Thursday, March 28, 2024

How To Determine If You Have A Stomach Ulcer

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What Happens After Treatment

Signs or symptoms of a gastric or stomach ulcer | How to know you have an ulcer in your stomach?

A repeat gastroscopy is usually advised a few weeks after treatment has finished. This is mainly to check that the ulcer has healed. It is also to be doubly certain that the ‘ulcer’ was not due to stomach cancer. If your ulcer was caused by H. pylori then a test is advised to check that the H. pylori infection has gone. This is done at least four weeks after the course of combination therapy has finished.

Can You Prevent A Peptic Ulcer

While stress and spicy foods can make symptoms of a peptic ulcer worse, they donât seem to make you more likely to have one. But a few other things can raise your chances.

Be careful when you take pain relievers. Some people who have arthritis or other conditions that cause chronic pain take nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for weeks or months at a time to ease pain and swelling. These medicines can affect the mucus that protects your stomach against acid and make you more likely to have peptic ulcers.

These pain relievers include:

You’re more likely to get an ulcer while taking one of these if you:

  • Are over age 65
  • Are infected with H. pylori bacteria
  • Take more than one NSAID at a time
  • Have had a peptic ulcer in the past
  • Also take a steroid drug or selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor

To lower your chances for peptic ulcers while you take NSAIDs:

  • Use the lowest possible dose to control your symptoms, and stop taking them as soon as you no longer need them.
  • Take your medicine with food.
  • Don’t drink alcohol while youâre taking these medicines.

While you’re on NSAIDs, you can take medicine to lower the amount of acid your stomach makes. Drugs that can do that include:

You can also take the drug misoprostol to boost the amount of protective mucus your stomach makes. But that can cause side effects like diarrhea and stomach cramps.

You can do some things to make an infection less likely:

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How Do You Know If You Have A Stomach Ulcer

If you have a stomach ulcer, you may have:

  • Burning/dull pain or gnawing pain in the center of your tummy
  • Pain that worsens between meals
  • Vomiting in the middle of the night

Visit the doctor/gastroenterologist if you

  • Vomit blood that is bright red or dark brown
  • Are passing dark, sticky, tar-like poo
  • Have sudden, sharp pain in your tummy that gets worse steadily
  • These could be the signs of internal bleeding, and this can be fatal.

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How Do You Know If Your Ulcer Is Healed

A pepticulcer can develop on the stomach lining orfirst part of the intestine . A number of treatmentoptions are available to soothe and heal the open sore, and this is usually dependenton the underlying cause. Fortunately, the disease is curable in most cases . The next question, how do youknow if it is healed completely?

Can Peptic Ulcers Be Prevented

How to tell if you have a stomach ulcer THAIPOLICEPLUS.COM

Regular use of NSAIDs can cause gastrointestinal problems and bleeding in some children. Acetaminophen does not cause stomach ulcers and is a good alternative to NSAIDs for most childhood conditions.

Alcohol and smoking can make an ulcer more likely. Help your child avoid coffee, tea, sodas, and foods that contain caffeine, which can increase acid in the stomach and may make an ulcer worse.

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H Pylori Infection Treatment

Patients infected with H. pylori will usually need PPIs and antibiotics. This treatment is effective in most patients, and the ulcer will start to disappear within days. When treatment is over, the individual will have to be tested again to make sure the H. pylori have gone. If necessary, they will undergo another course of different antibiotics.

What Causes A Peptic Ulcer

Causes of peptic ulcers include

Sometimes peptic ulcers are caused by both NSAIDs and H. pylori.

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If Your Ulcer Was Caused By An Anti

If possible, you should stop taking the anti-inflammatory medicine. This allows the ulcer to heal. You will also normally be prescribed an acid-suppressing medicine for several weeks. This stops the stomach from making acid and allows the ulcer to heal. However, in many cases, the anti-inflammatory medicine is needed to ease symptoms of arthritis or other painful conditions, or aspirin is needed to protect against blood clots. In these situations, one option is to take an acid-suppressing medicine each day indefinitely. This reduces the amount of acid made by the stomach and greatly reduces the chance of an ulcer forming again.

