Medicines and Products for Diarrhea

Here is the surprise: most diarrhea needs no medicine at all. The treatments that matter are a salt-sugar solution and a mineral - and the famous pills are mostly unnecessary, some harmful.

ORS: the actual treatment

• Oral rehydration solution treats the only thing that kills in diarrhea - dehydration. Packet ORS per directions, or homemade (1 litre water + 6 level tsp sugar + half level tsp salt)
• No medicine replaces it; every antibiotic in the world is useless against dehydration

Zinc for children

• WHO-recommended: 10-20 mg daily for 10-14 days in under-5 children - shortens the episode and reduces severity of the next one

What about antibiotics?

• Most diarrhea is viral - antibiotics do nothing and add side effects and resistance
• Antibiotics are for specific situations: bloody dysentery, suspected cholera, confirmed parasites (metronidazole for amoeba/Giardia), severe cases in vulnerable patients - chosen by a doctor, not the chemist
• The chemist's "diarrhea kit" of random antibiotics is a public-health problem, not a treatment

The anti-motility pills - handle with care

• Loperamide and cousins slow the gut: acceptable for an adult with mild watery diarrhea who must travel - NEVER for children, never with blood or high fever; the infection needs flushing, not trapping

The useful supporting cast

• Probiotics: some evidence for shortening viral diarrhea - reasonable, not magic
• Racecadotril: a prescription anti-secretory sometimes used in children - doctor's call
• Paracetamol for the fever and ache; anti-vomiting medicine only on prescription, and never certain ones in children

One-line summary

Diarrhea's real medicines are ORS for everyone and zinc for children; antibiotics only for bloody, parasitic or severe doctor-confirmed cases; anti-motility pills never for children or bloody stools - and most of the time, no medicine is the right medicine.