Diarrhea

WHAT IS DIARRHEA?

When you ask that question, you might get several different answers. Some might say loose or watery bowel movements. Others might say frequent and uncontrolled bowel movements. And others might include cramping, fever and chills. I have even had some patients say, “I eat and I immediately have to go to the bathroom” and this is sometimes referred to as diarrhea. The fact of the matter, diarrhea is defined as having 3 or more loose or liquid bowel movements each day. In a healthy individual, the occurrence of diarrhea is your body’s way of eliminating something pathogenic (unhealthy) that you ingested. In this case the diarrhea will last only a day or two and you are back to normal. It is the diarrhea that persists for days or weeks that can become debilitating and even life threatening.

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WHAT CAUSES DIARRHEA?

As you might have guessed, there are many things that can cause diarrhea, but here are the ones we see most often. Food or water contaminated with unfriendly bacteria is a common cause. As mentioned above, your body’s natural defense is to draw water into the large intestines and flush the bacteria out as quickly as possible. Depending on the health and strength of your immune system you may or may not experience fever, chills or cramping with this type of “infection” and the diarrhea should subside relatively quickly.

The diarrhea we are most familiar with at True Lifelong Wellness is more chronic, where some patients report having loose watery stools for weeks, months and sometimes even for years. This is not healthy for many reasons and results in mal-absorption and dehydration. We see this in our patients with imbalances in there digestive system. They are lacking the digestive enzymes and probiotics needed to properly digest the food they are eating. The undigested foods ferment, putrify and turn rancid in the intestinal tract creating toxins and inflammation. The body responds by producing excess mucous and attracting water in an effort to expel what is causing the irritation. Again, this is the body doing what it knows to do to protect you. But when it persists for more than a few days, it is not only an inconvenience for you, your health can be severely impacted.

WHAT ARE THE SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS OF DIARRHEA?

Well, as we have already discussed, frequent, loose, watery bowel movements are the obvious symptoms of diarrhea. However, chronic and uncontrolled diarrhea can result in many symptoms of mal-nutrition and dehydration such as weight loss, frequent colds or infections, dry skin or weak hair and nails, headaches, poor energy……..etc. You can add to this

WHAT CAN HELP ME WITH CHRONIC DIARRHEA?

If you are suffering from diarrhea lasting more than two days and/or that occurs weekly to several times a month, you will want to take a serious look at what you are eating. There are several common foods that are on the list of “more difficult to digest”, but we are all individual and testing may be helpful in pinpointing the specific foods. There are two things you can do immediately – eat a diet of fresh “anti-inflammatory” foods and support your digestive system with high quality digestive enzymes and probiotics. A comprehensive digestive enzyme supplement will support and work with your own enzymes for more complete digestion and delivery of nutrients to the body. A probiotic supplement also supports complete digestion and keeps the level of good bacteria high, keeping the bad bacteria out of your system. For more information……..