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Diarrhoea

Category: Illness or disabilities

Type

Involuntary

Introduction and description

Diarrhea or diarrhoea (from the Ancient Greek διάρροια from διά dia "through" and ῥέω rheo "flow") is “the condition of having at least three loose or liquid bowel movements each day. It often lasts for a few days and can result in dehydration due to fluid loss. Loose but non watery stools in babies who are breastfed, however, may be normal.

About 1.7 to 5 billion cases of diarrhea occur per year. It is most common in developing countries. Worldwide, as of 2012, it is the second most common cause of deaths in children less than five".

Doctors and medical people tend to treat diarrhoea as an ‘illness’, but it is not an illness, it is a symptom.

Diarrhoea has an essential and absolutely key role to play in removing harmful substances from our body quickly and effectively before they do any damage or pass through the walls of the intestine and get into our blood stream – where real damage can result.

For those reasons, all pharmaceuticals that ‘treat’ diarrhoea by suppressing it are potentially laying us open to infection and infestation by a whole host of truly unpleasant pathogens and toxins from parasites to viruses, from bacteria to heavy metals and other toxins.

Given the wall of defences these pathogens have had to already cross – our stomach and our immune system – they are particularly to be feared, as they are, in the words of John Wayne, ‘tough little critters’.

Doctors have again come up with all sorts of classifications of diarrhoea - - short duration watery diarrhoea, short duration bloody diarrhoea, and if it lasts for more than two weeks persistent diarrhoea. But the classification is somewhat useless, as the duration is dependent on how much the body is having to struggle to get rid of the invader and all signs of the invader. If the invader has got into the castle this far, there is going to be some rather vicious hand to hand fighting needed between our immune system troops and the enemy.

Symptoms

The stools will be very loose or even like water and they will smell. There is also often 'urgency' in passing them. In effect, you won't be able to walk at a leisurely pace to the toilet, you will have to run.

Passing wind may also result in 'faecal deposits' in your knickers.

Causes

When our immune system is compromised by vitamin deficiency or mineral deficiency or by stress; or we have served to compromise our defences by upsetting the balance of our stomach acids using, for example, proton pump inhibitors or antacids and heartburn treatments; or we have used medication to suppress the nausea reflex that protects us from harmful ingested substances by making us sick and thus 'throwing them up', a vast range of harmful ingested things can enter the intestines.

Diarrhoea is an indication of infection and the presence of toxic substances, as I have already stated, it does not need 'treating', but its causes do, so a check should be made to ensure the toxic substance or pathogen has successfully been removed by our system. Where the diarrhoea has not flushed out the pathogen or toxic substance disease can result.

In the section on Intestine disease I have provided as complete a list as I can of all the causes of illnesses and diseases of the Intestine - of which diarrhoea is but one. This description needs to also be referred to to get a full picture of the causes.

What can cause diarrhoea?

Viral infection

There are a large number of viruses that can cause diarrhoea.

Rotavirus, for example, is the most common cause of severe diarrhoea among infants and young children and accounts for up to 50% of hospitalisations for severe diarrhoea in infants and children. Nearly every child in the world has been infected with rotavirus at least once by the age of five. Immunity develops with each infection. There are five species of this virus, referred to as A, B, C, D, and E. Rotavirus A, the most common species, causes more than 90% of rotavirus infections in humans.

The virus is transmitted by the faecal-oral route. It infects and damages the cells that line the small intestine. Worldwide more than 450,000 children under five years of age still die from rotavirus infection each year. But what we need to realise is that if a virus has reached the Intestines, diarrhoea SHOULD result. If it doesn't we are actually in trouble.

On March 21, 2014, the Guinea Ministry of Health reported the outbreak of an illness characterized by fever, severe diarrhea, vomiting, and a high case-fatality rate (59%) among 49 persons. Specimens from 15 of 20 persons tested at Institut Pasteur in Lyon, France, were positive for an Ebola virus by polymerase chain reaction. Viral sequencing identified Ebola virus (species Zaïre ebolavirus), one of five viruses in the genus Ebolavirus, as the cause. PMID: 24964881

Vomiting and diarrhoea are good signs that our body is doing its level best to expel the invaders. If we don't vomit and don't have the squits we are in serious trouble.

