PUD, otherwise known as Peptic Ulcer Disease, strikes millions of people in America each year. The antacid sales can attest to the fact that at some point most adults have a problem with their gastrointestinal tract. For some it may be indigestion, but for others it can be a sign of something far more serious. You may laugh at the movies where someone keels over from an ulcer, but in reality this can happen. You can become very sick and without the right medications and information you may not recover at all. It pays to have the facts in this case.
PUD of the stomach is called a gastric ulcer. One in the throat is an esophageal ulcer. If the PUD is located in the duodenum, then it is a duodenal ulcer. A PUD in the Meckle’s Diverticulum, which is a small enlarged bulge in the small intestine and is present at birth, is basically an intestinal ulcer. You can find ulcers all over the body. Some people with diabetes will develop a leg ulcer sometime during their life. Very few ulcers are a stomach ulcer, but those that are malignant tumors in 4% of cases, must be diagnosed with a biopsy.
Your treatment for Peptic Ulcer Disease will be suited best to your particular needs. If an H pylori infection is present, then you will need to have antibiotics to help treat that stomach ulcer or that duodenal ulcer. You will also need to either stop or seriously cut back on smoking, eating foods high in fat and spicy foods that may cause the acid levels in your stomach to rise.
You may never get rid of your Peptic ulcer, but at least you can have a semi-normal life and get out and live some. If you take your medications and go in for regular checkups, then hopefully your ulcer will heal. One final note: stress can exacerbate an ulcer too. You may want to consider finding some stress relief methods such as meditation or aromatherapy to help you learn to relax. A therapist may be able to talk with you about your stress and find reasonable ways to help lower your stress level or at least make it manageable.