Had Orange Stools With Bout With Diarrhea. Reason?

Posted on Tue, 5 Nov 2013

Question: I have had orange stool twice both times accompanied by a bout with diarrhea. What is the reason? Like I said it has only happened 2 times in the last month. Second time the diarrhea only lasted a day,

Answered by Dr. Grzegorz Stanko (58 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
Bacterial infection.

Detailed Answer:
Hello!

Thank you for the query.

Stool is always orange in the begginning. During the passage intestinal bacteria digest bile in the stool what makes it green and than brown.
In case of accelerated stool passage bacteria wont have enough time to digest it so the stool is orange.
So orange stool can be a symptoms of accelerated stool passage due to bacterial or viral infection or it can due to lack of good intestinal bacteria.

I suggest you to have stool test and stool culture test first. In case of an infection, please try Rifaximine treatment. If there will be any blood in the stool, colonoscopy should be done.
You should also start probiotic supplementation.

Hope this will help. Feel free to ask further questions.
Regards.

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar