The cause of diarrhea or loose stools can be looked at from four main categories: Continuous diarrhea which is mainly caused by underlying inflammation or infection; Intermittent diarrhea which is usually caused by a food intolerance; Cyclical diarrhea which is most commonly associated with a parasite infection; and alternating diarrhea which means the child has both loose and hard stools which is normally indicative of a chronic constipation issue.  Determining the type of diarrhea can help determine the best course of treatment.

Diarrhea (loose stools) is one of those unfortunate events that happens from time to time and can certainly happen with kids.  You need to determine a couple of things, is it continuous, is it intermittent, is it cyclical or does it alternate between constipation and diarrhea (loose stools)?  Continuous diarrhea (loose stools) most likely is some type of underlying inflammatory problem or chronic infection.  Continuous diarrhea (loose stools) could be indicative of a bacterial infection or a yeast infection.  Classically bacterial infections lead to diarrhea (loose stools) whereas chronic yeast infections over time lead to a constipation problem.  But that is not set in stone, you can get diarrhea (loose stools) from yeast and you can become constipated from bacteria.  However, normally when you are dealing with some form of chronic diarrhea (loose stools), there is some type of underlying inflammatory problem in the digestive system.  If your child has intermittent diarrhea (loose stools), that is often indicative of a food reaction.  There could be a food intolerance, food sensitivity, etc. that is not sitting right.  This is usually pretty easy to look back and assess what food is causing the diarrhea (loose stools).  A cyclical problem with diarrhea (loose stools) many times turns out to be a parasitic infection.  There are certain parasites that have a life cycle that causes diarrhea (loose stools) in a cyclical nature.  For example, if your child has diarrhea (loose stools) for 3 days and that resolves for the next 7 – 10 days and then the diarrhea (loose stools) comes back with the next cycle.  This could be Giardia or Cryptosporidium and a stool sample is definitely warranted to identify the problem.  If there is an alternating diarrhea (loose stools)/constipation problem, many times that can be cause by a stool impaction in the lower intestinal tract.  For many kids it is an underlying constipation problem and when a large bolus of stool is released and a large amount of loose stool is also released at that time as well, it can appear that there is both hard and loose stool.  Sometimes just doing an abdominal x-ray can help determine how much stool is stored up in their lower digestive system.  As a recap, continuous diarrhea (loose stools) is generally some type of inflammatory problem or chronic infection.  Intermittent diarrhea (loose stools) is generally related to some type of food intolerance.  Cyclical diarrhea (loose stools) is usually related to some parasite like Giardia or Cryptosporidium.  And alternating diarrhea (loose stools) and constipation usually is some type of fecal impaction problem and when the stool flushes you get the loose stool from behind that.