Treatment for the dumping syndrome includes lifestyle changes, medications and in severe cases need surgery.
Dumping syndrome lifestyle and home remedies
Here are some simple lifestyle changes to minimize your symptoms at the same time helps maintain good nutrition.
- Eat small frequent meals - try break down three larger meals into six smaller meals a day.
- Avoid taking fluids along with meals - drink liquids only between meals and avoid taking it half an hour before and after meals.
- Modify your diet - consume foods low in carbohydrates and rich in proteins, such as grains, starchy vegetables and fruits. Avoid foods with sugar (or glucose, sucrose, fructose, dextrose, honey and corn syrup). A small serving of about one-half-cup of milk, cheese or yogurt is generally tolerable for many people.
- Chewing food properly – helps ease digestion.
- Increase fiber intake - Psyllium, guar gum and pectin in food or as supplements can help slow down the absorption of carbohydrates in the small intestine. Pectin is available in various fruits, such as peaches, apples and plums.
- Avoid alcohol – it may disturb the usual digestion and may aggravate your symptoms.
- Add vitamins, iron and calcium supplements - sometimes people with damping syndrome may deplete following stomach surgery. Thus adding this as supplement helps to avoid malnutrition.
- Lie down immediately after eating - may slow the digestion as well as dumping into your intestines.
Most cases of dumping syndrome improve with better eat habits for the condition once the digestive system adjusts. There is a good chance that lifestyle changes will resolve your symptoms. If it does not, then you may need medications or surgery to address the problem.
Dumping syndrome medication
Once your dumping syndrome lifestyle changes failed to produce the expected results, then you need medications or surgery to manage the problem effectively.
There are certain medications to slow down the food passage out of the stomach, which helps to provide relief the symptoms associated with dumping syndrome.
The medications often used for the dumping syndrome are:
- Acarbose (Precose) – is a type 2 diabetes medication. This medication delays the digestion of carbohydrates, thus may help to relief your dumping symptoms. Some common side effects of acarbose are sweating, headaches, sudden hunger and weakness.
- Octreotide (Sandostatin) – is an anti-diarrhea medication helps to slow down the emptying of stomach contents into the small intestine. You have to take this as an injection under your skin (subcutaneously). Get trained for the proper way to self-administer this medication, including optimal sites for injection. Some common side effects of octreotide are diarrhea, bulky stools, gallstones, flatulence, bloating. Thus, consider this medication only if all other options failed to produce expected results.
Dumping syndrome surgery
If lifestyle and medication for the dumping syndrome are not producing required relief, then there are numerous surgical procedures available to treat the dumping syndrome. Most of these surgeries are reconstruction procedure, such as reconstruction of the pylorus or reversing gastric bypass surgery.
Feeding tube
As a last resort for people who has not relived by any other dumping syndrome treatment, has to go for feeding tube A feeding tube is inserting a tube into the small intestine through which ingests nutrients.