Diarrhea: When Should You Be ... Video Transcript

Webcast Transcript

I think what ends up happening is, the laxative abuse patient has more of a psychological problem. But some patients start abusing laxatives without knowing that they're doing it. They start taking some, and then they need more. And ultimately they're taking so much to go, and what ends up happening is the intestine itself gets damaged from all that heavy laxative use.

DAVID MARKS, MD: You mentioned some of the warning signs earlier. Go over the warning signs that a person should look for that should send them to the doctor.

LUCINDA HARRIS, MS, MD: I think the warning signs are, if the diarrhea's accompanied by chronic fever, if there's blood in the stool, if they have severe abdominal pain.

MARK POCHAPIN, MD: And abdominal bloating. If they feel like they have a lot of nausea or vomiting associated with that. If they feel weak or dizzy, they can't seem to get out of bed for more than a day.

LUCINDA HARRIS, MS, MD: Maybe also weight loss as well, or inability to keep foods down or severe loss of appetite.

DAVID MARKS, MD: There are also a couple of chronic conditions, Crohn's disease being one of them, that can cause diarrhea, too.

MARK POCHAPIN, MD: Actually, when you look at problems related to diarrhea, you sort of break them up into things that happen acutely that have not been there before, and things that have been there for a long time, chronically. The chronic illnesses, these inflammatory bowel conditions such as Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis, usually have some symptoms or signs prior to a patient realizing that they have some diarrhea. They've known about it for a while, and now it's getting worse.

It can just occur suddenly, but that's less likely. But there are other chronic conditions, other things that cause diarrhea. For example, irritable bowel. Lucy's done a lot of work with irritable bowel. Some patients always have diarrhea. It's just part of their makeup, their irritable bowel makeup, and Lucy might want to mention that. LUCINDA HARRIS, MS, MD: There are patients that have diarrhea predominant irritable bowel syndrome. They're approximately a third of the patients that present with this syndrome. Some people have alternating constipation and diarrhea that have that syndrome.

Usually it's something that presents in the teen years or young adulthood, and is chronic in nature. There's also a subset of patients that have either pain/bloat predominant irritable bowel syndrome or constipation predominant irritable bowel syndrome.

DAVID MARKS, MD: What's the final nugget that people should know about diarrhea? Are there final words of wisdom about the topic?

MARK POCHAPIN, MD: I think if I had to give final words of wisdom: It's common, and that they should not drink water. They should drink something that has sugar and salt in it, and stay away especially from lactose and foods that you wouldn't give to a baby with diarrhea, because a lot of times people with diarrhea eat the wrong foods and make the diarrhea worse. Milk's one of them.

LUCINDA HARRIS, MS, MD: Remember the BRAT diet: bananas, rice, apples, apple juice, tea and toast, especially for acute diarrhea. Staying away from milk and milk products, particularly with a viral diarrhea, and fatty foods, is extremely important.

DAVID MARKS, MD: Okay, great. And if you have any of those warning signs, call your doctor. Thank you both for being here. Thank you for joining our webcast. I'm Dr. David Marks. Goodbye.

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