Bacterial infection

Again a large number of bacteria can cause diarrhoea. Cholera is an infection of the small intestine caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are watery diarrhoea and vomiting.

If there is blood visible in the stools, it is known as Dysentery. The blood is trace of an invasion of bowel tissue. Dysentery is a symptom of, among others, Shigella, Entamoeba histolytica [which is a parasite], and Salmonella.

Shigella is a genus of Gram-negative, facultative anaerobic bacteria closely related to Salmonella. The causative agent of human shigellosis, it is only naturally found in humans and apes. During infection, it typically causes dysentery. Shigella is one of the leading bacterial causes of diarrhea worldwide, it “causes about 90 million cases of severe dysentery, with at least 100,000 of these resulting in death, each year”.

Salmonella is a genus of rod-shaped, Gram-negative bacteria. There are only two species of Salmonella, Salmonella bongori and Salmonella enterica. The genus belongs to the same family as Escherichia, which includes the species E.coli. Salmonellae cause illnesses such as typhoid fever, paratyphoid fever, and food poisoning.

Parasites

Numerous parasites cause diarhoea. For example, Blastocystis is a single-cell organism that produces symptoms of abdominal pain, constipation and diarrhoea. Researchers have noted that clinical diagnostics fail to identify infection. Dientamoeba fragilis is a single-cell organism that produces pain and diarrhea. Studies have reported a high incidence of infection in developed countries. Entamoeba histolytica is the cause of Amoebiasis, or Amebiasis. Giardia lamblia produces diarrheal infection of the small intestine. The parasitic protozoan Toxoplasma gondii infects about one-third of the population of developed countries. It is carried by cats [being with cats]. There are more, but I have given enough examples.

Toxins

Toxins are an increasingly common source of diarrhoea. If you follow the link you will be able to see what constitutes a toxin. All toxins cause diarrhoea and may also cause vomiting. A toxin is any substance which causes cell destruction or inhibition of our chemical system and results in disability [permanent or temporary] or death.

Biological, chemical, and physical contamination of foods is a terrifying threat for the health and economic growth in developing societies. Rampantly available literature on foodborne illnesses especially diarrhea among children exclusively depicts the intensified disease burden associated with foodborne illness in the underdeveloped economies. Prevalence of many pathogens in several foods is commonplace in Pakistan. ….. Poor processing and storage of milk, cereal grains, and nuts are a major cause of aflatoxin contamination and mold proliferation. Numerous studies manifest a multitude of foods to be contaminated with heavy metals. …. There is a tendency among the traders and manufacturers to intentionally debase food commodities offered for sale to make profit at the cost of their quality and safety. Therefore, a growing trend of adulteration in foods during the recent past, particularly adulteration of milk, poses a pressing challenge for the government. PMID: 24915401

Incidentally, the researcher cites underdeveloped countries, but there is as much literature on developed countries, it is just that the toxins are different.

Food allergy

in this case the body is treating the food as a poison or toxin

Pharmaceuticals

An impressive list of pharmaceuticals cause diarrhoea.

The eHealthme site collects the Adverse Drug reports submitted by doctors to the FDA and SEDA in the USA. It then summarises them for ease of use. We originally provided a direct link to Diarrhoea listed on this site and the pharmaceuticals that can cause it, but the eHealthme website developers frequently reorganise the site and thus break the links. Thus in order to find out which pharmaceuticals are implicated in Diarrhoea

Follow the LINK to the eHealthme website
Using the ‘All conditions’ index find the appropriate entry
Now scroll down until you get to the section marked ‘Drugs that could cause ”

The list shows you all the drugs implicated in CAUSING Diarrhea as well as the number of people who have made a complaint to their doctor and had their case reported by him. Note that it is up to the doctor whether he reports or not.

