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Wednesday, December 30, 2015

DIARRHEA

DIARRHEA

Definition. Diarrhea is either an increased frequency or volume of stool per day; stool can also be defined as diarrhea if the number of stools per day is few, but their consistency is watery.

Pathogenesis. The most common causes of diarrhea are of an infectious, antibiotic-associated, or lactose-intolerance etiology or from irritable bowel or carcinoid  syndrome.


Clinical Presentation. The patient is often hypotensive, febrile, and experiencing abdominal pain.
Diagnosis. The first thing to do in the evaluation of diarrhea in terms of direct patient care is to see if there is hypovolemia as defined as hypotension or orthostasis. This is more important than determining the specific etiology because of the chance that the patient may die while waiting for the results to come back.
Treatment. No matter the etiology, if the patient is hypotensive, febrile, and having abdominal pain, he or she should be admitted to the hospital and given intravenous fluids and antibiot- ics. The presence of blood in the stool is especially serious and is probably the single strongest indication for the use of antibiotics, such as ciprofloxacin.

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