Bo­bie-lee Dixon

In to­day's fast pace world, bal­anc­ing ca­reer, life and your health can be­come very chal­leng­ing. For most, a shake has re­placed hav­ing a hearty, healthy break­fast. And as the day pro­gress­es, the de­mand­ing na­ture of our jobs has pushed back our lunch hour to three and four o'clock in the af­ter­noon, or worse-some­times we don't even find the time to eat lunch. Apart from that, we no longer get the chance to di­gest well-cooked, bal­anced meals, so we set­tle for the "white box­es" of usu­al­ly greasy foods, cooked with sea­son­ings we some­times know noth­ing about. Not for­get­ting those ar­ti­fi­cial drinks-all one big recipe for a health dis­as­ter.

For a while this habit may seem to have no neg­a­tive ef­fect on you. But then, af­ter some time, ir­reg­u­lar eat­ing habits and the con­sump­tion of fat­ty foods can cause a num­ber of med­ical com­pli­ca­tions, among them-stom­ach ul­cers. Stom­ach ul­cers are a very se­ri­ous med­ical con­di­tion and should not be tak­en light­ly.

Ac­cord­ing to med­ical re­search, four out of every ten peo­ple will suf­fer a stom­ach ul­cer in their life­time, and thou­sands across the globe die each year from com­pli­ca­tions re­lat­ed to stom­ach ul­cers. Lo­cal gen­er­al prac­ti­tion­er, Dr Lar­ry ex­plained the symp­toms, caus­es, treat­ments and pre­ven­tion of stom­ach ul­cers.

What is a stom­ach ul­cer?

Ac­cord­ing to Lar­ry, a stom­ach ul­cer, al­so called pep­tic ul­cer, is a small ero­sion (hole) in the gas­troin­testi­nal tract. "The most com­mon type- duo­de­nal, oc­curs in the first 12 inch­es of small in­tes­tine be­yond the stom­ach. Ul­cers that form in the stom­ach are called gas­tric ul­cers. An ul­cer is not con­ta­gious or can­cer­ous. Duo­de­nal ul­cers are al­most al­ways be­nign, while stom­ach ul­cers may be­come ma­lig­nant," he said. "Stom­ach ul­cers may be a symp­tom of an­oth­er dis­ease or con­di­tion. Stom­ach ul­cers are of­ten com­mon in mas­to­cy­to­sis. Bleed­ing from stom­ach ul­cers may cause iron de­fi­cien­cy anaemia," he said.

Caus­es

"What we must keep in mind is that stom­ach ul­cers can oc­cur for more rea­sons than one. "It may be a symp­tom of an­oth­er dis­ease or con­di­tion. The di­rect cause of pep­tic ul­cers is the de­struc­tion of the gas­tric or in­testi­nal mu­cos­al lin­ing of the stom­ach by hy­drochlo­ric acid, an acid nor­mal­ly present in the di­ges­tive juices of the stom­ach. "An­oth­er is the in­fec­tion with the bac­teri­um He­li­cobac­ter py­lori, which is thought to play an im­por­tant role in caus­ing both gas­tric and duo­de­nal ul­cers. He­li­cobac­ter py­lori may be trans­mit­ted from per­son to per­son through con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed food and wa­ter. An­tibi­otics are the most ef­fec­tive treat­ment for He­li­cobac­ter py­lori pep­tic ul­cers," ex­plained Lar­ry.

In­jury of the gas­tric mu­cos­al lin­ing, and weak­en­ing of the mu­cous de­fens­es are al­so re­spon­si­ble for gas­tric ul­cers. Ex­cess se­cre­tion of hy­drochlo­ric acid, ge­net­ic pre­dis­po­si­tion, and psy­cho­log­i­cal stress are im­por­tant con­tribut­ing fac­tors in the for­ma­tion and wors­en­ing of duo­de­nal ul­cers. Ir­reg­u­lar eat­ing, overeat­ing, or a di­et high in fat­ty foods can al­so con­tribute to ul­cer­at­ed stom­ach and stom­ach ul­cers. "Last but not least the ma­jor cause of ul­cers is the chron­ic use of an­ti-in­flam­ma­to­ry med­ica­tions, such as as­pirin. Cig­a­rette smok­ing is al­so an im­por­tant cause of ul­cer for­ma­tion and ul­cer treat­ment fail­ure."

Symp­toms

Asked what were some of the symp­toms as­so­ci­at­ed with stom­ach ul­cers, Lar­ry said: "The ma­jor symp­tom of an ul­cer is a burn­ing or gnaw­ing feel­ing in the stom­ach area that lasts be­tween 30 min­utes and three hours. This pain is of­ten in­ter­pret­ed as heart­burn, in­di­ges­tion or hunger. The pain usu­al­ly oc­curs in the up­per ab­domen, but some­times it may oc­cur be­low the breast­bone. "In some in­di­vid­u­als the pain oc­curs im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter eat­ing. In oth­er in­di­vid­u­als, the pain may not oc­cur un­til hours af­ter eat­ing. The pain fre­quent­ly awak­ens the per­son at night. Weeks of pain may be fol­lowed by weeks of not hav­ing pain. Pain can be re­lieved by drink­ing milk, eat­ing, rest­ing, or tak­ing antacids." He added that loss of ap­petite and weight loss were oth­er symp­toms. Per­sons with duo­de­nal ul­cers may ex­pe­ri­ence weight gain be­cause the per­sons eats more to ease dis­com­fort. Re­cur­rent vom­it­ing, blood in the stool and anaemia are oth­er symp­toms.

What does a stom­ach ul­cer af­fect?

"The main thing that a stom­ach ul­cer af­fects is the nerves sur­round­ing it. The nerves be­come ag­i­tat­ed and cause a great amount of pain. How­ev­er, stom­ach ul­cers can cause haem­or­rhages from the ero­sion of a ma­jor blood ves­sel; a tear in the wall of the stom­ach or in­tes­tine, with re­sul­tant peri­toni­tis; or ob­struc­tion of the gas­troin­testi­nal tract be­cause of spasm or swelling in the area of the ul­cer," dis­closed Lar­ry

Stom­ach ul­cer treat­ment

"One way to treat ul­cers is to get rid of the He­li­cobac­ter py­lori bac­te­ria. Treat­ment may al­so be aimed at low­er­ing the amount of acid that your stom­ach makes, neu­tral­is­ing the acid and pro­tect­ing the in­jured area so it can heal. Your doc­tor will pre­scribe what med­ica­tion is best to treat and heal your ul­cers, but in the mean­time, watch what you eat and drink be­cause it is im­por­tant that you stay away from cer­tain types of food and drinks, es­pe­cial­ly al­co­hol, to avoid ag­gra­va­tion and wors­en­ing of the ul­cer," re­vealed Lar­ry.