Acute gastroenteritis: causes, symptoms, treatment, severity

The causes of this disease can be both infectious and non-infectious factors, and absolutely everyone can get sick. However, some categories of people are at risk.

It includes:

1. Students living in a dormitory.
2. Soldiers of military service.
3. Tourists
4. Children in kindergartens and schoolchildren.

These categories of people are more likely to be susceptible to illness due to eating disorders, deterioration in its quality and other factors.

What is this disease?

Acute gastroenteritis in adults (or, as it is also called, acute catarrh of the stomach) is an inflammation of the mucous membrane of the stomach or small intestine, which appeared without any tangible prerequisites. Most often, this inflammation lasts for several days and is accompanied by symptoms similar to the symptoms of food poisoning - vomiting, diarrhea, etc.

Causes

There are several reasons that can cause acute gastroenteritis. Gastroenteritis can be caused by taking medications that violate the intestinal microflora. Perhaps infection from another person with enterotropic viruses that affect the gastrointestinal tract.

• The most common is norovirus or rotavirus infection (is the main cause of acute gastroenteritis in children).
• Hereditary predisposition.
• Non-observance of hygiene during cooking, personal hygiene.
• Irregular diet.
• Eating foods of poor quality, their improper storage.
• Food intolerance due to food allergies.
• Poisoning by toxic substances, mushrooms or fish.
• Bad habits are also one of the causative agents of the disease.
• Smoking and drinking.

Be sure to tell when visiting a doctor what could provoke the disease in your opinion.

Symptoms

Symptoms of acute gastroenteritis, as a rule, appear in a short time - from several hours to a day after the infection gets inside. This is preceded by an incubation period (from 5 days).

First of all, a person experiences vomiting, and then vomiting. In difficult cases, this process can be repeated many times and tiring, accompanied by pain around the navel, rumbling of the abdomen. After diarrhea appears, up to 10 times a day. The chair has a yellow, greenish or orange hue with elements of undigested food, a person loses his appetite. Due to allergies, acute gastroenteritis can begin with acute abdominal pain and vomiting. Further, the condition immediately improves. If gastroenteritis is associated with toxic factors, the patient is briefly in fever. Infectious gastroenteritis is manifested by vomiting and loose stools, after which the body temperature rises.

Degrees

The trigger for the development of the disease can serve as simple bacteria and viruses, in rare cases, malnutrition. There are three degrees of severity of acute gastroenteritis:

• The first degree is accompanied by short-term attacks of diarrhea and vomiting, while there is no dehydration and body temperature is at a normal acceptable level.
• The second degree occurs with the same symptoms, only the number of visits to the restroom can reach up to 10 times a day, the temperature rises to 38.5 ° C and slight dehydration.
• The third (severe) degree of the disease, acute gastroenteritis, is quite painful, and the patient may experience not only severe dehydration, lowering body temperature to 35 ° C, but also fever, blurred consciousness, weakness, tachycardia, and decreased blood pressure.

Diagnostics

For the correct diagnosis of acute gastroenteritis, the patient is assigned an examination, which will not only determine the etiology of the disease, but also the severity. Further treatment depends on the accuracy of the disease. With a large degree of dehydration (weight loss of more than 5%), infusion therapy is required.

The diagnosis of acute gastroenteritis is made after the examination, which includes:

