At home on vacation, many people’s day is to sleep and eat and sleep and eat and sleep and eat …… However, many people feel as if I have not eaten anything, I have the feeling of eating again. Bloating, as the saying goes, is the feeling that there is too much gas in your stomach. It is arguably one of the most common digestive symptoms (said to squeeze into the top two), and the degree can range from mild discomfort to very severe, even affecting life.
Some patients with diseases such as cirrhotic ascites and intestinal obstruction do have bloating caused by something in their stomach, and usually when this disease is treated, the bloating will get better. Therefore, today we will mainly discuss the problem of chronic bloating caused by functional gastrointestinal diseases such as constipation and irritable bowel syndrome, which bother us more.
What is abdominal bloating?
Bloating is a signal from the brain that the patient feels uncomfortable subjectively, and the focus is on the subjective feeling, not on the real excess gas or water in the stomach. It used to be thought that bloating was directly related to excess gas in the stomach, but in fact many patients with bloating have been examined and no excess gas or ascites was found in the stomach.
In daily medical practice, patients who are prone to bloating, such as those with irritable bowel syndrome, often have certain emotional or mental problems. So, sometimes doctors will tell patients that they don’t need medication and that they will be fine if they go home and adjust their mood properly.
Why does bloating occur?
Unfortunately, doctors have not yet figured out why these patients feel bloated even though their stomachs seem to be fine. Briefly, the following are the most likely causes.
1. Intestinal hypersensitivity
This is a theory that many doctors agree on regarding functional gastrointestinal disease. Simply put, the intestinal nerves of these patients are more delicate, so for most people lighter or normal stimuli can make them feel bloated, abdominal pain and other stomach discomfort.
2, increased gas-producing bacteria
Our digestive tract is not actually clean, there are millions of bacteria colonizing it. Yes! Some people think it is these bacteria that are responsible, so they used some experimental methods to examine the stools and intestinal mucosa of patients with functional gastrointestinal disease and healthy people.
The results did reveal that some people with functional gastrointestinal disease who were plagued by abdominal pain, bloating and other problems had an increased number of gas-producing bacteria, and they are likely to be a significant cause of these symptoms.
3.Brain misjudgment
A brain that has problems may also cause distress from bloating. Bloating is, after all, a subjective feeling, and this feeling is ultimately derived by the brain. It is not difficult to explain why many patients with chronic bloating may be accompanied by mild mental disorders.
There is also a nervous system in the gastrointestinal tract, and it has some similarities to our brain. It is also now collectively referred to as the gut brain, and a great deal of research has been conducted.
4.Other
In addition, chronic bloating can be caused by gastrointestinal motility, food intolerance, sugar malabsorption syndrome and chronic constipation.
What should I do if I am bloated all the time?
The following are some simple and practical suggestions.
1.Regulate your mood
Stressful life and work, anxiety, depression and other mental disorders are important causes of functional gastrointestinal disease, so for most patients with bloating, you can regulate your mood and relieve stress by exercising, traveling, thinking more about doing something happy, etc., and you can also divert your attention.
However, if through their own efforts, they still can not get out of anxiety and depression, then they should seek help from a professional psychiatrist or psychologist as soon as possible.
2.Eat the right things
A large proportion of people with bloating have disorders or changes in the intestinal microecology. Excess gas is produced in the stomach and all the gas accumulates in the intestines, and it causes bloating. Therefore, you can eat more fresh fruits and vegetables, such as less apples, mangoes, cherries, honey, leeks, etc., and foods with more short-chain carbohydrates that are difficult to absorb, which can potentially aggravate bloating.
Like some people who drink soy milk and milk will keep farting and feel bloated once they eat sweet potatoes, they can completely blacklist all these foods.
3, appropriate use of drugs
There have been many studies that have confirmed that antibiotics, probiotics, motivational drugs and even anti-anxiety depressants can help improve functional disorders that cause bloating, abdominal pain and diarrhea. However, some experts consider this to be a placebo effect.
However, it is still generally believed that probiotics are useful in regulating the balance of intestinal flora, and prokinetic drugs can accelerate the peristalsis of the gastrointestinal tract, which is also effective for bloating caused by functional gastrointestinal disorders or constipation.
Therefore, some medications can be used appropriately to assist in the treatment. However, all medications are recommended to be taken under the guidance of a doctor, and should never be purchased on your own, especially antibiotics and anti-anxiety medications. If used improperly, they may cause unwanted side effects.
4, seek medical help
If you have tried lifestyle changes, multiple medications, but still suffer from bloating, then you should consult with a gastroenterologist to see if other treatments are needed. Because, still, there are other gastrointestinal diseases such as gastritis, inflammatory bowel disease, tumors, etc. that may cause this symptom, and these require other specialized treatments.