As of October 2016, about 3,200 pharmaceuticals were in this list

Fungal infection

It is rare for fungal infection to be the cause, but with the increasing use of antibiotics and chemotherapy drugs as well as immunosuppressants, far more cases have started to appear. For example

Lower gastrointestinal tract infections caused by Candida species are rarely reported, and Candida albicans is the only pathogen that has been identified. The author reports a case of colonic candidiasis caused by Candida tropicalis in a 55-year-old female with diabetes mellitus type 2, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and neutropenia induced by chemotherapy. Diarrhea and fever were the presenting symptoms. PMID: 25028576

Radiation

exposure to radiation usually causes nausea and vomiting, but diarrhoea is also not unknown. Although the following is about radiation therapy, the findings would apply to all radiation

To better understand the indirect effects of standard courses of radiation therapy (RT) on distant tissue toxicity, we evaluated the frequency, course, and health and economic burden of radiation induced diarrhea (RID) in a large, multinational group of patients who were being treated for cancers of the head and neck (HNC) or lung (NSCLC)………..Moderate to severe RID was reported in all groups and was worse among patient being treated with concomitant chemoradiation (CRT). Whereas 29 % of patients treated with radiation only developed RID, the incidence was 42 % among CRT-treated patients. ……In addition to local tissue toxicities, our results suggest that focal radiation may also be associated with significant distant tissue-centric injury here represented by RID. While these changes were seen with radiation alone, the addition of chemotherapy increased the incidence and burden of illness. ….. This unanticipated finding supports the hypothesis that focal radiation therapy results in pathobiological changes that extend beyond the radiation field and which can produce distant changes. PMID: 25123194

Surgery

removal of any of the digestive system that protects us from infectious agents or parasitical or viral invasion is likely to lay us open to diarrhoea. For example, removal of the gall bladder can result in more infection by invaders, as the gall bladder produces and stores bile, which is released into the small intestine. Wikipedia says that 'Humans can live without a gallbladder', but not for long if we are subject to considerable attack.

Treatment

Find the cause. Doctors these days should use the loose motions to analyse for the culprit as what ever is causing the bloody diarrhoea or high fever, for example, will be present in their stool.

Prevention

of diarrhoea is by improved sanitation, clean drinking water, and hand washing. Breastfeeding for at least six month is also recommended.

Treatment

Do not take anti-diarrhoea medication, you must let your system flush out the pathogen or toxin. Drink ‘Oral rehydration solution (ORS)’, which is clean water with modest amounts of salts and sugar, along with zinc to help boost the immune system. Boiled clean water should be drunk frequently. In those with severe dehydration, intravenous fluids may be required.

You must continue to breast feed babies who have diarrhoea as long as you are not the source of the pathogen!

It appears that opinions are divided on whether you should eat or not. Some pathogens thrive on food, as such if you suspect the invader was food borne, it is better to ‘starve’ the invader of further nourishment. Some foods help to boost the immune system, as such if you feel you can eat, the concentrate on very plain immune boosting food only in small amounts taken regularly.

How it works

Most of the negative forms of spiritual experience - hallucinations, near death experiences or out of body, occur from the effects of the diarrhoea - Dehydration, Nutritional deprivation and Exhaustion.

I have provided a number of healing observations, foods which help to boost the immune system to fight the invaders.

References and further reading

Support Care Cancer. 2014 Aug 16. Unanticipated frequency and consequences of regimen-related diarrhea in patients being treated with radiation or chemoradiation regimens for cancers of the head and neck or lung. Sonis S1, Elting L, Keefe D, Nguyen H, Grunberg S, Randolph-Jackson P, Brennan M; on behalf of the TRIAD Burden of Illness Investigators.

Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr. 2015 Jan 28;55(2):219-26. doi: 10.1080/10408398.2011.650801. Food Safety Challenges-A Pakistan's Perspective. Akhtar S.

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Diarrhoea

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Introduction and description

Symptoms