There is currently underway something of a renaissance around the importance of gut health. The smooth operation and ongoing health of your digestive system have always been necessary, but in recent months and years, many more people have started to realize just how important. This revival has come at a good time: although bowel cancer survival rates are generally improving, the average Western diet has taken some darker turns.
Though diet isn’t everything when it comes to the gut, it’s a lot – and so is knowing how to heed the warning signs that the gut might give you. There are a range of indicators you might experience that should tell you something is wrong, and it’s valuable to know about them – and to know what to do if they should arise.
Change In Stool
One of the more unsightly facts about looking after your digestive health is that most of us could do with paying a little more attention to our stool. Though you might not exactly be in the habit of keenly checking your excrement after you have visited the toilet, it’s something that you might want to consider doing.
What you see down there in the bowl tells you all you need to know. In particular, look out for any sudden or dramatic changes that you can’t readily account for. If it’s hard and dense, think: dehydration, and drink more water. If you have a little diarrhea, take some diarrhea tablets and work on improving your diet.
But if you see something genuinely alarming, such as blood, call your doctor immediately.
Cramps
An annoying thing about pains in the stomach area is that it might not be the stomach at all. Women will know the experience of feeling as though you have a stomach ache, only to realize later that the pain was in the uterus all along. Similarly, pain and discomfort in that part of the body may be referred from the kidneys, the liver, or even the gallbladder.
Any persistent pain should be investigated professionally, but in particular, watch out for severe abdominal cramps. If you have these chronically, it could indicate that something is very wrong indeed with your digestion tract. It’s not the kind of thing you want to ignore.
Heartburn
You might not feel that these are related, but heartburn is almost always a result of indigestion, which is undoubtedly a matter of your digestive system having trouble. In all likelihood, a little heartburn will mean that you need to avoid particular foods, or starting eating a little earlier.
But if you have it all the time, you might have something more serious going on – and you will need to go to the doctor to discover just that if that is the case. Heartburn is unpleasant at the best of times, but in some cases, it can be an indication of something truly worrying, so watch out for it.
These signs are the kinds of things that we can all expect to encounter in our lives. Knowing what to do about them is a handy thing indeed, so be sure to remember this information.
-
Sanya
- September 6, 2019
