Gastrointestinal Disorders: Common Symptoms and Causes - Essay Sample

Introduction

Many gastrointestinal disorders usually have similar symptoms, which may make it hard to detect the cause of a disease when it affects a person. The symptoms of these diseases are generally vomiting, nausea, abdominal pain, bloating, and constipation (Buie et al., 2010). These similar symptoms come from the fact that gastrointestinal infections commonly affect the same organs in the body. Similarly, hepatobiliary infections, such as hepatobiliary cancer, refer to an array of diseases with similar symptoms (Duffy & Greten, 2017). Thus, when assessing a patient with a combination of these symptoms requires keen attention to identify the root cause of the disease. Specifically, the best way of treating such a patient is by focusing on the cause rather than the symptoms. This case represents a person that experiences nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting. While some drugs can reduce the severity of these symptoms, it is not appropriate to use them without focusing on the cause of these symptoms.

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Other than these symptoms, the patient has a history of drug abuse, and therefore, this treatment plan should consider this factor. Moreover, this patient is currently using other medications that may interfere with this treatment. This patient currently uses prednisone, nifedipine, and Synthroid. These drugs treat different conditions. Precisely, prednisone treats disorders such as blood problems, breathing issues, allergies, immune system disorders, and arthritis. Secondly, nifedipine is used together with other medications to treat high blood pressure to reduce the chances of heart attacks and stroke. Finally, Synthroid treats problems with the thyroid to increase the amount of thyroid hormone (WebMD, 2019). Therefore, when developing a treatment plan for this patient, it is crucial to ensure that the prescribed drugs do not interfere with these drugs.

The symptoms for the disease that this patient is suffering from are almost similar to gastroenteritis (Chow, Leung, & Hon., 2010; Florez et al., 2018). However, before considering this disease, it is crucial to pay attention to the drugs that the patient uses. Notably, according to WebMD (2019), the side effects of prednisone include loss of appetite, vomiting, nausea, and other signs. Moreover, the side effects of nifedipine include headache, nausea, constipation, among others. The symptoms that this patient experiences are among those of these drugs. Therefore, before administering any medication, it is crucial to perform more tests to confirm that they are not the side effects of these drugs. These tests will confirm that the patient is suffering from a gastrointestinal or hepatobiliary disease. With the provided information, it is hard to prescribe a drug that addresses the cause. The only medication that this analysis will recommend is that which seeks to reduce the severity of these symptoms. That is, if it is hard to perform more tests.

References

Buie, T., Campbell, D. B., Fuchs, G. J., Furuta, G. T., Levy, J., Water, J. V., . . . Winter, H. (2010). Evaluation, diagnosis, and treatment of gastrointestinal disorders in individuals with ASDs: A consensus report. Pediatrics, 125(S1), S1-S18. doi:10.1542/peds.2009-1878C

Chow, C. M., Leung, A. K., & Hon., K. L. (2010). Acute gastroenteritis: From guidelines to real life. Clinical and Experimental Gastroenterology, 3(4), 97-112. doi:10.2147/ceg.s6554

Duffy, A. G., & Greten, T. F. (2017). Treating hepatobiliary cancer: The immunologic approach. Digestive Diseases, 35(4), 390-396. doi:10.1159/000456593

Florez, I. D., Veroniki, A.-A., Khalifah, R. A., Yepes-Nunez, J. J., Sierra, J. M., Vernooij, R. W., . . . Thabane, L. (2018). Comparative effectiveness and safety of interventions for acute diarrhea and gastroenteritis in children: A systematic review and network meta-analysis. PLoS ONE, 13(12), e0307701. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0207701

WebMD. (2019). Drugs and medications A-Z. Retrieved from https://www.webmd.com/drugs/2/index