Diarrhea
From Wiki4CAM
Diarrhea is loose, watery, and frequent stool, more than three times in a day. Acute diarrhea is a common problem that usually lasts 1 or 2 days and goes away on its own without special treatment. Prolonged diarrhea persisting for more than 2 days may be a sign of a more serious problem and poses the risk of dehydration. If it persists more than 4 weeks then it is considered chronic. Chronic diarrhea may be a feature of a chronic disease. Normally, the colon can absorb several times more fluid than is required on a daily basis. Diarrhea occurs when the colon’s capacity is exceeded. Diarrhea can cause dehydration, which means the body lacks enough fluid to function properly. Dehydration is particularly dangerous in children and older people, and it must be treated promptly to avoid serious health problems. People of all ages can get diarrhea and the average adult has a bout of acute diarrhea about four times a year. In the United States, each child will have had seven to 15 episodes of diarrhea by age 5.[1][2][3]
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Causes
Diarrhea may be due to bacteria, viruses or parasites, certain medicines, food intolerances and diseases that affect the stomach, small intestine or colon. There may be no cause in many cases. The most common cause of diarrhea is viral gastroenteritis (stomach flu). It is a mild viral infection that goes away on its own within a few days. It often occurs in mini-epidemics in schools, neighborhoods, or families. Food poisoning and traveler's diarrhea are two other common causes of diarrhea. They occur as a result of eating food or drinking water contaminated with bacteria or parasites. Medications, especially antibiotics, laxatives containing magnesium, and chemotherapy for cancer treatment, can also cause diarrhea. Conditions like malabsorption syndromes (e.g. lactose intolerance) inflammatory bowel diseases (Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis) irritable bowel syndrome and celiac disease can also lead to diarrhea. Apart from these diseases Zollinger-Ellison syndrome, nerve disorders like autonomic neuropathy or diabetic neuropathy, carcinoid syndrome, gastrectomy (partial removal of the stomach) and high dose radiation therapy are the less common causes for diarrhea. Stress can also cause diarrhea. Chronic diarrhea can be caused by the same things as acute diarrhea, but symptoms last longer. Chronic diarrhea is often related to a disorder such as irritable bowel syndrome, celiac disease, or inflammatory bowel disease. Other causes of chronic diarrhea include immune deficiencies, such as AIDS; colon cancer and other tumors of the bowel; lactose intolerance; and endocrine or hormonal disorders.
Symptoms
Frequent, loose, watery bowel movements, or stools are the main symptoms. Fever, nausea, vomiting, and stomach pain may also associate depending upon the cause. Frequent and watery stools can end up with dehydration. Failing to take adequate fluids to replace the loss of fluid may lead dehydration, which can cause serious health problems like kidney failure, neurological damage, arthritis, and skin problems. In children and the elderly the impact would be more. Symptoms of dehydration include dry mouth, dry eyes, infrequent urination, and urine with a dark color and strong odor. The stools may include blood or pus. Prolonged diarrhea may lead malnutrition and weight loss subsequently.
Preventing Dehydration
Preventing dehydration is important because body cannot function without lost fluid and electrolytes. It needs to be replaced promptly. More water to be given to the victim. But water alone does not help since there is no electrolytes in it, although it is extremely important in preventing dehydration. Electrolytes are the salts and minerals that affect the amount of water in the body, muscle activity, and other important functions. Fruit juices, soft fruits, or vegetables that contain potassium, help restore electrolyte levels. Rehydration solutions, which are available over-the-counter, are also good electrolyte sources and are especially recommended for use in children.
