How does injecting drip in your veins treats diarrhea? what is the connection?
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Diarrhea causes you to lose a lot of vitamins and minerals your body needs to function. An IV bag will help replenish these lost nutrients, as well as a portion of the lost water. It acts like a Pediatlyte, but straight into the blood stream.
The goal is fluids replacement: it’s possible to rapidly become dehydrated during an extended case of diarrhea, and oral rehydration might not always be possible if one is feeling very unwell.
>ELI5: How does injecting drip in your veins treats diarrhea? what is the connection?
Diarrhea means the fluids you consume get ejected before your body can absorb them. Your body needs to regularly replenish fluids in order to operate.
Victims of Cholera for example eventually die of *dehydration* due to constant vomiting and the diarrhea.
Injecting saline directly into your bloodstream bypasses your digestive system and allows your body to stay alive even *if* it is suffering from diarrhea and vomiting.
The drip injection is not really there to treat the diarrhea; it is there to help replenish the fluid levels in your body, as having diarrhea means your body loosing lots of water. Drips into vein is the fastest way to replenish them. Fun fact, it also helps keep your vein open if medications are needed to be administered.
Diarrhea is runny because it’s got lots of water in it. That water comes out of you. If you lose lots of water from your body, we say that you are “dehydrated”.
Too dehydrated, and your body has all sorts of problems working and you will get very sick and can even die. So, we put water back in to replace what you’ve lost. By itself, it doesn’t stop diarrhea, but it will prevent the diarrhea from doing too much harm.
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