Diarrhoea is a bowel movement that has a loose texture or is more liquid than solid. It is a common problem that may affect people a couple of times. Diarrhoea usually resolves within a week or less.
You might think eating will make your diarrhoea worse, but your food choices can help to ease the symptoms and ensure your health doesn’t worsen as a result.
When on a diet, eating certain foods must be eliminated. So before getting to the best foods to eat for diarrhoea, let us look at some foods that must be avoided. Fried, greasy, spicy, processed, or fatty foods are a strict no-no.
The Following Diet Can Help Relieve Diarrhoea
1. Vegetables
Vegetables are nutritional powerhouses but can be hard to digest when eaten raw. Make them more diarrhoea diet-friendly by peeling them, removing any seeds, and cooking them thoroughly.
The skin of a baked potato is nutritious, but it may contain more fibre than your system can handle, so stick to peeled, plain potatoes instead. Avoid broccoli, cauliflower, peppers, peas, green leafy vegetables, and corn, as they tend to cause gas.
2. Soup and crackers
Soup can help replenish your fluid and nutrient levels, whereas crackers are helpful since they typically have a high salt content. Diarrhoea can result in considerable loss of fluid and electrolytes, minerals like sodium and potassium, so eating salty foods can help restore them.
3. Eat bland and easy-to-digest foods: Too much fibre in your diet will worsen diarrhoea. If you have diarrhoea, you should follow a low-fibre diet. A low-fibre diet means you only eat about 10 grams of fibre a day. A low-fibre diet helps with diarrhoea because it will not stimulate (rev up) your bowels as much, and it will be easier to digest.
Like chicken, fish, eggs, puddings, mashed potatoes, noodles, rice, yoghurt, cottage cheese, cream of wheat, farina, smooth peanut butter, white bread, bananas, applesauce, canned fruit, and well-cooked vegetables. Eating 5 to 6 small meals/snacks throughout the day is often better than eating three large meals.
4. Probiotics
Probiotics are live microorganisms that can help restore intestinal flora. These probiotics can be obtained from some foods such as water kefir, miso, sauerkraut and sourdough bread, for example.
These probiotics can also be purchased as supplements in pharmacies, which contain microorganisms such as Lactobacillus Reuters, Lactobacillus rhamnosus, and Lactobacillus casei, for example, which help fight diarrhoea and restore intestinal flora.
In addition to following a diet to help relieve diarrhoea, there are several other remedies that a person can take to recover quickly.
Other diarrhoea treatments include
bismuth subsalicylate (Pepto Bismol) and loperamide (Imodium). These medicines can help relieve occasional cases of diarrhoea and can be helpful to keep on hand in a medicine cabinet.
People with diarrhoea should also make sure they get plenty of rest, as putting the body in stressful situations while dealing with diarrhoea can make things worse.
Limit physical activity while you have symptoms of diarrhoea, as strenuous activity can put the body at greater risk of dehydration.
When it comes to diarrhoea, hydration is also vital. Drink lots of water during the day.
The foods in the diarrhoea diet are simple because they give your body the break it needs. The diet may seem hard to follow, but it helps to know that you only need to stick with it temporarily. On the other hand, adding foods back too quickly may worsen your symptoms, and your diarrhoea lasts longer. If your diarrhoea persists after all the above solutions, it means it’s rather a more chronic issue, please meet your doctor instantly.
