{"id":124349,"date":"2016-11-08T14:25:44","date_gmt":"2016-11-08T14:25:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i2\/is-your-poop-too-loose-heres-what-doctors-want-you-to-know\/"},"modified":"2016-11-08T14:25:44","modified_gmt":"2016-11-08T14:25:44","slug":"is-your-poop-too-loose-heres-what-doctors-want-you-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i2\/is-your-poop-too-loose-heres-what-doctors-want-you-to-know\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Your Poop Too Loose? Here&#8217;s What Doctors Want You to Know"},"content":{"rendered":"<section class=\"field-body\">\n<p>What GI docs really care about is when patterns change. So if your stool is suddenly much looser than it used to be\u2014and it doesn&#8217;t get better within a few days\u2014it&#8217;s time to talk to your doctor. The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases<\/a> suggests that adults who&#8217;ve had diarrhea for more than two days seek medical help; if you have a fever or notice blood or pus in your stool, you probably ought to phone your physician even sooner.<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s causing your new digestive discomfort? Good says the possibilities are vast: It could be a viral or bacterial infection, a side effect of a medication you&#8217;re taking (like an antibiotic), a recently-developed food intolerance or allergy<\/a>, or a chronic condition like irritable bowel syndrome<\/a>. If your bowel issues are accompanied by <span>weight<\/span><\/a> loss, anemia, or severe pain, consider it a red flag that something more serious, like colon cancer, could be to blame.<\/p>\n<h3>RELATED:<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>7 Things Your Poop Says About You<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>When you see a doctor, he will likely ask you to describe how severe your loose stools are, says Good. &#8220;There is actually a scale, the Bristol Stool Scale, that is used in scientific studies to quantify the severity of diarrhea,&#8221; he says. Level 1 is constipated, level 7 is super watery, and levels 4 and 5 are normal. Meanwhile, the consistency of your BMs isn&#8217;t the only change worth tracking: If you&#8217;re going more or less often than you used to, that&#8217;s important to discuss with your doc, too.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What GI docs really care about is when patterns change. So if your stool is suddenly much looser than it used to be\u2014and it doesn&#8217;t get better within a few days\u2014it&#8217;s time to talk to your doctor. The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases suggests that adults who&#8217;ve had diarrhea for more [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-124349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124349\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/healthmedicinet.com\/i2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}