CAM therapies for diarrhea
Ayurveda and Herbal remedies
Many herbs have long been used in the treatment of diarrhea. The bark of the arjuna tree has been used as a decoction in dosages of 15 to 30 grams per day. The babul tree, every part of it, is useful. Its leaves can be taken as a mixed dose with black cumin seeds, its bark can be taken as an infusion with water and even its gum can be taken as a syrup. Bael is very effective for the treatment of diarrhea which is not accompanied by fever. The unripe or half-ripe fruit is eaten. The buds of the banyan trees are the beneficial parts. These must be soaked in water overnight and the infusion must be taken in the morning. The pulp of the fruit of Belleric Myroblan is used for diarrhea. Two to three drops of the extracted oil from the seeds of the Bishop’s weed is also useful. The leaves of the Black nightshade are taken in the form of an infusion with the juice of other liquids. The butea tree yields a gum which is beneficial in the treatment of diarrhea. It is especially useful in women and children that are suffering from diarrhea. The oil obtained from the dill is used for the treatment of diarrhea. The seeds of Fenugreek are useful in the treatment of digestive problems including diarrhea. Indian Gooseberry (Emblica officinalis) Known as amalaki in Hindi, is also useful.
Homeopathy
There are positive clinical trials which shows the efficacy of homeopathy in diarrhea. The journal, Pediatrics, has published important research on the homeopathic treatment of acute diarrhea in children, a condition which is considered the most serious public health problem in many developing countries.[citation needed] Although various European medical and scientific journals have published research on homeopathy in the past, including The Lancet, British Medical Journal, and European Journal of Pharmacology, this new article represents a breakthrough for both homeopathic medicine and for American medicine. The study was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial on the treatment of Nicaraguan children. Conducted by physicians at the University of Washington and University of Guadalajara, the study included 81 children, ages six months to five years. All the children in the study received oral rehydration fluids to prevent dehydration. While these fluids significantly reduce fatalities from dehydration, they do not treat the underlying infection which is causing the diarrhea. Those children given an individually chosen homeopathic medicine recovered from the diarrhea approximately 20% faster than those children given a placebo.
Following remedies are useful in diarrhea.
- Arsenicum: Stools in small quantities. Restlessness, anguish and intolerance of pain. Thirst for small quantities and often. The prostration and weakness are out the stool, of all proportion to stool.
- Veratrum album: The stools of Veratrum are watery, containing therein flakes, and are commonly called rice-water discharges. Preceding the stool is a severe pinching colic in the abdomen , and this pain is apt to continue during the stool. Nausea,too, is often an accompaniment. Cramps in the feet and legs may also be present.
- Cinchona officinalis: Diarrhoea is worse after eating. If it be caused or made worse by fruit, it is an additional characteristic indication for its use. It is a great favorite in summer diarrhoeas, also Iris versicolor, when there is much sour vomiting. Cinchona has a similar thirst to Arsenicum, the patient drinks little and often , but it lacks the burning to Arsenicum. Diarrhoeas coming on after attacks of acute illness areoften met by Cinchona. It also corresponds to the chronic diarrhoeasof aged persons.
- Sulphur: The diarrhoea of sulphur is very characteristic. It has changeable stools, yellow , watery, slimy, and in scrofulous children may contain undigested food. It is worse in the morning about four or five O'clock, when it wakens the patient and drives him out of bed in great haste. For these early morning diarrhoeas we have a number of remedies. Bryonia is one , but the stool of Bryonia comes on after the patient has been up a while and has moved about, here presenting the worse-from-motion symptom of that drug. Natrum sulphuricum is another; it has morning stool associated with a great deal of flatus, and it comes on usually as soon as the patient stands on his feet in the morning, or sometimes during the forenoon. Rumex crispus is another and it has exactly the same symptom as Sulphur, but it is usually associated with cough. Podophyllum is another and perhaps the most similar to Sulphur in this respect. It hurries the patient out of bed and it has changeable stools,but it is more apt to continue throughout the day and is associated with soreness in the liver. There is with Sulphur a tendency to rectal soreness, there is itching and soreness at the anus, the stools being acrid and excoriating.
