Disorders and diseases of the digestive system are accompanied by pain or discomfort in the abdomen, nausea and belching, vomiting, bad taste in the mouth or difficulty swallowing. Some of these symptoms appear as a result of errors in the diet, while others are signs of the disease. This publication will help to understand the meaning of the symptoms and the tactics of the patient who felt them.
Message to patients
A good, objective and honest history is the main component of an accurate diagnosis. Diagnosis of diseases of the digestive system and dyspepsia requires an adequate assessment of symptoms. It is unacceptable to go to a specialist and simply complain about some kind of violation, forcing the doctor to pull out of the patient with pincers the rest of the characteristics of the symptoms. And even worse, when patients, due to their unwillingness to understand and because of the possibility of shifting this task to the doctor, do not bother to note the circumstances of the appearance of their complaints. All these moments complicate the work of the doctor anddelay the cure of the patient.
Terminology
To differentiate diseases of the digestive system and interpret the meaning of nausea and belching, it is necessary to give a clear understanding of these terms. Nausea is a feeling of heaviness in the epigastric region and chest, discomfort in the mouth and throat with a feeling of pressure from the bottom up and rolling in the upper abdomen, sometimes accompanied by strong salivation, belching and hiccups, often preceding vomiting.
Belching is a condition of separation of gas or a small portion of gastric contents from the mouth, accompanied by an unpleasant aftertaste.
Vomiting is the active separation of the contents of the stomach or duodenum into the esophagus and oral cavity as a result of reverse peristalsis.
Dysphagia - Trouble swallowing or swallowing food, a feeling of difficulty moving food down the throat or chest, pain, burning, hiccups or nausea when swallowing.
Objectification of symptoms
Feelings of nausea and belching, vomiting, dysphagia or abdominal pain do not bother you all the time, but appear under certain conditions. They need to be clearly stated when contacting a doctor, but, more importantly, they need to be tracked even before a visit to a specialist. Otherwise, remembering and trying to think out the circumstances of the onset of symptoms, you can mislead the doctor and send him on the wrong track. Therefore, situations in which symptoms such as nausea and belching occur should be monitored by the patient.
Need to turnattention to the time of the appearance of the complaint: before meals in the condition of hunger, during meals or some time after eating. The nature of the symptom is important, that is, it is constant or paroxysmal, manifests itself in any position or does not depend on the position of the body, goes away on its own or requires taking any measures. When it comes to vomiting, it is important to notice what color the vomit is, how many times it happens, and how much discharge comes out with each episode.
Belching, like all other symptoms, also requires deep detailing. It is necessary to track the conditions under which it develops, this happens with normal filling of the stomach while maintaining a feeling of incomplete saturation or when it is overfilled. It is necessary to notice whether belching is accompanied by hiccups and pain in the abdomen, a sensation of taste in the mouth or the reflux of contents into the oral cavity, at what interval from eating this occurs.
Origin of air belching
Symptoms such as nausea and belching often accompany each other, although the patient is more likely to be bothered by belching. But many do not turn to a specialist just because of burping with air, even if it brings discomfort. The reason is that this symptom often manifests itself after alcohol intoxication, and such a contingent of patients, due to their special attitude to he alth, will never go to the doctor for this reason. Even the systematic appearance of vomiting does not alarm them, as they get used to it and even often cause it artificially in order to consume more.alcohol.
The second common cause of mild belching is eating in a hurry and during a lively conversation, drinking carbonated drinks, overeating with a full stomach. Also, swallowing of air during eating is often observed, which is facilitated by the presence of affected or fallen teeth, when chewing is carried out mainly on one side, and a portion of air is gradually sucked into the oral cavity through the corner of the mouth. Mixing with the food bolus, it is swallowed with food, and when the chyme is spread in the stomach, it is released, causing belching.
Cardia failure
Nausea and belching can be caused by insufficiency of the cardiac esophageal sphincter. This is a condition of incomplete closure of the annular muscle that separates the esophagus from the stomach, which can lead to the development of reflux disease. Cardia insufficiency requires maintaining an upright body position for 1 hour after eating. It is necessary to exclude physical labor and bending forward immediately after eating. This is only necessary to prevent GERD, although burping itself will not help. Refusal to talk while eating, swallowing thoroughly chewed food in small portions, prosthetic teeth will help get rid of it or reduce discomfort.
Burp contents
The reason for the eructation of the contents also lies in the insufficiency of the cardiac opening. However, in this case, not only air is separated, but also a certain amount of stomach contents.or 12 duodenal ulcer. The discharge, as a rule, liquid or mushy, enters the esophagus and into the oral cavity without an attack of nausea. This happens after hiccups or bending forward, pressing on the stomach after eating. The discharge has an unpleasant taste, which depends on the type of food eaten the day before and the time of the meal.
