Gastroenteritis history and symptoms
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Gastroenteritis Microchapters |
Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]
Overview
History and Symptoms
It often involves stomach pain or spasms (sometimes to the point of being crippling), diarrhea and/or vomiting, with noninflammatory infection of the upper small bowel, or inflammatory infections of the colon.[1][2][3][4]
It usually is of acute onset, normally lasting fewer than 10 days and self-limiting.
The main contributing factors include poor feeding in infants. Diarrhea is common, and may be (but not always) followed by vomiting. Viral diarrhea usually causes frequent watery stools, whereas blood stained diarrhea may be indicative of bacterial colitis. In some cases, even when the stomach is empty, bile can be vomited up.
A child with gastroenteritis may be lethargic, suffer lack of sleep, or run a low fever and have signs of dehydration, which include dry mucous membranes, tachycardia, reduced skin turgor, skin color discoloration, sunken fontanelles and sunken eyeballs and darkened eye circles, poor perfusion and ultimately shock.
Symptoms may occur for up to 6 days. Given appropriate treatment, bowel movements will return to normal within a week after that.
References
- ↑ Sleisenger & Fordtran's Gastrointestinal and Liver Disease 7th edition, by Mark Feldman; Lawrence S. Friedman; and Marvin H. Sleisenger, ISBN 0-7216-8973-6, Hardback, Saunders, Published July 2002
- ↑ Mandell's Principles and Practices of Infection Diseases 6th Edition (2004) by Gerald L. Mandell MD, MACP, John E. Bennett MD, Raphael Dolin MD, ISBN 0-443-06643-4 · Hardback · 4016 Pages Churchill Livingstone
- ↑ Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine 16th Edition, The McGraw-Hill Companies, ISBN 0-07-140235-7
- ↑ The Oxford Textbook of Medicine Edited by David A. Warrell, Timothy M. Cox and John D. Firth with Edward J. Benz, Fourth Edition (2003), Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-262922-0