- Aloes: Aloes is a remedy whose chief action is on the rectum. It produces a constant desire to stool, and the passages are accompanied with a great deal of flatus. The great characteristic of the drug feeling of uneasiness, weakness, and certainly about the rectum; there is a constant feeling as if stool would escape, the patient dares not pass flatus for fear of the escape of faeces. This condition is met with in children sometimes, they pass faeces when passing flatus. Aloes resembles Sulphur, Thuja and Bryonia in having an early morning stool; like Sulphur wakens the patient and hurries him out of bed to the toilet. It is worse from eating but it seldom continues during the day. The weakness of the sphincter ani is also found under Phosphoric acid, where we have also stools escaping with the flatus. The Aloes patient will also pass stool when urinating. Haemorrhoids which are characteristically swollen and sore accompany the Aloes stool. The stool themselves are yellow and pasty or lumpy and watery, and before the stool there are griping pains across the lower part of the abdomen and around the navel. These pains also continue during stool and passage usually relieves them.
- Croton tiglium: Croton tiglium is one of the great homoeopathic remedies for diarrhoea , which might readily be imagined from the prompt action of the drug in the minutest doses of the crude substance in the intestinal canal. Its characteristics are a yellowish, watery stool pouring out like water from a hydrant, and especially associated with nausea and vomiting and aggravated by eating and drinking. There are a number of drugs which are very similar to Croton tiglium and they may be mentioned here. The first is Elaterium. This is a remedy for frothy, copious, forcible diarrhoeas preceded by cutting in abdomen, chilliness, prostration and colic. They are always gushing and may be olive-green in color. The second is Gratiola; this has a gushing watery diarrhoea coming out like water from a hydrant; the stools are yellowish green and frothy and there is associated with them a cold feeling in the abdomen. The third is Jatropha.
- Rheum: One symptom always leads to the thought of this drug, and that is sourness of stools and of the whole body, though Rheum is not only remedy for sour stools nor are sour stools the only indication for Rheum; indeed, they may be wanting in sourness and Rheum still be the remedy. For sour stools, besides Rheum, we have notably Calcarea carbonica, Magnesia carbonica and Hepar. Magnesia carbonica is said to follow Rheum well, and, besides sourness, it has the frothy, green, frog-pond scum stool, and it is especially suitable to infants when the stools are of the above character and accompanied with discharge flatus and much crying. Debility is also characteristic of the remedy. Characteristic among the symptoms of Rheum, besides the sourness, is a griping colic often followed by tenesmus. In color, the stools are brown and frothy, and usually sour; they are worse from motion and after eating. Chilliness during stool is also characteristic. The continuance ;of the colic after the stool also suggests the remedy.
- Podophyllum: Podophyllum, as we have seen, has an early morning diarrhoea. The stools are watery, yellow, profuse,forcible and occur without pain any time from three o'clock to nine in the morning, and a natural stool is apt to follow later in the day. It occurs, too, immediately after eating resembling cinchona and Colocynth, and it has still another resemblance to Colocynth in its colic, which is relieved by warmth and bending forward. Following the diarrhoea of Podophyllum is a sensation of great weakness in the abdomen and rectum, this weakness o;f the rectum being a great characteristic of the remedy. The rectum prolapses before the faeces are evacuated; here it differs from the prolapses which would call for Ignatia, Carbo vegetabilis and Hamamelis. Podophyllum has proved useful in the diarrhoea of dentition when cerebral symptoms are present. Sometimes a headache will alternate with the diarrhoea. This also occurs with Aloes. The stools of Podophyllum are often undigested; and here the remedy touches China and Ferrum, which are the great remedies for undigested stools. A deposit of mealy sediment further indicates the remedy in diarrhoeas of children. Podophyllum and Mercurius have some symptoms in common; both affect the liver both affect the liver, both have a tongue taking the imprint of the teeth, but the stool of Mercurius is accompanied by straining. The great characteristics of Podophyllum may be thus summed up: 1. Early morning stools. 2. Watery, pasty yellow or undigested stools, forcibly expelled. 3. Painless. 4. Weakness in the rectum following stool. Podophyllum also resembles Calcarea carbonica and Phosphoric acid in many respects; the rapid debility and exhaustion distinguish it from the acid, and the absence of general Calcarea symptoms from the acid, and the absence of general Calcarea symptoms from CALCAREA. It is especially useful in the obstinate diarrhoeas of unhealthy infants in the 3x dilution.
