Intestinal obstruction: symptoms, causes, treatment

Intestinal obstruction is a blockage,partial or complete, gut lumen, which makes it difficult or impossible to move the intestines of its contents. As a result, the blood circulation of the intestine, the water and salt balance of the body is disrupted.

There is obstruction due to mechanicalobstacles or disorders of motor function of the intestine. Depending on what caused the blockage, there is a mechanical and dynamic intestinal obstruction.

Mechanical obstruction may occurbecause of the curvature of the intestines or the formation of a knot, as a result of an adhesion disease, with a hernia. The intestine can also become clogged with food or stool, foreign bodies, a tumor, ascarids.

Mechanical obstruction of the intestine symptomshas the following: bloating, pain and cramps in the abdomen, which occur sharply, regardless of food intake, lack of stool. If the small intestine is obstructed, vomiting occurs (eventually gets a feces smell). There may be bloody diarrhea in case of intussusception.

Dynamic obstruction develops inthe result of various reflex effects on intestinal motility, in the violation of acid-salt and water-electrolyte balances, as well as in pathologies in the processes of the nervous system.

Dynamic intestinal obstruction has the same symptoms as mechanical, but there is no peristalsis (bowel contractions).

All of the above symptoms are basic. However, the intestinal obstruction has specific symptoms: a relatively stable asymmetric swelling that does not move and can be easily identified by touch and sometimes by eye; balloon-shaped bloating of the rectum, a change in the intensified peristalsis of extinctions of the intestine; absence of sounds of bowel contraction; a sharp pain when pressing on the area below the navel, etc.

During the course of the disease, three periods are identified. In the early (before 12 hours) period, the main symptom is pain. In the intermediate (from 12 hours to 24 hours) period, the bowel obstruction has the corresponding typical clinical picture of acute intestinal obstruction. The patient becomes worse. In the third (1,5-2 days) period, the intestinal obstruction has the following symptoms: hypotension, tachycardia, elevated body temperature, internal organs deficiency may develop.

As in most diseases, before you prescribe the treatment, you need to understand what is the causative agent, and in this case, the very treatment of the intestinal obstruction will depend on the cause.

In the case where mechanical obstructionintestine is established or is supposed, first of all the patient should be immediately delivered to the hospital of the surgical department. Mechanical intestinal obstruction requires the following: first conduct a survey (if the diagnosis is to be confirmed) and conservative treatment, including siphon enemas, intravenous fluid injection, aspiration of stomach contents (the effectiveness of conservative methods can be monitored by clinical data and radiographic images); if treatment with conservative methods does not work, surgical intervention is needed to eliminate the obstruction or create a detour for the intestinal contents.

For dynamic obstruction, onlyconservative treatment: hypertensive, siphon and cleansing enemas, stimulation of intestinal wall contractions, fighting with dehydration and intoxication of the body.

In any case, whatever the obstruction, it is necessary to treat it, and immediately, otherwise the disease can be a serious threat to human life.