Transcripts
DR. TARR:
The most common form of
gastrointestinal problems that we're confronted
with involving E. coli infections in general, and
HUS in particular, and I'm not certain that
there's really that much of a difference between
the two is something that resembles irritable
bowel syndrome.
The child comes in complaining
of diffuse abdominal pain or holding the belly
button. There's a rule in pediatrics that the
further you are from your belly button when you
point to where it hurts the more likely you are
to come up with a diagnosis. If a child just
doubles over holding the belly button or holding
the whole abdomen, this can be a very
frustrating problem to evaluate, whether or not
they have E. coli infection.
It is believed, and I will go
into this in a little while, that this is
probably secondary to some abnormal visceral
sensation. And I will show you a graph that
suggests that this might underlie this.
Now, whether or not IBS is
triggered by the infection is hard to know. 15
percent of the population supposedly has
irritable bowel syndrome, if one asks, if one
distributes questionnaires to the general
population. So it's a very common background
problem in the general population.