1. KLA (blood test, general). With diarrhea, the absorption of vitamins, iron and trace elements is difficult, as a result of which the rate of red blood cells and hemoglobin decreases. The content of leukocytes with OGE increases significantly.
2. UAC (coprogram, general analysis of feces). This includes macro- and microscopic and chemical analysis of feces. Macroscopy evaluates the properties (physical) of feces, in particular the presence of blood / mucus or pus. Microscopy evaluates chemical properties. With OGE, the presence of epithelium and leukocytes is detected. Chemical analysis is aimed at studying the alkaline reaction (pH 8-10).
3. Bacteriological examination of feces and vomit. It allows to identify the causative agent of the disease (Staphylococcus aureus, Clostridia, candida fungi, etc.).
4. Analysis of feces for the presence of helminth eggs in them.
5. Esophagogastroduodenoscopy (endoscopy). With the help of a fibroendoscope, a visual assessment of inflammation of the stomach and small intestine is performed, as well as the exclusion of ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease.
6. Contrast irrigoscopy is a method of x-ray examination of the large intestine. For this study, using an enema, barium sulfate (contrast medium) is injected into the large intestine, followed by a series of x-rays.

In addition to all this, they study the history of acute gastroenteritis, its course in the patient:

• a history of the patient’s life is being collected;
• examination of the anterior abdominal cavity (palpation of the anterior wall);
• measured body temperature and blood pressure;
• the condition of the skin is studied;
• a detailed survey of the patient is carried out to establish the nature of the severity of symptoms, which will help to determine the severity of the course of the disease.

Drug treatment

Enterosorbents are designed to remove toxins from the body. They are used in the development of gastroenteritis associated with poisoning or an allergic reaction. Small particles adsorb harmful substances on themselves and excrete from the body.

These include:

• Activated carbon;
• Enterofuril.

Means for normalizing the water-electrolyte balance

Treatment of acute gastroenteritis in adults consists of taking drugs that normalize the water-electrolyte balance:

• Regidron
• "Oralit";
• "Normohydron".

The drugs will make it possible to replenish the lost fluid necessary for the body. In more serious cases of gastroenteritis, an intravenous infusion of saline or glucose solution is performed.

Drugs that relieve spasm and have an analgesic effect:

• No-shpa;
• Buscopan.

Drugs stop the pathological contraction of smooth muscle organs, in turn, relieve spasms that cause pain.

Enzymatic preparations, which include:

• Pancreatin
• "Panzinorm";
• Mezim.

They are usually prescribed to normalize the performance of the gastrointestinal tract, facilitate the digestion of food, and also make up for the decreased secretory function of the pancreas.

Preparations that restore the intestinal mucosa, have anti-inflammatory properties and astringent component ("De-nol", bismuth nitrate).

Probiotics (Bifidumbacterin, Linex) are designed to normalize the intestinal microflora.

Antibacterial drugs are used extremely rarely in severe stages of the disease or in the development of a bacterial process. The use of antibiotics can only be prescribed by the attending physician, based on tests.

The following drugs are most widely used: Amoxicillin, Ceftriaxone. Symptomatic agents (antipyretic, anti-vomiting) are prescribed depending on the manifestations of the disease, to alleviate the condition.

Folk ways to overcome the disease

Gastroenteritis cannot be cured in a week, whether it is with medical treatment or home treatment (using folk recipes with tinctures, decoctions). Whatever the situation, patients wish, if not completely cured of gastroenteritis, to at least partially remove its symptoms with alternative treatment.

Various recipes of folk herbal decoctions can have a significant beneficial effect on the general condition of the patient, but before you start taking any decoction, you should consult your doctor and make sure that there are no contraindications to such treatment. The reason for the refusal of alternative treatment may be intolerance to one of the types of herbs, the level of complexity of the disease.

For those patients for whom the attending physician has not prohibited the use of alternative methods of treatment, the following recommendations may help:

1. Use only fresh decoctions and tinctures.
2. Steaming herbs in a clean dish, enameled and without chips.
3. Use fresh herbs.
4. Do not invent recipes yourself, without having studied the reaction of compatibility of herbs.
5. Do not believe traditional healers, focused on a large and mandatory profit from the patient.

