Can Dialysis Patients with Diarrhea Eat Banana

My mother has been on dialysis for 2 and half years and recently she suffers from severe diarrhea. The diarrhea just comes without any warning and the antidiarrheal drugs can not help. We can not figure out the cause of her diarrhea and please help us!

Diarrhea or constipation are very common among dialysis patients and many patients become so upset and they want to know what is the cause of diarrhea so that they can know how to prevent and treat diarrhea when it occurs.

As for the causes of diarrhea, there are many causes including irritable bowel syndrome, infectious disease, bacteria infection, inflammatory bowel disease, colon cancer, severe constipation, sugar malabsorption, fat malabsorption, endocrine diseases, laxative abuse, etc. Though diarrhea may seems not directly related with diarrhea, it has something to do with the dialysis. Metabolic disorders of sugar, fat, proteins, gastrointestinal and digestive disorders, various bacteria and inflammatory infections, therefore it is very necessary to have a thorough checks to find out what is the underlying cause of diarrhea so as to have more effective and targeted treatments and measures.

It has been found that banana can help ease diarrhea, therefore some patients will ask use whether dialysis patients with diarrhea have banana. Actually for those that have begun dialysis treatment, banana and other high-potassium foods should be avoided because the severely impaired kidneys can not function well to remove excessive potassium efficiently from the blood. Too much potassium buildup in the blood can be very dangerous to the patients or even threaten their life, therefore potassium intake should be limited to dialysis patients for reducing difficulty to the following dialysis and for the sake of the patient’s safety.

Besides banana, there are many other food choices that can help ease diarrhea for dialysis patients. More cautions should be made while choosing any foods for dialysis patients.

What is more, when the underlying cause of diarrhea is found out, effective medications and treatments can be sought so that diet therapy can be just used as adjuvant therapy.