Stomach ulcer advise

[mylo_chan 10]

hi all

 

i went to a&e at northern general on tuesday due to agonising stomach pains and i was fobbed off and was told it was just inflammation in the stomach. so then i went to work the next day but had to go a&e at lunch and was told i had stomach ulcer.

 

its a really bad constant pain. i now have prescription drugs for it but its just getting more and more painful.

 

has anyone had a stomach ulcer before? how long does it take to heal? shal i go see a doctor again? iv read a lot about it and im worried it could be bleeding on the inside.

 

thanks

[Total Chaos 10]

I thought they where permanent and dont take Aspirin

[medusa 16]

Stomach ulcers are not permanent. They used to be thought of as permanent before their cause was discovered.

 

Ulcers are caused by a bacterial infection with a bacterium called Helicobacter pylori. The infection causes pain and also causes the stomach to overproduce stomach acid, leading to really quite severe indigestion and dyspepsia.

 

Old treatments for ulcers were centred around reducing the foods that make the symptoms worse and other things which don't actually treat the ulcer, but since the discovery of the causes, the usual treatment is now a course of antibiotics to eradicate the bacteria (which lasts a couple of weeks) alongside a course of pills which reduce the amount of acid produced and that can last for a month or two until your natural production has reduced because of the bacteria being removed.

 

If you haven't had a test for H pylori at A&E then please attend your own GP for a test to be done, because an ulcer can produce very similar symptoms to things like a hiatus hernia, which is treated completely differently.

[Chumley 10]

I thought they where permanent and dont take Aspirin

 

Avoid all non-steroidal anti-imflammatories (eg aspirin, ibuprofen, nurofen, diclofenac etc etc).

 

Presumably they gave you an advice leaflet?

[GrapeApe 10]

hi all

 

i went to a&e at northern general on tuesday due to agonising stomach pains and i was fobbed off and was told it was just inflammation in the stomach. so then i went to work the next day but had to go a&e at lunch and was told i had stomach ulcer.

 

its a really bad constant pain. i now have prescription drugs for it but its just getting more and more painful.

 

has anyone had a stomach ulcer before? how long does it take to heal? shal i go see a doctor again? iv read a lot about it and im worried it could be bleeding on the inside.

 

thanks

 

Seriously, don't ask for medical advice on an internet forum. Ask your doctor.

[maccapacca 10]

Not really an A&E problem. You need to see your GP. The A&E doctors focus would have been quite rightly to ascertain whether you had a condition requiring immediate treatment, and or admission. It appears you had neither. Investigation and treatment of ulcers will be done by your GP.

[telman 10]

Medusa is entirely correct, you take 3 different types of antibiotics a day for i think 2 weeks with bismuth in between the tablets. It will get cure the ulcer. A lot of GP's

don't bother with a test if you have diagnosed by the hospital and put you straight on the antibiotics.

[jonnythefox 26]

Ihad the test about 10 yrs ago found i had an ulcer took a 2 wks course of strong antibiotics and not had a problem since. If you like a beer you are not allowed any while taking the course of tablets,i was told even the smallest amount of alchohol and they wont work, a small price to pay to get rid of the pain of a stomach ulcer.

[vwcrazed 10]

Seriously, don't ask for medical advice on an internet forum. Ask your doctor.

 

Take this advice, no need for anything else.

[angel 68 10]

I had a ulcer which was bleeding my symptoms began before i was diagnosed

like feeling realy unwell for a few minutes this was due the internal bleeding leading to loss in blood pressure ..the thing what made me see my gp was when my stools turned black and i mean black...this was caused by the the blood in my stomach reacting with the acid in my stomach...i was sent to hospital for 3 days were i had a camera inserted into my stomach through my mouth to confirm the gp's diagnosis...then put onto a drip for 3 days...i had been taking asprin for a while and was taken of them.....sorry for the graphic detail but this was my experiance with a bleeding ulcer.

[willybite 10]

Take this advice, no need for anything else.

 

hiya i had an ulcer some36 years ago and like you i listened to all the help for thepain from peppermint and all the other cures my pain was sso bad i would be sick but all i brought up was like water, at the hospita i had a barium meal test and w1as told that i had an ulcer and the medicatio i had was called tab tagamet this is not prescribed now i had a course then a few months later another one i have been free from pain for 35 years

when i asked how big it was the doctor said it was really small

Edited May 17, 2012 by willybite

[Teddybare 10]

The breath test for h.pylori is rubbish. "Around 60% efficacy". So even if you get a negative result, you may still have it. Also, a positive result for h.pylori doesn't mean you have an ulcer. Over half the population of the world is infected with h.pylori and less than 20% of those have any symptoms.

It may mean that you are at higher risk of getting an ulcer. All they know for sure is that an ulcer will heal a lot better/faster if the H.pylori is treated.

It has been linked to stomach cancer and other nasties.

The only foolproof test is the blood antibody test but that will only tell you if you have ever been exposed to h.pylori before.

They don't really know how it passes from person to person although popular theories include sharing a bathroom or kitchen utensils with an infected person.

One study proposed that dishes/cutlery washed in cold water was the most likely method of transference.

 

Wouldn't bother with all the different herbal remedies etc, as with most other things they don't work.

 

Combination antibiotics work best but the re-infection rate is huge because often the patient's spouse/family is also carrying the bacteria.

 

If it's not an ulcer, they'll call it GORD or GERD or reflux or something else non-descript that means they can stick you on Lanzoprazole/omeprazole or ranitidine or similar for the rest of your life. £££ for the pharmacist hiatus hernias are another example where GPs fob people off with a permanent prescription.

 

Things you can do to reduce reflux/acid stomach pain:

 

Eat healthy

Eat smaller portions but more regularly

Try to relax

Lots of exercise.

Abdominal workouts help speed up the transit of food through you so there's less stomach acid around in your upper GI tract. Doesn't have to be just sit ups.

Stop smoking and drinking

 

Other things like wheat/dairy allergies can cause similar symptoms.

 

Ps. Worrying about it is only going to make it worse. Stress aggravates ulcers and dyspepsia. If it perforates/bleeds the pain is unimaginable and pretty relentless. Signs it's bleeding are black stools or coffee ground-looking blood in vomit. If that happens it's a medical emergency. Then you go to A&E.

Otherwise you're just wasting their time, for a third time, when a GP or walk in centre would suffice.