On duty in the digestive ward, because there are too many [forbidden] patients who cannot eat and drink, the most common problem encountered is [doctor, when can I eat].
It’s really a bit miserable not to eat or drink. It’s hard for anyone not to eat anything for several days.
Now I will explain for the vast number of doctors why patients are tortured by not eating or drinking.
Why don’t you eat or drink?
There are several situations where one cannot eat or drink.
1. Fasting examination
This is the most common reason for banning diet. The time is relatively short. Generally, it is only necessary not to eat or drink after 10 pm.
Newly admitted patients need blood tests. Indicators such as liver function and biochemistry should be carried out on an empty stomach.
Enhanced CT requires intravenous injection of developer. In order to prevent some people from reacting to developer, vomiting, asphyxia, etc., some hospitals also require enhanced CT examination on an empty stomach.
Ordinary gastrointestinal endoscopy usually starts to check 5 ~ 6 hours of fasting. That is to say, if you do ordinary gastroscopy early the next morning, you will not eat or drink after dinner. If you start doing it in the afternoon, you will not eat lunch after eating breakfast normally.
Painless gastroscopy and colonoscopy require anesthesia, and water should be banned for at least 4 hours. If you eat and drink water within a short period of time before and after anesthesia, aspiration will easily occur, leading to danger.
2. Surgical or minimally invasive surgery
Gastrointestinal surgery before and after also need to ban diet, diet before emptying intestinal tract, after the operation is allowed to eat after the start of exhaust. Therefore, after the operation, the doctor will see the patient will ask [farting ah], just want to know whether the patient can eat.
Like some gastrointestinal polyps removed by endoscope, [minimally invasive surgery] for early tumors, the time of diet ban should be determined according to the specific time, and the long time can reach 72 hours or even longer.
In short, patients undergoing surgery must follow the doctor’s advice when they eat or not, what and what.
3. Acute pancreatitis
Patients with acute pancreatitis should be the representatives who have been forbidden for the longest time.
For patients with pancreatitis, eating and drinking water may promote the secretion of pancreas and aggravate the condition of pancreatitis. Therefore, it is necessary to strictly ban diet at the initial stage of the disease, and only intravenous infusion can maintain the supply of nutrition and water.
For severe acute severe pancreatitis, The ban can sometimes last as long as four weeks, In order to prevent the degradation of intestinal digestion and absorption function, enteral nutrition is usually carried out when the condition improves. One tube is placed through the nose and the other end is placed under the pancreatic secretion outlet. Food enters the intestinal tract from this tube. As food does not pass through the stomach and pancreatic secretion outlet, the impact on pancreas is relatively small.
4. Vomiting blood, hematochezia
Hematemesis, hematochezia and other gastrointestinal bleeding is a very dangerous disease. Patients who suffer from bleeding also need to be forbidden to eat. When doctors say they can eat, they can eat and drink. If you eat without authorization, it is likely to lead to aggravation of bleeding or rebleeding.
What about nutrition if you don’t eat or drink?
In order to ensure the physiological needs of the body, doctors will take other methods to supplement energy to patients.
- Patients who forbid diet for a short period of time will generally supplement enough water and glucose to ensure sufficient energy and water supply. For a long period of time, the ban on diet requires infusion according to the proportion of calories, water and nutrient elements needed by the human body every day. Prohibition of diet for a longer period of time also requires enteral nutrition to prevent the degeneration of intestinal function.
Restore your diet and take your time.
When resuming diet, don’t compensate yourself immediately and let go of eating, especially for patients who have been in a state of [no diet] for a long time.
At first, it can slowly transition from liquid diet (rice soup, gruel) to semi-liquid diet (pasty food), and finally gradually transition to normal diet.
Don’t feel that you have been hungry for a long time and have to make up for it. You wish you could make up for a full Manchu and Han banquet. This will easily increase the burden on your gastrointestinal tract and lead a [no diet] life again.
With the deepening of people’s understanding of medicine, the usage of the ban on diet has also changed, and doctors are also making continuous efforts to shorten the time when people cannot eat and drink.
Attention should be paid to the fact that doctors say that they cannot eat or drink water, that is, everything except drugs must not enter their mouths. To say that one cannot eat means that one cannot eat biscuits, fruits or ice cream. If you can’t drink water, you can’t drink milk, juice or coffee. Be obedient!
Don’t think that not being able to eat and drink is the doctor’s [torture] any more. Although it is difficult, it is really beneficial to the recovery of the disease.