Digestive symptoms

Take small, frequent sips of fluid if you feel sick. Oral rehydration solutions replace fluid and salts lost through vomiting or diarrhoea; a pharmacist can advise you. Sports drinks are not a substitute. If you have a prescribed fluid restriction, seek individual advice.

Eat small amounts of food you can tolerate as you feel able. Rest, avoid alcohol, and wash hands carefully with soap and water. If an infection may be causing symptoms, avoid preparing food for others while unwell.

Symptom-relief medicines are not suitable for every cause. Do not use medicines to stop diarrhoea when you have fever or blood in your stool; seek assessment. Most gastroenteritis does not need antibiotics. Ongoing vomiting or inability to keep fluids down needs medical care rather than more home treatment.

Try smaller meals and avoid lying down soon after eating. Notice which foods or drinks repeatedly worsen your symptoms rather than avoiding everything on a generic list.

Treatment can aim to neutralise stomach acid or reduce how much acid your stomach makes. A pharmacist or GP can help choose an approach and agree how long to try it before reviewing the response. Frequent symptoms, difficulty swallowing or symptoms continuing despite treatment need review. Do not keep treating unexplained chest pain as indigestion.

Regular fluids, physical activity and fibre-containing foods can help constipation. Increase fibre gradually to reduce bloating, and make time to use the toilet when you feel the urge.

If these measures are not enough, a pharmacist or GP can advise on treatment to soften stools or help them pass. Bloating may also improve when the underlying cause is treated; adding more fibre is not the answer for everyone.

Bloating is a feeling of fullness or swelling, sometimes with excess wind. Eating slowly and reducing fizzy drinks or chewing gum may help if swallowed air contributes. Notice repeated food patterns without cutting out whole food groups. Persistent bloating or feeling full unusually quickly deserves GP review, especially with appetite or weight changes.

Pain with vomiting, marked swelling or inability to pass stool or gas needs urgent assessment. Do not try to manage possible bowel obstruction with extra fibre or constipation treatment.

A brief record of symptoms, meals and medicine changes can help identify patterns. Avoid removing several food groups on your own. A GP or dietitian can help plan a targeted change and check that your diet stays nutritionally adequate.

If coeliac disease is being considered, speak with your GP before starting a gluten-free diet because it can affect test accuracy. If you already avoid gluten, explain this rather than restarting it without advice.

Review new or changed medicines and supplements with your GP or pharmacist. Do not stop regular prescribed treatment on your own, and check before adding products for pain or digestive symptoms.

• Collapse, fainting with abdominal pain or bleeding, confusion, trouble breathing or heavy bleeding.
• Unexplained chest pain, especially with sweating, breathlessness or pain spreading to the arm, jaw or back. Do not assume it is heartburn.
• Yellow skin or eyes with sudden fever, confusion or intense abdominal pain.

Call 000 if you are very unwell, the pain is severe or you cannot travel safely.

• Severe abdominal pain; blood or coffee-ground material in vomit; green vomit or vomit that looks or smells like faeces.
• Black, tar-like or dark-red stools, or substantial blood in a bowel motion. Bleeding with faintness or collapse needs 000.
• Vomiting together with rectal bleeding or bloody diarrhoea, even if the amount of blood seems small.
• Abdominal pain with inability to pass stool or gas, especially with vomiting or a swollen abdomen. This can indicate bowel obstruction, which needs hospital care. Do not eat or drink while awaiting emergency assessment for these obstruction signs.
• Severe dehydration, including confusion, extreme weakness or very little urine with worsening illness.
• Possible pregnancy with severe abdominal pain or shoulder-tip pain, particularly with bleeding or faintness. Use 000 for collapse, heavy bleeding or severe illness.

Contact a local doctor or urgent-care service now. Go to an emergency department if timely assessment is unavailable or you are getting worse.

• Pain that is worsening, lasts several hours, wakes you from sleep, or comes with fever, persistent vomiting or marked abdominal swelling.
• Repeated vomiting, inability to keep fluids down, or dehydration signs such as much less urine, dry mouth and dizziness. Vomiting that continues beyond 48 hours also needs assessment, sooner if you are unwell. Older people and those with major health conditions can deteriorate sooner.
• New yellowing of the skin or whites of the eyes (jaundice), even without severe pain.
• New abdominal pain or concerning vomiting during pregnancy: contact your maternity team or local doctor. Use emergency care for the signs above.

A small amount of fresh blood in the stool without the emergency signs above still needs checking, even if you suspect haemorrhoids. Unexplained weight loss, ongoing appetite loss, difficulty swallowing or persistent bowel changes also need review. These do not all require an ambulance, but should not be dismissed or repeatedly self-treated.