Decoctions that most effectively help for the treatment of gastroenteritis:

1. Tincture on mint leaves - pour one glass of dried leaves with boiling water so that they are completely covered with boiling water. Insist 35 minutes. Filter, drink the broth in small doses before eating. Serving at a time is 60 ml.
2. Oatmeal - pour boiling oatmeal with boiling water so that the water is two fingers above the porridge. Allow to infuse for at least 40 minutes under a tightly closed lid. You can drink the liquid, and you need to eat porridge on an empty stomach daily.
3. Boiled oatmeal or boiled oatmeal has other properties different from those found in porridge steamed only with boiling water. The amount of porridge per serving is 30 grams.
4. Cranberries - 20 gr. plants fill in 500 ml of recently boiled water (which has cooled down to 80-90 degrees). Cook on a steam bath for 15 minutes, filter. A decoction is drunk 4 times a day, 80 mg each.
5. Chernogolovka - pour the crushed raw materials into a thermos, pour a glass of water into it, tightly close the container with a lid. Insist for two hours, strain. Drink tincture from blackheads in small portions, 2 teaspoons before meals. During the decoction of the day it will be possible to take no more than 5 times.

Complications of the disease

Complications of acute gastroenteritis, the symptoms and treatment of which depend on the severity, can be accompanied by various kinds of complications:

1. Shock - toxic or hypovolemic.
2. Collapse.
3. Bleeding in the stomach and intestines.
4. The development of peritonitis in the intestine.
5. Toxic damage to the liver, kidneys, heart.
6. The development of a chronic form of gastroenteritis.
7. Intestinal dysbiosis.

Signs of complications:

1. Dehydration - heart palpitations, loss of consciousness, weak pulse, death is possible.
2. Cerebral edema - occurs due to toxicity, when the body removes poisons through the liquid, followed by dehydration, intoxication, and malfunctioning of brain cells, due to which the fluid accumulates in the brain. Further, cerebral edema and death.

With the formation of bleeding in the intestines, the patient has a headache, pallor, tachycardia appears, and blood pressure drops.

Disease prevention

Symptoms of acute gastroenteritis in children and adults depend on the level of immunity and how heavy toxins enter the body.

This disease is characterized by symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and loss of appetite, sometimes traces of blood and mucus can be found in the discharge, if you find such symptoms you should immediately consult a doctor.

For the prevention of the disease, it is necessary to follow a diet consisting of healthy fats and proteins of animal origin - eggs, chicken, fish, cottage cheese, etc. At the same time, the amount of fiber, that is, spinach, lettuce, bran, etc. should be limited. abuse sodas, sweets and citruses. The food should be fractional, 5-6 times a day and the menu must include soup. For prevention, it is best to lead a healthy, active lifestyle, if it is not possible to exercise regularly, then at least do exercises in the morning and go for walks before bedtime. It is advisable to undergo a full examination with a doctor once every six months.

Diet for acute gastroenteritis

Gastroenteritis occurs due to the multiplication of some viruses in the gastrointestinal tract; diet plays an important role in recovery.

In the first week, doctors recommend adhering to such a diet:

1. First day: do not eat, preferably a plentiful drink, consisting of pure water and herbal decoctions that have cooled to body temperature. You should drink in small sips, slowly.
2. Second day. You can add dried bread, while it must be chewed thoroughly.
3. On the third day, steamed rice is added to the diet.
4. Fourth day. Chicken broth from lean meat, you can add boiled carrots or potatoes to the menu. From fruits, you can grind a banana or an apple.
5. On the fifth day, servings can be slightly increased, the broth made more rich.
6. By the end of the sixth and the beginning of the seventh day, you can return to normal nutrition, but limit fatty, dairy and sweets.

In the future, it is recommended to adhere to the so-called diet No. 4, which consists of proteins and fats that are easily digested (fish, chicken, eggs, cottage cheese, beef), mashed soups, cereals. Recommended steamed food. Eat 5 times a day, in small portions. With gastroenteritis, the use of chocolate, pork and lamb, and lard is strictly prohibited. With caution, it is worth consuming foods rich in fiber, and figs, prunes and fresh bakery products are also prohibited.