Symptoms and treatment of Whipple disease.
Whipple disease is a rare and chronic bacterial infection, which usually affects the small intestine and makes it difficult to absorb food, causing symptoms such as diarrhea, abdominal pain or weight loss.
- This disease occurs slowly and can also affect other organs of the body and cause joint pain and other rarer symptoms.
- Such as changes in movement and cognitive decline.
- Due to brain failure.
- Chest pain.
- Shortness of breath and palpitations.
- Due to heart involvement.
- For example.
While Whipple disease can be life-threatening as it progresses and gets worse, it can be treated with antibiotics prescribed by your gastroenterologist or family doctor.
The most common symptoms of Whipple disease are related to the gastrointestinal system and include:
Symptoms usually get worse very slowly over time and can last for months or years. As the disease progresses, it can affect other parts of the body and cause other symptoms such as joint pain, cough, fever and enlarged lymph nodes.
However, the most severe form occurs when neurological symptoms appear, such as cognitive changes, eye movements, changes in movement and behavior, seizures and speech difficulties, or when heart symptoms appear, such as chest pain, shortness of breath, and palpitations, due to changes in heart function.
Although your doctor may suspect the disease because of your symptoms and medical history, the diagnosis can only be confirmed by a biopsy of the intestine, usually taken during a colonoscopy, or other affected organs.
Whipple disease is caused by a bacterium, known as Tropheryma whipplei, which causes small lesions within the intestine that hinder the absorption work of minerals and nutrients, resulting in weight loss, in addition, the intestine also cannot adequately absorb fat and water and, as a result, diarrhea is common.
In addition to the intestine, bacteria can spread and reach other organs in the body such as the brain, heart, joints and eyes, for example.
Treatment of Whipple disease is usually initiated with an injectable antibiotic, such as ceftriaxone or penicillin, for 15 days, and then it is necessary to maintain oral antibiotics, such as sulfamethoxazole-trimetoprim, chlorammenicol or doxycycline, for 1 or 2 years, to completely remove bacteria from the body.
Although treatment takes a long time, most symptoms go away 1 to 2 weeks after the start of treatment, however, antibiotic use should be maintained for as long as your doctor tells you to.
In addition to antibiotics, probiotic intake is critical to regulating bowel function and improving nutrient absorption; vitamins and minerals, such as vitamins D, A, K and B, as well as calcium, may also need to be supplemented, for example, as the bacteria make it difficult to absorb food and can lead to malnutrition.
To prevent this infection, it is important to simply drink clean water and wash food thoroughly before preparing them, as the bacteria that cause the disease are usually found in contaminated soil and water.
However, many people have the bacteria in the body, but they never develop the disease.