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A peptic ulcer is an area of tissue in your stomach, or in your small intestine in which the area has eroded. And there's actually a loss of the Mucosa of the tissue, which leads to what we call an ulcer, which is a small indentation, or it could be large indentation, which then can lead to bleeding, infection, and pain in patients. Not treating an officer can lead to very severe complications. If the officer gets large or deep and it erodes into a vessel that can large to a very life-threatening bleed, and if it gets even larger and it subsequently leads to a perforation or a hole in the bowel, it could lead to significant complications and even death.
A peptic ulcer is an area of tissue in your stomach, or in your small intestine in which the area has eroded. And there's actually a loss of the Mucosa of the tissue, which leads to what we call an ulcer, which is a small indentation, or it could be large indentation, which then can lead to bleeding, infection, and pain in patients. Not treating an officer can lead to very severe complications. If the officer gets large or deep and it erodes into a vessel that can large to a very life-threatening bleed, and if it gets even larger and it subsequently leads to a perforation or a hole in the bowel, it could lead to significant complications and even death.
We've spoken about gastritis. Peptic ulcer disease is a related but different kettle of fish. Now ulcers, you can think of it as a cut or a sore in the lining of the stomach. All right, so imagine if you had a cut and now you're sprinkling that cut or bathing that cut with acid. Okay. Ouch. That would hurt. All right, so when patients have an ulcer, especially in the stomach, then it's being coded with acid on a fairly frequent basis. Now this acid serves as an irritant and it may also prevent the ulcer from healing. It can cause an extension of an ulcer. And ulcer symptoms are somewhat different then gastritis type symptoms.
An ulcer, in general, is anytime you get a loss of the Mucosa of the lining of any type of tissue. It's when you get any type of inflammation, irritation or mucosal damage, which then leads to a loss of the tissue that can lead to erosion into an artery or a vessel, which can lead to bleeding or pain. Ulcers are very common. We see them in all ranges of patients from young patients to older patients. There's multiple different etiologies to what causes an ulcer. It could be from a bacteria called H. Pylori. It could be from certain types of medications, such as anti-inflammatory medications. It can be from certain types of stressful environments that a patient is in, which leads to increase acid in the stomach, which can lead to ulcers. There's multiple different etiologies and multiple different treatments for ulcers.
Now, we've also mentioned the effects of ulcers in the stomach. Ulcers, as you recall, are cuts or sores in the lining of the stomach. And two thirds of all ulcers are related to that bacterium, H Pylori. Okay. Another third of ulcers, or the remaining would be due to medications such NSAIDs, you know, aspirin, motrin, Ibuprofen. And so you'd have to treat the patient accordingly. If they had H. Pylori, you have to eradicate that organism with antibiotics as well as antacids.
Sources online where you can get good information as to coupons to reduce the costs. GoodRx is a great source where you can compare the cost of certain of these medications at different pharmacies and receive a coupon to help with a copay or help reduce the pay. Certain other outlets such as Walmart pharmacies may have $4 generics, that type of thing. The cost has come down significantly from when these type of more potent antacid agents first hit the market. And that's a good thing.
For further information, good sites would be the AGA, American Gastroenterological Association website. Also, UpToDate has an online source where they have a section for patient information. Another good outlet for information would be your own healthcare practitioner. They'll probably have pamphlets, patient information and, or can direct you to sites and even local support groups depending upon your circumstance.
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