so gastroenteritis is kind of a big word
but I think like all the big words the
best way to really understand it is by
breaking it down so gastro refers to
stomach enter refers to small intestine
and itis refers to inflammation so there
are really two different types of
gastroenteritis
there's acute gastroenteritis and
there's chronic gastroenteritis acute
gastroenteritis doesn't last very long
it's usually about a few days to a week
chronic gastroenteritis on the other
hand is persistent it lasts for a pretty
long period of time we're going to
mostly be talking about acute
gastroenteritis
so people have acute gastroenteritis
they don't usually say you know like I
have cute gastroenteritis they usually
say something like you know I have the
stomach flu or the stomach bug or a
stomach virus so anyone who said they've
had this is kind of familiar with some
of the symptoms associated with it so to
look at those symptoms why don't we
actually look at the the
gastrointestinal tract over here so here
is the stomach and here is the small
intestine in green so after you consume
a meal you know you'll have some stuff
in your stomach that your digestive
system is really trying to digest and
then absorb but when you have
gastroenteritis your digestive tract
can't do that so now you have all this
stuff that your body is going to want to
expel so how is it going to do that well
it can either come out this way right
through your esophagus and that's really
why we know what you experienced some
vomiting and nausea it can also come out
from the other end as well right and
that's why a lot of people may
experience some diarrhea so there's a
lot of nutrients and a lot of water that
you've consumed but your body isn't
taking it now because you're vomiting
and excreting a lot of water out you're
not getting that water into your system
so you'll be pretty badly dehydrated as
well some other symptoms could include
things like abdominal pain and a fever
and usually an acute gastroenteritis
these symptoms last for about a few days
to at most a week so what's causing all
these symptoms to occur
what causes gastroenteritis we know
sometimes people call it the stomach flu
and I think that can be a bit misleading
the ordinary flu is caused by the
influenza virus but this virus has
absolutely nothing to do with
gastroenteritis there are a number of
different infectious paths
Jeanne's I can cause this instead so you
may have some different viruses or some
different bacteria so a few examples
right some really common examples of the
many different pathogens would be you
know like the rotavirus the norovirus so
these are examples of viruses that could
cause the disease an example of a
bacteria would be something called an
taro toxigenic ecoli
i said this is just a really fancy name
for some bacteria that could cause a
disease but all know there are a lot of
other types of pathogens that could
cause it as well so how do these
pathogens get into your system to begin
with it's usually through fecal to oral
transmission so your feces is the stuff
that gets undigested and doesn't get
absorbed to your integer system and gets
excreted as waste that feces can contain
the pathogen so it's contaminated and
oral just refers to someone's mouth so
maybe someone with gastroenteritis uses
the bathroom and they wash their hands
but not well enough
so their hands might actually be
contaminated with some of the pathogen
and then they may go on to touch other
objects right surfaces and foods and
water that you may touch and then if you
touch those with your hands or if you
eat the contaminated food or water then
you can give the pathogen very easy
access to your own gastrointestinal
system so once it's in your system what
is it going to do so going back to our
diagram over here you have this this
wall that really kind of extends over
the entire gastrointestinal tract you
know your stomach and your small
intestine and so on and so forth so we
call this this wall or this lining the
gastrointestinal wall and this is what
we're going to be focusing on so let's
actually zoom in on that a bit so here I
kind of have a zoomed in picture of that
and I want to mostly focus on this green
structure over here this green structure
is just the epithelium it contains all
of the cells that will be specialized
for digestion and absorption so maybe
you eat some food over here right that's
being partially digested but in the food
that you ate maybe there were some of
the pathogen the pathogen is then going
to invade the epithelium so it's going
to invade those cells and those cells
are going to die off these epithelial
cells are going to kind of slough off of
the lining over here so maybe you'll
have some dead epithelial cells in the
partially digested food that you're
trying to eat so now you don't have
those epithelial cells to digest and of
or food and water so you're going to
actually have a lot of water here and
instead of going into your system it's
just going to stay here right so now you
can't digest some of the foods that may
lead to some vomiting and because this
has so much water in it it's going to
come out as diarrhea so the water is
really staying here it's not getting
into your system and therefore you also
have dehydration and there's actually
some more stuff in here as well remember
that the itís in gastroenteritis refers
to inflammation that basically just
means that the immune system is here so
the immune system may be around this
gastrointestinal wall so you have a
whole bunch of white blood cells over
here as well and then maybe they'll find
their way into this this little mixture
over here as well so you have a lot of
stuff in here that you really don't want
to be in here and you're not getting
that stuff into your system you're just
expelling it out because the pathogen
has destroyed the epithelium so maybe
you're displaying all these symptoms and
you think you may have gastroenteritis
so you go to the doctor and you really
want to confirm this so the doctor may
conclude that you have gastroenteritis
right based off of the symptoms alone
but they may actually do a few more
tests right just to verify a few things
so maybe you want to find out what
pathogen exactly is in your system that
way you can know what treatment options
you can take so what the doctor can do
is they can order a stool sample they
can then send this sample off to a lab
to evaluate what exactly is in there
because remember your feces is going to
be contaminated with the pathogen for
example it could be the norovirus it
could be that entero toxigenic e.coli
maybe it's that rotavirus that I talked
about earlier or maybe it's something
else but this is really just to verify
what's in there they can also have a
blood test done so they may actually
send this off to a lab right to evaluate
the blood when you look at the blood
you're not actually looking for the
virus you're looking for signs that the
person may have some dehydration that
would include high levels of sodium and
creatinine if these exists in high
levels and there's a pretty good chance
that the person is dehydrated so you've
confirmed that the person has
gastroenteritis so how can we treat that
we can put the person on oral
rehydration therapy this is really just
a fancy way of getting the person to
drink a lot of fluids so drinking a lot
of water drinking fluids that contain a
lot of sugars and salt on
all that stuff because the person is
pretty badly dehydrated they really need
to get some water if it's getting pretty
severe you can actually have the person
be put on an IV fluid so sometimes
people are given antibiotics this can be
helpful if it's being caused by a
bacteria because antibiotics target
bacteria but if it's targeting a virus
then these won't really be helpful
because antibiotics do not target
viruses it's also important to be aware
of the fact that you have a lot of good
bacteria in your gastrointestinal system
that help digest and absorb food so
these antibiotics could potentially
damage those bacteria as well so whether
or not you give someone antibiotics it
really depends on the nature of the
pathogen and the individual so there
isn't really a medicine to kind of treat
gastroenteritis or cure gastroenteritis
it kind of goes away on its own after
about a week or so but how can we
prevent it so that we don't have to
treat it to begin with the absolute best
thing to do is to just practice good
hygiene so whether or not you have
gastroenteritis it's always a good idea
to really thoroughly wash your hands
after using the bathroom you should also
take care to drink water that's
definitely decontaminated and clean and
you should also make sure to cook your
food really well just to be sure that it
isn't contaminated with the pathogen so
that anyone who eats it could get
gastroenteritis