Oral rehydration salts

When patients with diarrhea go to the hospital for treatment, the medicines prescribed by doctors generally include oral rehydration salts. Oral rehydration salts are mainly used to treat various diarrhea caused by viruses and help improve patients' symptoms of dehydration. However, in general, if you want to take oral rehydration salts, you must dilute them first, and the amount to be taken also needs to be determined according to the severity of the patient's condition.

In addition, during the process of taking oral rehydration salts, the patient may also experience diarrhea symptoms, which will cause some of the fluid replenished into the body to be lost. For this part of the lost fluid, the patient should continue to replenish the fluid.

Oral rehydration salts are effective in treating acute diarrhea and dehydration and are often used as a maintenance treatment after intravenous rehydration. Although this product is an oral preparation, it also emphasizes the accuracy of content, preparation method and usage method. Under normal circumstances, oral liquid products mainly emphasize the total amount of main drug intake. For example, for a certain liquid medicine, 15 ml of 10% solution (1.5 g of main drug) is required to be taken orally each time. If 30 ml of 5% solution or 7.5 ml of 20% solution is used instead, it can also be taken with water. However, this cannot be generalized for oral rehydration salts. Not only should the salt content be accurate, but the added glucose cannot be too strong or too weak. The preparation amount and the amount of sugar added should be as accurate as possible.

Oral administration of simple saline can cause watery diarrhea, and glucose solution above 3% can also cause osmotic diarrhea, which is why oral rehydration salts were unsuccessful in the past. In the early 1960s, basic medical research confirmed that 1% to 2.5% glucose can promote maximum absorption of water and sodium. The absorption of sodium and glucose in the intestine is not only interdependent, but also related to the concentration of glucose. If the glucose concentration is too low, there will be a lack of effective glucose available during the transport process, and if the glucose concentration is too high, it will affect the passage of water. Clinical studies have shown that the most suitable glucose concentration is 80-120 mmol/L, which allows the absorption of sodium and water to reach its peak (absorption capacity increased by 25 times).

For young children with diarrhea, if they take a large amount of oral rehydration salts, parents should always pay attention to whether it will cause some adverse reactions, such as vomiting or the child's appetite begins to decrease. Therefore, patients with adverse reactions must go to the hospital immediately for medical treatment.