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Signs You May Have An Ulcer

Bleeding Ulcer Symptoms And Causes – How To Know If You Have A Bleeding Stomach Ulcer

Did you know that stomach ulcers also called peptic ulcers affect at least 1 in 10 Americans over the course of their lives? And while stomach ulcers can be treated easily when caught early, lack of medical care can lead to serious complications.

Understanding the signs of stomach ulcers is important in helping you get the treatment you need. At Prima Medicine in Fairfax and South Riding, Virginia, our care team has the experience and knowledge to diagnose and treat stomach ulcers. Weve curated this guide to help you recognize the warning signs of an ulcer and understand what you can do about it.

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How Are Ulcers Diagnosed

Your healthcare provider may be able to make the diagnosis just by talking with you about your symptoms. If you develop an ulcer and youre not taking NSAIDs, the cause is likely an H. pylori infection. To confirm the diagnosis, youll need one of these tests:

Endoscopy

If you have severe symptoms, your provider may recommend an upper endoscopy to determine if you have an ulcer. In this procedure, the doctor inserts an endoscope through your throat and into your stomach to look for abnormalities.

H. Pylori tests

Tests for H. pylori are now widely used and your provider will tailor treatment to reduce your symptoms and kill the bacteria. A breath test is the easiest way to discover H. pylori. Your provider can also look for it with a blood or stool test, or by taking a sample during an upper endoscopy.

Imaging tests

Less frequently, imaging tests such as X-rays and CT scans are used to detect ulcers. You have to drink a specific liquid that coats the digestive tract and makes ulcers more visible to the imaging machines.

What Is The Cause Of Peptic Ulcers

When you eat, your stomach produces hydrochloric acid and an enzyme called pepsin to digest the food.

  • The food is partially digested in the stomach and then moves on to the duodenum to continue the process.
  • Peptic ulcers occur when the acid and enzyme overcome the defense mechanisms of the gastrointestinal tract and erode the mucosal wall.

In the past it was thought that ulcers were caused by lifestyle factors such as eating habits, cigarettesmoking, and stress.

  • Now it is understood that people with ulcers have an imbalance between acid and pepsin coupled with the digestive tracts inability to protect itself from these harsh substances.
  • Research done in the 1980s showed that some ulcers are caused by infection with a bacterium named Helicobacter pylori, usually called H pylori.
  • Not everyone who gets an ulcer is infected with H pylori. Aspirin and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs can cause ulcers if taken regularly.

Some types of medical therapy can contribute to ulcer formation. The following factors can weaken the protective mucosal barrier of the stomach increasing the chances of getting an ulcer and slow the healing of existing ulcers.

  • Aspirin, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs , and newer anti-inflammatory medications
  • Alcohol
  • Cigarettesmoking
  • Radiation therapy:-used for diseases such as cancer

People who take aspirin or other anti-inflammatory medications are at an increased risk even if they do not have H pylori infection.

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Signs That You May Have A Stomach Ulcer

A number of symptoms are associated with stomach ulcers, says the website Healthline. The severity of the symptoms depends on the severity of the ulcer. The most common symptom is a burning sensation or pain in the middle of your abdomen between your chest and belly button. Typically, the pain is more intense when your stomach is empty, can last for a few minutes to several hours, and comes and goes for several days, weeks or months.

What Are The Symptoms Of Any Complications

Stomach Ulcer

Stomach ulcers can cause various complications but these are much less common now because of more effective treatments. However, complications can be very serious and include:

Bleeding from the ulcer

  • This can range from a âtrickleâ to a life-threatening bleed.
  • If there is sudden heavy bleeding then this will cause you to vomit blood and make you feel very faint.
  • Less sudden bleeding may cause you to vomit and the vomit looks coffee-coloured because the stomach acid has partly broken down the blood.
  • A more gradual trickle of blood will pass through your gut and cause your stools to look very dark in colour or even black .

