I see what you did here. 
smirk:
Oral Rehydration Salts/Solutions are sold in sachets and some of them contain a sterilising agents as part of the soluble powder.
They are vile, but life saving.
It is [and I am starting the whole process again on Thursday … Sigh]
Stress can really screw up your digestion as well - apparently IBS-D can also just hit randomly. I load micronutrients, water soluble vitamins, and make sure that I avoid empty calories while I am maintaining weight [once I start dumping weight, I load the calories on, the techs in radiation really hate having to recalculate aim points because of weight loss … ]
And I love the phrase ‘short term rental’ =)
Let me absolutely plug the use of silicon barrier cream for helping prevent serious irritation of the skin around the anus during intense diarrhea!!! Works better than the vaseline based kiddy butt cream normally recommended. My roomie’s mom had been in hospice, and an unopened tube of it came home after she passed, and I needed something and didn’t have anybody to run to the store for me, so I used it. Medline Remedy Phytoplex, available on Amazon … seriously, try it!
The biggest danger with diarrhea is dehydration, and you can lose up to a gallon of water (3.8 liters) daily. Together with water, you lose minerals (electrolytes) that are important for the normal functioning of the body, but the main electrolytes are sodium and potassium.
Severe dehydration can shock the body and is potentially fatal. Dehydration is more dangerous for children and infants than for adults, and anyone with diarrhea needs to drink plenty of clean fluids. Tea, chicken broth, ginger ale, or mineral water are good choices. Better than plain water, which does not contain electrolytes
Diarrhea that lasts for a long period can cause metabolic disorders. It can lead to weight loss
And yes, diarrhea can be dangerous 
That’s my shtick. Stay in your lane.
Because the pathogens that cause certain types of diarrhea provoke an overwhelming response from the body to eject it, which in turn causes the loss of fluid, which can cause dehydration for starters. On top of that severe diarrhea also causes the loss of essential minerals, electrolytes, etc. The end result of severe diarrhea is multiple organ failure, usually beginning with the kidneys.
Good post.
Yeah, it’s the volume of loss that is dangerous with cholera or even severe food poisoning and gastroenteritis.
I’ve gradually developed an irritable bowel over the years, which can cause intense diarrhea for a few hours. Even that pretty much saps my energy for the rest of the day. But a really bad case of food poisoning, which I’ve had, can last for days, not hours.
It’s one thing to not drink a lot of water for a day or two, but with diarrhea, your body is ejecting water and nutrients that it already has. If it’s just a day or two, it’ll make you very weak; any longer than that, and it’s potentially life-threatening. Kidneys begin to shut down because they don’t have the water they need to do their job. Once that happens, all kinds of bad things can follow. Doesn’t take long.
LOL - yeah, I spotted that too.
After my first one, I was talking with my primary care doc about the results, and she said “At least this is behind you”. I chimed in with “So to speak!” She looked startled, and laughed; it was unintentional.
As a side note: paradoxically, fiber supplementation may help with some types of diarrhea, in my experience. I doubt it would do much for, say, cholera - and I didn’t try it when I had noro a couple years back, but for lesser issues, I’ve found it can help - I think by absorbing the excess fluid, depending on the type of fiber.
The issues I’d been having this year seemed to be better if I ate a big bowl of raisin bran for breakfast. Doc suggested I go with Metamucil instead - lower carbs, as I’ve got type 2 diabetes. It seemed to help for a couple of days, then… it didn’t. I went back to raisin bran, and went to see the gastro (who prescribed something for bile acid diarrhea. I later did some reading and found out that wheat fiber is actually helpful with bile acid issues, more so than oat or corn bran.
Buddy, there is such a thing as (Fermentable Oligo-, Di-, and Monosaccharides, And Polyols. Don’t think I’m clever, but I’m familiar with this problem. FODMAP - Fermentable Oligosaccharides, Disaccharides, Monosaccharides, and Polyols. That is, carbohydrates that have a short There are many people who have no or few enzymes in their bodies that must break down such sugars. As a result, absorption does not occur in the intestines and products begin to ferment. A person feels such a condition as irritable bowel syndrome with a predominance of diarrhea, increased gas production. I know that for such patients, even the UK National Institutes of Health in their studies notes the benefits of this FODMAP diet
Secondly, in addition to the fermentation of unbroken carbohydrates, an increase in the osmolarity of the intestinal contents leads to irritable bowel syndrome. Simply put, water from the body begins to be pumped out into the intestinal lumen. The consequences are obvious: diarrhea, frequent loose stools.
