilak forte, Acipol, Lineks) - are prescribed courses several times a year, especially while taking antibiotics.
  3. Symptomatic therapy - sorbents and enveloping agents (Polysorb, Enterosgel, Smekta).
  4. Regulators of intestinal motility - Loperamide, Imodium (if the stool is plentiful and watery of non-infectious etiology, then they are given until the consistency is normalized).
  5. Treatment of the underlying pathology that causes frequent diarrhea.
  6. Cancellation (replacement with analogues) of those drugs that provoke loose stools. For example, antiarrhythmics, antibiotics, laxatives, antacids, anticoagulants.

Frequent diarrhea can exhaust the body, so you should not engage in self-medication in order to avoid serious consequences and complications.