If belching appears during a meal or 5-15 minutes after it, then it may not have an aftertaste. Sometimes there may be belching and nausea after drinking alcohol, but this is a sign of episodic dyspepsia, not a disease. The sour taste of the discharge is observed after its treatment with gastric juice. It is thrown into the esophagus and oral cavity after eating with cardia insufficiency. This symptom needs to be corrected as the result is a high risk of GERD and esophagitis.
Reflux disease
Nausea and bitter belching is a specific symptom that has an interesting mechanism of occurrence. It develops due to the reflux of the contents of the duodenum into the stomach, and from it into the esophagus and oral cavity. The feeling of bitterness in the mouth develops due to bile, which is thrown upward in a minimal amount, first due to duodenogastric reflux, and then gastroesophageal. Nausea in this case is observed due to irritation of the stomach by the components of the contents of the duodenum 12. This is treated by reducing the breaks between meals to 4-6 hours. Eating small meals 6-8 times a day.
Pyloric stenosis
In the abovediseases, the main symptom is nausea and belching after eating, the treatment of which requires not drugs and operations, but the discipline of nutrition. Among the diseases that can cause the appearance of these signs, it should be noted reflux disease, cardia insufficiency and GERD, gastritis. At the same time, it is vomiting that is observed quite rarely and is not constant after each meal.
Against their background, pyloric stenosis is a severe pathology. It develops due to narrowing of the outlet section of the stomach and limiting its throughput. This is observed in postoperative patients or as a result of an ulcer of the pyloric region. Similar symptoms can give cicatricial narrowing of the duodenal ulcer. With these diseases, constant nausea and belching, hiccups and vomiting are disturbing.
Characterization of symptoms of pyloric stenosis
With stenosis of the pyloric part of the stomach, it is difficult for food to enter the duodenum due to cicatricial narrowing. As a result, the contents processed by gastric juice are delayed and often thrown back into the esophagus. This can happen at different times after meals. And the later from it, the more pronounced the symptom. For example, belching of rotten eggs and nausea with vomiting are common signs of pyloric stenosis.
In the first degree of stenosis, there is belching and discomfort in the abdomen for the first few hours from eating. These signs are less pronounced or almost absent with frequent meals in small portions. With the second degree of stenosis, when food lingers longer in the stomach, along with belching with air and sour,heaviness in the abdomen, discomfort, sometimes nausea and hiccups develop. Vomiting is rare, although it may occur with overeating.
With the third degree of stenosis, the time of food retention in the stomach already leaves 6-8 hours, and during this period of time it may rot. Among complaints, patients often indicate nausea and belching of air with a rotten smell, belching of contents with a putrid taste. There is almost constant repeated vomiting: it develops after each meal after 4-8 hours from eating. In the vomit, processed food with a putrid and sometimes fecal odor. The fourth degree of pyloric stenosis in terms of symptoms is almost the same as the third. Treatment requires surgical intervention, and in the first and often in the second degree to correct fairly frequent fractional meals in small portions.
Dysphagia
Esophageal, or oropharyngeal, dysphagia is a group of swallowing disorders in which it is difficult to pass only solid or any food through the esophagus and pharynx. This develops due to neurological pathologies, for example, after suffering a cerebral infarction with loss of swallowing function. The cause should be stenosis of the esophagus after surgery, a chemical burn, or neoplasm growth.
In all these cases, there is belching of food and nausea, although the latter symptom is rare. As a rule, nausea does not yet have time to develop, as when chewed food enters the esophagus or pharynx, hiccups and vomiting appear. Helps make eating easierdrinking water or grinding food with liquids. It should be swallowed in small portions.
Esophageal dysphagia
With severe stenosis of the esophagus, the patient refuses to eat due to nausea and belching when swallowing. Only a small portion of food, which he will be able to swallow, will reach the stomach and be digested. In this regard, one of the main symptoms is rapid weight loss due to the impossibility of adequate nutrition. Very often, in the presence of a tumor narrowing of the esophagus, blood may be present in the vomit due to mechanical trauma to the neoplasm.
Persistent nausea and belching after eating, associated with the inability to swallow or difficulty in passing food into the stomach, these are the most serious symptoms that cannot be ignored due to the rapid growth of epithelial tumors. This can lead to a situation where a correctly diagnosed disease cannot be treated due to late treatment.
Recommendations
Each of the above symptoms requires attention from the patient first, and then the doctor. And it is especially important to pay attention to them when they are systematically repeated. Vomiting after eating or nausea after eating are symptoms that potentially characterize tumor diseases of the pharynx, esophagus, or stomach. And although they are not basic, it is unacceptable to constantly put up with vomiting and get used to it without knowing its origin. To find out the cause of these symptoms will allow endoscopic examination of the stomach with a biopsy of the mucous membrane. Histhe diagnostic benefit is extremely high, so FEGDS should be performed as early as possible.