PerforationThis is the term used to describe the ulcer having gone all the way through the wall of the stomach. Food and acid in the stomach then leak out of the stomach. This usually causes severe pain and makes you very unwell. Stomach perforation is a medical emergency and needs hospital treatment as soon as possible.

Stomach blockageThis is now rare. An ulcer at the end of the stomach can cause the outlet of the stomach to narrow and cause an obstruction. This can cause frequent severe vomiting.

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How Are Peptic Ulcers Diagnosed

To look for peptic ulcers, doctors may:

  • Order an upper gastrointestinal series. These X-rays of the esophagus, stomach, and duodenum let the doctor get a close look at the gastrointestinal tract. A person drinks a liquid called barium while getting the X-ray. If theres an ulcer, it should be outlined on the X-ray.
  • Do an upper endoscopy . The patient is sedated for this procedure. Then, the doctor puts an a small, flexible tube with a tiny camera on the end down the throat and into the stomach and duodenum. The doctors can see the lining of the esophagus, stomach, and duodenum to check for possible ulcers, inflammation, or food allergies. The doctor also can do tissue tests to check for H. pyloriIf thereâs any sign of inflammation, the doctor will test for H. pylori. This test is important because treatment for ulcers caused by H. pylori differs from treatment for those caused by NSAIDs.

To look for H. pylori, doctors can do:

  • tissue tests during an endoscopy
  • stool tests to look for H. pylori antigens. Testing stool is becoming more common, as some doctors think theyâre more accurate than blood tests.
  • breath tests, which can find carbon broken down by H. pylori after the patient drinks a solution. Breath tests are mostly done in adults.

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How Do Tumors From Zes Cause Peptic Ulcers

Zollinger-Ellison syndrome is a rare disorder that happens when one or more tumors form in your pancreas and duodenum. The tumors release large amounts of gastrin, a hormone that causes your stomach to produce large amounts of acid. The extra acid causes peptic ulcers to form in your duodenum and in the upper intestine.

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How Can I Be Sure Its An Ulcer

The only way to be sure an ulcer is causing your discomfort is with a medical diagnosis. We will evaluate your medical history and conduct a thorough physical examination.

To determine the root cause of your ulcer, we may run blood, stool, or breath tests. These tests are designed to look for signs of helicobacter pylori, the bacteria linked to ulcers.

Depending on your unique symptoms, we may also order an endoscopy. During an endoscopy, we insert a tube with a tiny camera down your throat and into your stomach to take pictures of any potential damage and collect tissue samples for analysis.

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Peptic Ulcers Are Often Symptomless

How do you know if you have a bleeding stomach ulcer ? | Healthy LIFE

About 30 percent of 60 year olds with confirmed peptic ulcer disease have no abdominal pain.24 This means 1 in 3 old people without the slightest hint of the major symptom of peptic ulcers actually have them.

As if it was not already challenging to diagnose what cannot be seen, sometimes individuals suffering from peptic ulcers do not experience any symptoms.

Older people and children are, unfortunately, at a higher risk of belonging to this no-symptoms niche. This increases the likelihood of a delayed diagnosis and grave complications like perforation and internal bleeding.

Another group of individuals who may struggle with identifying peptic ulcers are those who are heavily dependent on NSAIDs. Even though abdominal pain is the most prominent indicator of peptic ulcers, such is not always the case. To our dismay, 1 in 3 people with peptic ulcers dont have any abdominal pain, particularly those popping NSAIDs.252627 This resonates with research findings that NSAIDs mask the symptoms of peptic ulcers.28 It is, thus, advisable to exercise caution if you need to regularly take these painkillers to treat other conditions.

Having no symptoms or weak symptoms, hence, does not rule out the possibility of peptic ulcers.

