For long, doctors and the medical fraternity have been given to believe that gastric and duodenal ulcers occurred on account of factors such as poor diet and smoking cigarettes as well as by alcohol intake and even by extended bouts of stress. All that changed in the year 1992 when two doctors that were later to win the Nobel Prize found that gastric and duodenal ulcers were caused not by the above mentioned factors but by infections caused by bacteria that was able to survive in the acidic conditions prevalent in the stomach.

A Changed Landscape

This revolutionary discovery about the causes of gastric and duodenal ulcers has changed the very landscape of these two conditions and now diagnosis and treatments are vastly different as compared to the tried and trusted option of performing surgery in order to remove gastric and duodenal ulcers. At one time, patients suffering from gastric and duodenal ulcers even had to endure months and even years of having to take drugs meant to reduce acid in the stomach; today, however, the same treatment offers relief in just a week in which patients only need to take antibiotics.

The best part about modern treatment of gastric and duodenal ulcers is that the chances of recurrence is only twenty percent whereas for conventional treatment methods there was between fifty and ninety-five percent chance of recurrence.

The symptoms of gastric and duodenal ulcers is typically seen as pain in the stomach which can be sharp as well as burning and the pain seems to be most intense when there is no food present in the stomach. That is why eating some food seems to provide immediate relief from the symptoms of gastric and duodenal ulcers.

In case you suffer from severe gastric and duodenal ulcers you might also be forced to contend with even more severe consequences because the severity of the ulcers can cause them to penetrate the lining of the stomach and then it would end up causing acid to leak into the cavity of the body thereby causing further infection. What’s more, the patient will also suffer from internal bleeding and this can cause them to go into shock. Perforated gastric and duodenal ulcers are very serious and must be dealt with immediately.

Mouth ulcers too are very common problems and occur on account of presence of open sores inside a person’s oral cavity. Two main types of oral ulcers are aphthous ulcers or canker sores and cold sores that often occur on account of the herpes simplex virus.