Prevent diarrhea during Tet

During each Tet holiday, daily eating habits are completely changed. Foods high in protein such as ham, sausage, spring rolls or just eating starchy foods such as jams and candies.

Meal times are also not fixed, you visit this house to eat a little, go to another house and you are invited to eat. The stomach is overworked and it is difficult to avoid digestive disorders, especially acute diarrhea.

Why is it easy to get diarrhea during Tet?

During Tet, families often prepare food in advance and store it for several days. Even though the food is cooked, if left at room temperature for a long time, it becomes a favorable environment for bacteria to grow. Therefore, food poisoning and acute diarrhea are very common diseases during Tet.

Depending on the agent causing the poisoning, the symptoms of vomiting or diarrhea are more severe. After eating for 1 hour or more, the patient will have symptoms of digestive disorders such as nausea, vomiting, abdominal cramps followed by diarrhea, possibly accompanied by fever, dry lips, and dirty tongue.

Illustration photo.

If you have food poisoning, try to vomit all the food. You need to drink ORS to compensate for the loss of water and salt. If the condition is severe, you must go to the emergency room immediately. Absolutely do not use anti-diarrheal drugs such as laxatives, opium pills, etc. because the body needs to eliminate the toxins that have entered.

Disease prevention measures

During Tet, you must always eat cooked food and drink boiled water, wash your hands with soap before eating and drinking, and after using the toilet. Preserve processed food well, prevent flies, cockroaches, and dust. Dispose of feces and waste to ensure general hygiene.

To prevent indigestion and bloating, you should eat slowly, chew thoroughly, avoid foods that are difficult to digest such as fried foods with too much oil; do not abuse alcohol, coffee, tobacco, spices that cause excessive stimulation; should use crushed ginger mixed with warm water to drink. You can use drugs such as maalox, simelox, phosphalugel, gasvicon when you have indigestion and bloating due to excess gastric acid. Digestive enzymes such as neopeptine, pancrélase, alipase can also be used to help digest food more easily.

For children, keeping hands clean is a basic measure to prevent disease. Children should be trained to wash their hands before handling food, before eating, and after going to the toilet. Mothers must wash their hands with soap after changing diapers or cleaning their children. Do not let children crawl on the floor or suck their hands or toys. If the family has the means, give children the Rotavirus vaccine.

During Tet, most pharmacies are closed, so to prevent diarrhea, indigestion, bloating, prepare some medicines in your family medicine cabinet: a few packets of oresol or hydrite tablets to rehydrate in case of vomiting, diarrhea; motilum for bloating, indigestion, smecta for diarrhea, ginger tea to treat nausea, indigestion...

Treatment for diarrhea

Treatment of acute bacterial diarrhea: If you only vomit a little and have diarrhea less than 6 times a day, you can replace fluids with ORS, drink slowly by spoonful, eat light, liquid, easy-to-digest foods such as porridge and soup. Do not drink carbonated drinks because these drinks contain a lot of sugar and will aggravate dehydration. The important thing in treating diarrhea is to replenish salt and water. Patients with severe dehydration or patients who vomit a lot and cannot drink must go to a medical facility for intravenous fluids.

Some antibiotics commonly used in acute bacterial diarrhea are: co-trimoxazole (also known as trimazol, biseptol, bactrim).

Treatment of viral diarrhea: Acute diarrhea caused by Rotavirus is a very common disease in children and can also occur in adults but is usually milder. The disease often occurs in winter and spring during Tet. The main symptoms are vomiting and diarrhea. Vomiting appears 6 - 12 hours before diarrhea. Vomiting is often severe on the first day and decreases when diarrhea begins, the stool is watery and without blood. Antibiotics are not effective in acute diarrhea caused by Rotavirus. In mild cases, without complications, the disease usually resolves itself after 3 - 7 days. Treatment is mainly rehydration and electrolyte replacement.

For people with mild illness, treatment can be done at home. Be sure to drink more water than usual. You can use boiled water, vegetable soup, non-carbonated mineral water or drink oresol. You need to eat a nutritious diet as usual. Monitor the number of bowel movements, stool characteristics, and signs of dehydration. Do not use anti-diarrheal drugs because these drugs reduce intestinal motility, paralyze the intestines, causing stools to not be excreted, stagnate in the intestines, causing bloating, intestinal perforation, intestinal obstruction, etc. Avoid excessive abstinence such as only eating white porridge with salt, which will make the patient's condition worse.

According to Zing.vn