Abundant diarrhea mixed with blood can be triggered by an infectious disease, such as dysentery. When provoked by infection, twenty or more bowel movements during a day may occur. The overall patient’s condition can be aggravated by fever, abdominal pain, nausea, and vomiting (“Deadly Diseases” 21).
Investigation
The first step of the diagnostics process should include a thorough investigation of subjective symptoms. The identification of pain characteristics (its correlation with food intake, frequency, localization and irradiation of pain), evaluation of other symptoms (nausea, vomiting, heartburn, appetite, etc.) in combination with the results of collected by objective research, such as clinical analysis, in most cases, helps to achieve a high level of preliminary diagnosis’ accuracy.
Examination of feces has great diagnostic importance and helps to find the presence of mucus streaked with blood in the fecal matter. Clinical confirmation of dysentery is conducted by using bacteriological and serological methods. For example, repeated isolation of Shigella organisms from the feces provides confirmation of the diagnosis in 40-60% of patients (Prince et al. 8).
Rapid diagnosis of acute intestinal diarrheal infections may be administered to detect pathogenic antigens and their toxins in saliva, urine, feces, or blood. For this purpose, the immunological methods, such as enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), with high sensitivity and specificity are commonly implemented (Meza-Lucas 379).
Preliminary Diagnosis
Ulcer disease is regarded as one of the common causes of diarrhea with blood. However, the high frequency of bowel movements indicated the infectious origins of the health problem.
Dysentery is a very dangerous infectious disease casually transmitted from a person to person. The causative agent of dysentery is the bacteria of the Shigella genus which have a high survival rate in the external environment (Phalipon and Sansonetti 119).
The disease develops quickly. At the beginning of progression the general intoxication syndrome characterized by fever, chills, hot flashes, fatigue, decreased appetite, headache, decreased blood pressure occur.
The repeated cramping pain in the lower abdomen, frequent false urges to defecation, feeling of incomplete defecation, as well as high stool frequency (up to 10-20 times a day) indicates at the moderate form of dysentery (Prince et al. 8).
The beginning of this infection form is rapid. Body temperature rises to 38-39°C and may remain at this level for a significant period starting from several hours to two-four days. Usually, intoxication and diarrhea last for 4-5 days while the complete recovering of the intestinal mucosa and the normalization of all body functions occurs merely after a month of treatment (Gairola et al. 1000).
Treatment
An important component of treatment is diet. It is recommended to follow the therapeutic diet characterized by a reduced content of fat and carbohydrate and normal protein content. It is suggested to exclude the products that can cause flatulence or any form of gastrointestinal irritation.
In severe cases, when the diarrhea is accompanied by diarrhea with blood, the uptake of antibiotics is suggested. Ciprofloxacin 500 mg 2 times a day is a commonly used medicine (Prince 6). The duration of the treatment course should be aligned with the individual needs of the patient and determined by a physician. The treatment of standard dysentery cases can last up to five days.
Prevention
The mechanism of infection with dysentery is based on direct contact with an infected person, infected food, or contaminated water (Feil 964). Thus, the major methods of Shigella infection prevention can be reduced to compliance with the rules of personal hygiene. It is important to wash hands before eating and after using the toilet and follow the rules of food storage and preparation.
Works Cited
“Deadly Diseases.” America’s Civil War 21.5 (2008): 21. Academic Search Complete. Web.
Feil, Edward J. “The Emergence And Spread Of Dysentery.” Nature Genetics 44.9 (2012): 964-965. Academic Search Complete. Web.
Gairola, Sumeet, et al. “Plants Used For Treatment Of Dysentery And Diarrhoea By The Bhoxa Community Of District Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India.” Journal Of Ethnopharmacology 150.3 (2013): 989-1006. Academic Search Complete. Web.
Meza-Lucas, Antonio, et al. “Comparison of DOT-ELISA and Standard-ELISA for Detection of the Vibrio Cholerae Toxin in Culture Supernatants of Bacteria Isolated from Human and Environmental Samples.” Indian Journal of Microbiology 56.3 (2016): 379-382. Web.
Phalipon, Armelle, and Philippe J. Sansonetti. “Shigella’S Ways Of Manipulating The Host Intestinal Innate And Adaptive Immune System: A Tool Box For Survival?.” Immunology & Cell Biology 85.2 (2007): 119-129. Academic Search Complete. Web.
Prince, Christopher, , David Kirubah, John Sushil and Venkatesan Sankarapandian. “Antibiotic Therapy for Shigella Dysentery.” Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews Reviews (2009): 1-102. Web.