Most cases of diarrhea resolve on their own within two to three days, and the single most important thing you can do is replace the fluids you’re losing. Beyond that, a few targeted strategies with food, drinks, and over-the-counter options can shorten your discomfort and help you feel functional again faster.
Start With Fluids, Not Food
Diarrhea pulls water and electrolytes out of your body quickly. Dehydration is the real danger, especially for young children and older adults. Your first priority is drinking enough to keep up with what you’re losing.
Water alone isn’t ideal because it doesn’t replace the sodium and potassium leaving your body with each loose stool. Oral rehydration solutions (sold as Pedialyte or store-brand equivalents) are the gold standard. Broth-based soups, diluted fruit juice, and coconut water also work well. Sports drinks contain sugar that can pull more water into the gut, so dilute them by half if that’s all you have on hand.
Sip steadily rather than gulping large amounts at once, which can trigger nausea. A good rule of thumb: check your urine color. Pale yellow means you’re keeping up. Medium to dark yellow means you need two to three glasses of water right away. If your urine is very dark, concentrated, and small in volume, you’re significantly dehydrated and need to drink aggressively.
What to Eat (and What to Skip)
You’ve probably heard of the BRAT diet: bananas, rice, applesauce, and toast. It’s fine for the first day or two, but there’s no need to limit yourself to just those four foods. Brothy soups, oatmeal, boiled potatoes, crackers, and unsweetened dry cereals are equally easy on your stomach. Once things start to settle, gradually add more nutritious foods back in. Staying on an overly restrictive diet for too long can actually slow your recovery by depriving your body of the calories and nutrients it needs to heal.
What you avoid matters just as much as what you eat. Dairy products, greasy or fried foods, and high-fiber vegetables can all make things worse while your gut is inflamed. Less obvious culprits include sugar-free gum and candy, which contain sugar alcohols like sorbitol and xylitol that are proven to cause diarrhea even in healthy people. Soft drinks and processed snacks sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup can also aggravate loose stools. Alcohol and caffeine both speed up your gut and increase fluid loss, so set them aside until you’re back to normal.
Over-the-Counter Medications That Help
Two types of OTC medication are widely available. Loperamide (sold as Imodium A-D) slows the movement of your intestines, giving your body more time to absorb water from stool. The maximum OTC dose for adults is 8 mg per day. It works well for watery, non-bloody diarrhea, but you should avoid it if you have a high fever or blood in your stool, since in those cases your body may be trying to flush out a bacterial infection.
Bismuth subsalicylate (the active ingredient in Pepto-Bismol) takes a different approach. It reduces the flow of fluids into the bowel, calms intestinal inflammation, and can even kill some of the organisms causing the problem. It’s a good choice for milder symptoms, traveler’s diarrhea, and general stomach upset. One important caution: bismuth subsalicylate contains a compound related to aspirin. Children and teenagers under 16 should not take it because of the risk of Reye’s syndrome, a rare but serious condition that can cause brain and liver damage when aspirin-type compounds are given during a viral illness.
The Case for Probiotics
Probiotics won’t stop diarrhea in its tracks, but they can shave time off how long it lasts. A meta-analysis of 14 trials involving over 1,700 participants found that people taking probiotics had diarrhea for roughly 23 hours less than those who didn’t. The group taking probiotics was also 30% less likely to still have diarrhea after 48 hours. That’s roughly one day of misery you could skip.
The strains with the most evidence behind them include various species of Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium, as well as the yeast Saccharomyces boulardii. You can find these in capsule or powder form at most pharmacies. Look for products that list specific strain names on the label rather than just “probiotic blend.” Yogurt with live active cultures is another option, though the concentrations are lower than what’s used in clinical trials.
How to Tell What’s Causing It
Understanding the cause helps you decide how aggressively to treat it. Viral gastroenteritis (the common stomach bug) is by far the most frequent culprit. It typically comes with watery stool, nausea, and sometimes vomiting, and resolves within one to three days. Bacterial infections from contaminated food or water tend to hit harder, with high fever and bloody diarrhea being more common.
Other common triggers include food intolerances (especially lactose), medications like antibiotics that disrupt gut bacteria, and stress. If your diarrhea follows a clear pattern, like appearing every time you eat dairy or take a specific medication, the cause is likely straightforward and the fix is avoiding the trigger.
Caring for Children With Diarrhea
Kids dehydrate faster than adults because of their smaller body size. For infants and toddlers, oral rehydration solutions are essential. Continue breastfeeding or formula feeding as normal, since stopping feeds doesn’t help and can make dehydration worse. Offer small, frequent sips of rehydration fluid between feedings.
Avoid giving children loperamide unless a pediatrician specifically recommends it, and never give bismuth subsalicylate to anyone under 16. For older kids who can eat solid food, the same gentle-food approach works: rice, bananas, toast, broth, and crackers, then expanding back to a normal diet as symptoms improve.
Watch closely for signs of dehydration: no wet diaper in three or more hours, a sunken appearance around the eyes or cheeks, unusual sleepiness or irritability, and skin that stays “tented” when you gently pinch and release it. If diarrhea hasn’t improved within 24 hours in a child, that warrants a call to the doctor.
Warning Signs That Need Medical Attention
For adults, diarrhea that persists beyond two days without any improvement is worth getting checked out. Other red flags include a fever above 102°F (39°C), blood or black color in your stool, severe abdominal or rectal pain, and signs of dehydration like excessive thirst, very dark urine, dizziness, or little to no urination. More than 10 bowel movements a day, or fluid losses that clearly outpace what you can drink, also qualify as severe.
For children, the thresholds are lower. A fever over 102°F, bloody or black stools, signs of dehydration, or a child who seems unusually drowsy or unresponsive all call for prompt medical evaluation.