Dyspepsia: Causes, Symptoms and Treatment

Many people go to the doctor every day with complaints such as nausea, heartburn, belching, heaviness in the epigastric region, bloating or flatulence. Especially there are many such complaints in spring and autumn, when there is an exacerbation of gastrointestinal diseases. All these complaints are united by one medical term – dyspepsia. 80% of people have persistent symptoms of dyspepsia for a short time (1-2 days), but many of them go away without treatment. But, some of them can be a manifestation of a serious illness.

Dyspepsia concept

Dyspepsia is a collection of symptoms that are caused by indigestion. These symptoms sometimes appear separately, but they can also appear together. Dyspepsia combines 6 symptoms:

• Nausea. Nausea is a heavy feeling in the epigastric region and pharynx that precedes vomiting;

• Heartburn. Heartburn is a burning sensation in the epigastric region and behind the breastbone that spreads upward;

• Belching. It is often observed in anxious people, the cause of belching is aerophagia. Aerophagia occurs in people who eat food quickly;

• Unpleasant feeling in the stomach;

• Heaviness and feeling of fullness in the epigastrium ;

• Flatulence. Flatulence is an unpleasant feeling of bloating in the abdomen, which appears as a result of increased gas production.

Diagnostics, reasons

There are various diseases that are accompanied by symptoms of dyspepsia. The main task of the doctor is to diagnose and treat the underlying disease that causes dyspepsia in time. The main cause of dyspepsia is diseases of the esophagus, stomach and intestines.

1. Nonulcer dyspepsia. It is similar to the existing complaints of peptic ulcer disease, but the ulcer is absent on X-ray and endoscopy.

2. Reflux esophagitis. With this disease, the esophagus suffers, the contents of the stomach are thrown into the esophagus and this causes heartburn in a person.

3. Violation of esophageal motility.

4. Ulcer of the stomach and duodenum.

5. Neoplasms of the esophagus, stomach and duodenum.

6. Diseases of the liver and biliary tract. Diseases such as hepatitis, gallstone disease can cause dyspepsia.

7. Pancreatitis.

8. Inflammatory diseases of the upper gastrointestinal tract. Dyspepsia can occur with gastritis, giardiasis, and Crohn’s disease.

9. Irritable bowel syndrome.

10. Ischemic heart disease. In very many cases, patients, when describing pain behind the sternum, describe it as heartburn. Therefore, first of all, it is necessary to exclude myocardial infarction and angina pectoris.

11. Drinking alcohol.

12. Excitement, anxiety.

13. Depression.

14. Side effects of medicines. The following drugs most often cause dyspepsia: aspirin, corticosteroids, narcotic analgesics, NSAIDs, theophylline, tetracycline, M- anticholinergics , antidepressants, cardiac glycosides, nicotine.

Survey

In order to accurately determine the diagnosis, you need to ask the patient well, collect anamnesis, find out when and where, the nature, what helps, what strengthens, what weakens others. In addition, special examinations are carried out: complete blood count, ESR, occult blood feces, ECG, ultrasound of the gallbladder and pancreas, CT of the abdominal cavity, esophagogastroduodenoscopy and contrast X-ray of the esophagus and stomach.

Treatment

If dyspepsia is a symptom of any gastrointestinal disease, you must first treat the underlying disease, then the symptoms disappear. In some people, dyspepsia is cured by the usual adherence to a sparing diet, simply by eliminating fatty, fried, and spicy foods from the diet.

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