Health Tips and Tricks

The term acute abdomen describes a syndrome of sudden abdominal pain with accompanying symptoms and signs that focus attention on the abdominal region. It is clinically useful to limit discussion to cases in which the pain has been present for less than 24 hours. Associated symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, constipation, diarrhea, anorexia, abdominal distention, and fever often are present and sometimes are confusing. Although operative therapy is not required for all cases of acute abdomen, unwarranted operative delay can have serious, potentially fatal consequences. Successful management is based on a careful initial assessment that incorporates history taking and physical examination; delineation of clinical priorities; and concurrent resuscitation, diagnosis, and therapy.
Treatment of patients with acute abdominal processes differs in a fundamental way from care delivered to patients with long-term problems. The potential for pathologic processes to be rapidly progressive and for

Occult gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding is by definition bleeding not apparent at inspection of the stools. As with overt GI bleeding, occult bleeding may be acute or chronic, intermittent, or continuous. There are many causes of occult bleeding. The site of bleeding may be at any anatomic level between the oropharynx and the anus. Occult bleeding often results from trivial pathologic conditions, but it can be a vital pointer to the presence of a health-threatening lesion. In practice then, the cause should be actively sought. A conservative, expectant approach is justified only when a serious pathologic condition has been excluded.
Iron deficiency is the most common cause of anemia worldwide. It often results from chronic GI blood loss,

Gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding is a common clinical problem that requires more than 300,000 hospitalizations annually in the United States. Most bleeding episodes resolve spontaneously; however, patients with severe and persistent bleeding have high mortality rates. Evaluation of a patient with bleeding begins with assessment of the urgency of the situation. Resuscitation with intravenous fluids and blood products is the first consideration. Once the patient’s condition is stable, a brief history and physical examination help determine the location of the bleeding. For probable or known upper GI bleeding, a nasogastric tube is placed to help determine the location of bleeding and to monitor the rapidity of the bleeding. The following algorithm is a general guideline for evaluation of nonvar-iceal upper GI bleeding.
 Patients with liver disease or other causes of portal hypertension have a potential variceal source of