- Mercurius: Straining at stool is the great characteristic of Mercurius, and this is more marked under Mercurius corosivus than under the solubilis. The former is the great homoeopathic remedy for dysentery. It may be remarked, in passing, that the allopaths have recently discovered this application of Mercurius corrosivus. The stools of Mercury are slimy and bloody, accompanied by a straining and tenesmus which does not seem to let up; so we have what is characteristically described as a never-get-done-feeling. There is accompanying, much hepatic soreness, flabby tongue taking imprint of the teeth, and before the stool there is violent urging and perhaps chilliness. Bayes praises Mercurius in a diarrhoea of yellow or clay-colored stool. A sickly smell from the mouth is characteristic of the remedy, and if the ready perspiration so characteristic of Mercurius be present the choice is easy. Prolapsus of the rectum may follow the stool.
- Calcarea: Calcarea should never be overlooked in any intestinal trouble; as we have seen, it is one of the great remedies for sour stools, and for undigested stools. It is one of our best remedies for chronic diarrhoea, its symptoms produced by the provers are very few, yet prescribed for its general symptoms it has proved very useful, for it is just in a genuine Calcarea patient that one usually finds diarrhoea.Diarrhoes occurring during dentition in infants with open fontanelles call for Calcarea. Calcarea phosphorica, too, is a very useful remedy in these diarrhoeas, but the diarrhoea of Calcarea phosphorica is distinguished by being a spluttering diarrhoea, forcibly expelled, but watery, greenish, or undigested, and with a great deal of offensive flatus. Calcarea carbonica is more suited to fat children. Calcarea phosphorica to those who are old and wrinkled. Both of these remedies, as well as Silicea and Sulphur, come in most frequently in the diarrhoeas of scrofulous and rachitic children. In the Calcarea carbonica patient there is usually a ravenous appetite, and, as in Phosphoric acid, the stools do not seem to weaken. This is especially true of another of the Calcareas, Calcarea acetica. Prescribe for the patient instead of the diarrhoea at all times,but more especially if Calcarea be given.
- Phosphorous: Phosphorous is especially a remedy for chronic forms of diarrhoea. It has green mucous stools worse in the morning, often undigested and painless. The stools pass as soon as they enter the rectum,and contain white particles like rice or tallow. Apis has a sensation as if the anus stood open, and the involuntary escape of faeces in Phosphorous reminds also of Aloes. Chronic,painless diarrhoea of undigested food call sometimes for Phosphorus. It is profuse and forcible and aggravated by warm food, and the patient often vomits; in fact, one of the characteristics of Phosphorous is the vomiting of what has been drunk as soon as it becomes warm in the stomach. With the diarrhoea there is a weak, gone feeling in the stomach, and perhaps burning between the shoulders. The frog spawn, or sago, or grain of tallow stool is most characteristic of the remedy.
- Argentum nitricum: Argentum nitricum is quite similar to Arsenic in many ways. The stools are green, slimy and bloody,like chopped spinach in flakes. Aconite has a green stool like spinach. With the stool there is a discharge of flatus and much spluttering, as in Calcarea Phosphorica. The stools are worse from any candy, sugar, or from drinking. The sudden attacks of cholera infantum in children who have eaten too much candy will often be removed by Argentum nitricum. The children are thin, dried up looking, and it seems as if the child had but one bowel and that extended from the mouth to the anus. Another characteristic of Argentum nitricum is its use in diarrhoea brought on by great mental excitement, emotional disturbance, etc.
