Life can be a scary thing when you’re suffering from a nasty case of diarrhoea and you simply don’t know why.
I mean, normally you know exactly why you’ve got the runs. It could be because of the rather shoddy meal your mate cooked for you both before you headed off to the ball game. Perhaps he tried a Mexican breakfast despite being unable to remember when exactly it was that he got the eggs in.
Your diarrhoea could instead be down to a bad pint of beer you had at that redneck bar you visited the night before. You knew it was a bad pint and you didn’t wanna drink it, but the bartender was giving you the look that said, “If you come here and diss ma pint, boy, I’m goin’ fuck you up.” So, despite knowing your life was at stake, you downed it.
But when you’ve been living healthily, and when you just know it isn’t something you ate, it’s easy to get scared. You go through the usual answers:
Cancer
And that’s it. Because we always assume cancer. We always fear the worst and don’t really take the time to educate ourselves, instead tapping “diarrhoea cancer” into Google.
But let’s take a look at some of the more unknown causes of diarrhoea.
Intense Exercise
Did you know that too much exercise can actually send you rushing to the bathroom? According to Dr. Patel, “With really intense exercise, you’re diverting so much blood supply away from your digestive tract and to your muscles that it can cause abdominal cramping and loose, sometimes bloody stool.”
It’s really nothing to worry about – but it is damn inconvenient. Moreover, it’s obviously pretty embarrassing. Worse still, if you’re on a long distance marathon and you get the runs, what are you gonna do? Hmm!
If this does occur to you frequently, there could be an underlying causes, such as IBS.
Giardia
Giardia is a parasite – a nasty parasite. It’s pretty much akin to having a wasp in your bullet. But, unlike a wasp that strings straight away because they’re right bastards, giardia hangs around for a while before striking.
Not only that, but it hangs around for ages. It lives in fresh water, so if you’ve been exercising diarrhoea for the past few weeks or months but have no idea why, think back to your outdoor activities. Did you go for a swim in a lake? Did you drink unpurified water? Bingo! We have a suspect.
Antibiotics
Yep, antibiotics are supposed to help us. You know that and why know that.
What’s that you’re asking?
“Antibiotics are are our friends, they wouldn’t hurt us!”
Well, actually, they can. Unintentionally, of course. But, you see, antibiotics are actually pretty darn clumsy because whilst they’re trying to fend off an infection, they can sometimes “accidentally” upset the bacterial flora in our intestine, thereby triggering the way our body processes food. Oops.
They mean well, but sometimes they just get it wrong.
Whenever you have been suffering from a bout of the runs, you’re pretty weak at the end of it all. To help you get back on your feet, you could do a lot worse than try an immune system boosting supplement, such as Deer Antler Maximum Strength.
