“Frequent diarrhea”
Last 36 hours - frequent diarrhea and inability to form solid stools.
Light Brown very watery and very frequent diarrhea - can't form solid stools. Some nausea and slight fever.
Light Brown very watery and very frequent diarrhea - can't form solid stools. Some nausea and slight fever.
Male | 68 years old
Complaint duration: 2 days
3 Answers
You may have an infection of the gastrointestinal tract. you need an acute evaluation with your family doctor or head to the ER.
There are several causes of diarrhea:
1. If you ate a meal at a place or it was prepared by people you are not used to recently, you may have gastroenteritis from bacterial toxin contamination. If that is the case, most of the time the diarrhea is your body's way of getting rid of the contamination/ poison from the bacteria by washing it out. You don't stop that diarrhea, you want your body to get rid of that poison. But your body uses a lot of water from your body to wash this poison out of you. The issue with that is that, you will become dehydrated and lose important electrolytes. This may cause injury to your kidneys. So you want to rehydrate with drinking a lot of fluids. water alone can not be used to rehydrate you because your intestins need some sugar to absorb water when you have diarrhea.
Treatment: Buy over the counter oral rehydration solution and dilute in clean water and drink as much as you need to. It will correct your dehydration and electrolyte loss.
2. Because you also have fever, you may have a bacteria contamination that is invasive, meaning it is penetrating into your cells from the intestines and causing fever with what is called dysentery. You may get tenismus, meaning you get the urge to move your bowel but when you go to actually move it only mucous with or without some blood stains will pass. For this you need in addition to hydration as above, some antibiotics. So you will need to contact your doctor for full evaluation and appropriate antibiotics.
3. Diarrhea alternating with constipation: Although you did not give this history, sometimes diarrhea may be result of partial colonic obstruction by a mass. In this case, one gets constipated for some time due to mass blockage, bacteria acts on the stool, gets it liquified, and then it passes out through the narrow opening as liquid stools. In this case one may need a colonoscopy to rule out malignancy in addition to rehydration as outline above.
4.Medication related diarrhea.
Reaction to antibiotics may cause diarrhea.
Antibiotics use can also kill off good bacteria and leave Clostridium defficile bacteria that causes bad diarrhea that may be associated with fever sometimes. In conclusion, after rehydration, if your symptoms worsens or persists, go to the nearest emergency room or call your doctor or 911 if you are unable to take yourself to ER
1. If you ate a meal at a place or it was prepared by people you are not used to recently, you may have gastroenteritis from bacterial toxin contamination. If that is the case, most of the time the diarrhea is your body's way of getting rid of the contamination/ poison from the bacteria by washing it out. You don't stop that diarrhea, you want your body to get rid of that poison. But your body uses a lot of water from your body to wash this poison out of you. The issue with that is that, you will become dehydrated and lose important electrolytes. This may cause injury to your kidneys. So you want to rehydrate with drinking a lot of fluids. water alone can not be used to rehydrate you because your intestins need some sugar to absorb water when you have diarrhea.
Treatment: Buy over the counter oral rehydration solution and dilute in clean water and drink as much as you need to. It will correct your dehydration and electrolyte loss.
2. Because you also have fever, you may have a bacteria contamination that is invasive, meaning it is penetrating into your cells from the intestines and causing fever with what is called dysentery. You may get tenismus, meaning you get the urge to move your bowel but when you go to actually move it only mucous with or without some blood stains will pass. For this you need in addition to hydration as above, some antibiotics. So you will need to contact your doctor for full evaluation and appropriate antibiotics.
3. Diarrhea alternating with constipation: Although you did not give this history, sometimes diarrhea may be result of partial colonic obstruction by a mass. In this case, one gets constipated for some time due to mass blockage, bacteria acts on the stool, gets it liquified, and then it passes out through the narrow opening as liquid stools. In this case one may need a colonoscopy to rule out malignancy in addition to rehydration as outline above.
4.Medication related diarrhea.
Reaction to antibiotics may cause diarrhea.
Antibiotics use can also kill off good bacteria and leave Clostridium defficile bacteria that causes bad diarrhea that may be associated with fever sometimes. In conclusion, after rehydration, if your symptoms worsens or persists, go to the nearest emergency room or call your doctor or 911 if you are unable to take yourself to ER
Needs to be evaluated by a GI doctor.