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What Causes Stomach Ulcers

The two most common causes are:

  • H. pylori infection. This common bacterial infection affects up to half of people worldwide. It primarily lives in the stomach. In many people, it doesnt seem to cause problems. Their gut immune systems keep it in check. But a portion of those infected have H. pylori overgrowth. The bacteria continue to multiply, eating into the stomach lining and causing chronic inflammation and peptic ulcer disease. H. pylori infection is associated with about 60% of duodenal ulcers and 40% of gastric ulcers.
  • Overuse of NSAIDs. NSAID stands for non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug.” These include common over-the-counter pain relief medications such as ibuprofen, naproxen and aspirin. NSAIDs contribute to ulcers in several ways. They irritate the stomach lining on contact and repress some of the chemicals that defend and repair the mucous lining. Up to 30% of people who take NSAIDs regularly develop peptic ulcers. Up to 50% of all peptic ulcers are caused by the overuse of NSAIDs.

Less common causes of stomach ulcers include:

  • Zollinger-Ellison Syndrome. This is a rare condition that causes your stomach to produce too much gastric acid.
  • Severe physiological stress. Severe illness, burns or injuries can produce stress ulcers in the stomach. Physiological stress changes your bodys PH balance, increasing stomach acid. Stress ulcers develop very quickly in response to stress, unlike normal stomach ulcers that develop gradually.

Gallstones Symptoms Vs Stomach Ulcer Symptoms

Gallstones symptoms and stomach ulcer symptoms are sometimes mistaken for one another because of their similar symptoms.

There are 2 primary types of gallstones that may cause gallstones symptoms. One is the cholesterol gallstone, where the stone must be made up of a minimum of 80% cholesterol. Typically, these types of gallstones can vary from 2-3 cm, and they often have a darkish spot in the centre. These gallstones may be more difficult to detect via ultrasound examination, because it often blends in with the bile in your gallbladder.

The second gallstone is known as a pigment stone. This stone is usually darker in colour than the cholesterol gallstone and it is composed of minerals, such as calcium and bilirubin. These stones are easily detected through ultrasound. Sometimes, smaller gallstones might not cause much discomfort, which can cause people to ignore or overlook their symptoms. Larger gallstones may cause gallbladder attacks, which are painful.

Symptoms you might get are: pain on the upper right abdominal area, as well as chest and shoulder pain. The pain you receive might be either a dull ache or a quick sharp jab.

Along with these symptoms, you might experience excessive weight gain, headaches, acid reflux, increased flatulence, dizziness, constipation or diarrhea, and jaundice. These symptoms occur more often after large fatty meals.

Similar to gallstones symptoms, stomach ulcer symptoms can vary and many people might have little or no symptoms at all.

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What Are The Signs Of Stomach Ulcers

If youve developed a stomach ulcer, there are several signs that should alert you to the problem. Here are the main seven signs you should look for:

  • Indigestion. This is the most common sign of a stomach ulcer.
  • Dull burning. You will feel this in your stomach when its empty of food.
  • Bloatedness. You may feel full even when your stomach is empty.
  • Heartburn. If youre experiencing acid reflux frequently, it could be because of an ulcer.
  • Triggered flare-ups. Your symptoms may suddenly flare after eating foods that are high in fat.
  • Nausea. You may notice feeling unwell first thing in the morning or when your stomach is empty
  • Black stools. The dark color could indicate that an ulcer somewhere in your digestive tract is bleeding.
  • As we said earlier, in some cases, you may not have symptoms at all. On the flip side, the severity of your symptoms could put you in the hospital. Severe signs of a peptic ulcer may include:

    • Feeling faint
    • Trouble breathing
    • Vomiting blood

    Any signs of a stomach ulcer should prompt you to take a trip to the doctor. These illnesses, particularly if they are severe, will simply not get better on their own. If left untreated, a stomach ulcer can worsen to the point where it actually breaks through the stomach wall. This is called a perforation and its extremely serious.

    Some of the other complications of an untreated stomach ulcer include:

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