And yet, an important point, nutritionists recommend starting with a complete rejection of products containing carbohydrates with a short molecule:
wheat;
rye;
garlic;
onion;
most legumes (such as black beans and peas)
fructose (honey and lots of fruits);
lactose (milk of animal origin).
Instead, meat, poultry, fish, eggs and nuts, bananas, berries are introduced. Gluten-free cereals such as oatmeal are also allowed.
Then, if within 6 weeks there is a decrease or regression of the manifestations of irritable bowel syndrome, you can try to gradually return FODMAP products to the menu.
Be healthy 
Appreciate the suggestions, mate.
Actually, in my case, there are some consistent triggers, which include: foods with high sugar content, foods with high salt content, and food that is too spicy. It’s often a combination of these. I can’t make any sort of clinical diagnosis other than the fact that these are the types of foods I’ve ingested whenever I’ve had an attack. I used to blame it on contamination, which it could have been in a few cases, but I’ve gradually realized that it’s most likely food intolerance. I get ‘sick’ when others eat nearly the same thing and don’t.
I shall have to keep that in mind!! My next procedure is next year - and last time around, well, “fire in the hole” doesn’t only refer to military ordnance. I’ve already told my husband that we WILL have a bidet toilet seat in the master bathroom by then.
Hah!
About a year back, my husband and I were listening to a science fiction audiobook set in the midst of a war with a rather nasty alien species. The humans got the idea to load a spare spaceship with water - a LOT of water - and basically drive it into the aliens’ vessel. They watched the impact, and one character said “Where’s the kaboom?”.
I immediately said “There’s supposed to be an Earth-shattering kaboom!”.
And 10 seconds later, so did the character in the book.
Pedialyte: A bit yechy.
Gatorade: Pure garbage. Seriously. Don’t spew 40 year old history about how it was developed at a university for athletes. What is sold under that brand now is corn syrup garbage.
Find " Pocari Sweat ". Remarkable Japanese electrolyte replacement formula. Nice citrus flavor.
It may be garbage, being very high in sugar, but it’s not corn syrup garbage, as current formulations of Gatorade contain no corn syrup. (They did for awhile, but haven’t in 15 years or so.) The current ingredient list is: water, sucrose, dextrose, citric acid, sodium chloride, sodium citrate, monopotassium phosphate, and flavoring/coloring.
Thank you, I stand corrected. Indeed, it’s been many years since I read a label on Gatorade. Glad they’ve removed the most toxic of ingredients.
Ignorance fought ! 
Sugar is sugar.
No, seriously. The difference between sucrose (50% glucose and 50% fructose) and HFCS (55% glucose and 45% fructose) is minimal. (The “natural, healthy, good” agave sugar is 56% fructose.) Nor are there good studies that show deleterious effects attributable solely to HFCS. However, there are many studies that show effects from excess sugar in the diet.
HFCS is an excellent example of how junk science can get into the public’s mind and create a brain barrier to current and more correct information, but that’s really the only harmful effect it has.
What I’ve understood about the particular danger of HFCS is simply that it is way cheaper than the other common sugars, hence they put a lot more of it into food, and people buy a lot more of it for less money and they all get obese and other excess-sugar diseases.
It’s not exactly that they put more in. They substitute it for sucrose more. Whether people buy more sweetened stuff because price increases can be delayed or abandoned is an open question. Since so many products now boast of having no HFCS, we might be able to tell if consumption goes down in the future. But buying patterns are so complex I’m not sure we can ever be sure.
I have one of the little plastic inserts that I use when I travel, it is nice, I make a blend of 1:1 epsoms salts and baking soda, very very soothing. For the washing part [I wash in the insert] I use cetaphil as it is very very gentle, then I empty and rinse the insert, then make the soak.
[Wikipedia on oral rehyration solutions](Oral rehydration therapy - Wikipedia therapy)
The optimal fluid for preparing oral rehydration solution is clean water. However, if this is not available, the usually available water should be used. Oral rehydration solution should not be withheld simply because the available water is potentially unsafe; rehydration takes precedence.[20]
Sports drinks are not optimal oral rehydration solutions, but they can be used if optimal choices are not available. They should not be withheld for lack of better options; again, rehydration takes precedence.
For one of my colonoscopies, I made a homemade electrolyte solution that, IIRC, consisted of diluted fruit juice (the sugar concentration is supposedly too high, otherwise), table salt, and salt substitute (for the potassium). It tasted a bit metallic but otherwise did the job. You can find recipes online though I wouldn’t trust a site that references “Himalayan sea salt” (pretty sure “Himalayan” and “sea” are mutually exclusive), and I saw another that called for “salt” and noted that it has “sodium and other minerals” (nope, not if you interpret that to mean regular ol’ table salt, i.e. sodium chloride).