Cures for Dysentery

Whether it manifests itself with excessive vomiting or passage of stool or draining of body fluids, dysentery is caused by certain parasites that enter the body and feed on the healthy tissues of the digestive tract, affecting the patient's health. The best treatments for dysentery would involve cleansing the body of the illness-causing bacteria and other impure substances.

Dietary Treatments

• Drink only buttermilk or orange juice for the first half of the week, take as much warm water enema as you can withstand. After these first three or four days, you can start taking some rice; plain curd; fresh fruits that are ripe, like pomegranate, bael, banana; and orange along with milk. For the next progression into solid foods, have a little honey and tepid water at the beginning of the day, and whole wheat products like tortillas and roti for the midday meal. Have lime juice, carrot juice, water of the tender coconut throughout the day. For dinner make sure to have fresh greens, soups and sprouts. Remember to avoid complex foods like meat, caffeinated drinks like coffee and tea, sugar, flour and refined wheat products and fried snacks.

  Any fruit rich in riboflavin such as the bael fruit, which is also a mild astringent, proves effective components for the treatment of chronic or acute dysentery. According to time-tested folk remedies, bael pulp and jaggery could be taken three times every day for a cooling effect on the stomach. A water mixture of the pulp of fire-roasted, unripe bael happens to be good for chronic dysentery patients. A mixture of the pulp of the same fruit and similar amount of dry ginger has been known to prove beneficial if taken with buttermilk. Take a few lemons, remove their peels and cut into slices. The fluid from the boiled and strained components could be consumed a few times daily for dysentery relief. Pomegranate rind and milk, boiled so that one third of the milk evaporates, could be made into a mixture and consumed too. Tiny castor oil doses as an emulsion help to lubricate and remove impurities inside the digestive tract, thereby reducing straining during passing of stool. As part of the traditional cure of dysentery, the patient would also benefit from slowly chewing on the sugar and leaves of the coriander plant, and a mixture of small onion pieces and curd blended with equal amount of young leaves of the peepal tree.

Home Remedies

• Apply a cool, moist pack on the abdomen for an hour every day. In case your stomach aches, apply hot fomentation to the abdominal area. For instant relief and for long-term benefits, practice correct methods of abdominal breathing along with performance of yoga postures such as shalabhasana, pawanmuktasana and shavasana.

Medication and Drugs

• Amoebic dysentery might require antibiotics, nitroimidazole and diloxanide drugs for proper treatment. In extreme dehydration and dysentery, hospital treatment would involve the administration of intravenous fluids and bismuth subsalicylate.