How is Diarrhea Treated?
Diarrhea is usually mild and lasts just a few days. It can generally be treated by staying hydrated and drinking fluids that contain electrolytes, like sports drinks. For severe or prolonged symptoms, however, proper treatment relies on determining the cause of the illness.
When it comes to non-infectious diarrhea, solutions may include stopping a medication, avoiding a specific food, or seeking treatment for an underlying gastrointestinal disorder. For example, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis are chronic irritable bowel diseases that typically require treatment by a doctor specializing in gastroenterology.
For the treatment of infectious diarrhea to be most effective, it needs to be specific to the pathogen responsible for it. Antibiotics are only appropriate in some cases (for example, Campylobacter and Shigella bacteria, as well as parasites, cause diarrhea and can be targeted by antibiotic therapy). However, antibiotics are not effective at treating the majority of diarrhea cases, which tend to be viral, and can sometimes even worsen the infection (as with Shiga-like toxin producing E. coli).