Diarrhoea is a watery or loose faeces. It’s considered a common condition and typically resolves without treatment. Acute diarrhoea resolves without treatment and usually lasts for just a few days. Even acute diarrhoea can cause dehydration and electrolyte imbalance. Electrolyte imbalance occurs when the nutrients needed to perform normal bodily functions are depleted, namely sodium, magnesium, and potassium.
It’s important to drink lots of water and electrolyte-rich fluids, like Gatorade, to stay healthy if you’re experiencing acute diarrhoea. Acute diarrhoea happens in most people throughout the course of a year – most people think nothing of it. However, it can be serious in young children, older adults, and people with compromised immune systems.
Common symptoms of acute diarrhoea include:
If acute diarrhoea does not self-resolve, these symptoms will get worse as the diarrhoea persists.
The cause of acute diarrhoea is rarely known, simply because most people that experience diarrhoea for one or two days never go to the doctor for it.
However, it is known that the cause of most diarrhoea is a virus that infects the bowels and goes away by itself after causing acute diarrhoea. Other causes include:
Antibiotics are also a potential cause of acute diarrhoea. It’s possible that the antibiotic killing the bad bacteria also kills some good bacteria in the gut, leaving one a little more vulnerable to bacteria that causes diarrhoea while taking antibiotics.
Risk factors for acute diarrhoea include travel, improperly cooked food, unsafe water, and travelling to an area with disease outbreak.
Acute diarrhoea is typically not diagnosed in a doctor’s office because it resolves quickly. If your faeces are loose and watery for a few days, that can be considered acute diarrhoea. A doctor can take a faeces sample to confirm the presence of a virus or bacteria that causes diarrhoea. This is rarely done when diarrhoea self-resolves, like acute diarrhoea does.
Acute diarrhoea is not known for causing complications because of its self-limiting nature. However, most people with acute diarrhoea are likely to become a little dehydrated. Dehydration, if not treated, can be very harmful, especially in young children and older adults.
Signs of dehydration include:
In children, signs of dehydration include:
It’s important to stay hydrated and increase fluid intake if you’re experiencing acute diarrhoea, even if you’re not at a risk due to age.
Treatment, Management, & Prevention
Acute diarrhoea tends to resolve without treatment. However, if you deal with cases of acute diarrhoea very often or find that it affects your quality of life, there are a few management options that you and your doctor can discuss. These include staying hydrated regularly and increasing fluid intake during episodes of diarrhoea. A doctor will advise you to drink water and a solution that will replace electrolytes, like Gatorade.
Additionally, your doctor may discuss the possibility of stopping any medications that are known to irritate the stomach if taken continuously for a long time, like ibuprofen. A low-fibre diet that excludes food and drink that easily upset the stomach may also be suggested. This may look like leaving coffee, alcohol, dairy products, and highly processed foods out of your daily diet.
Probiotics may help prevent future cases of acute diarrhoea or decrease their regularity. Other preventative measures include good handwashing practices, staying up to date on vaccinations, and travelling safely. People are more prone to diarrhoea while abroad. Make sure you eat well-prepared food, clean water, and know the risk of exposure to disease where you’re going.