How to best treat ulcer

Thanks to scientists and modern technology, doctors are now able to properly treat patients with this disease and actually cure it. The most common way to do it is to first kill the bacteria and of course afterwards to reduce the high and dangerous levels of gastric acid in the stomach of the patient so that healing can begin.

Still, medication must be used in order to properly cure the person suffering from peptic ulcer. They must use a whole army of drugs; some of them are antibiotic medicine, acid blockers, anti acids, proton pump inhibitors and cytoprotective agents.

Because of the way that the bacteria is built, doctors have to use more than one antibiotic, if there is to remove it completely from the stomach. Today medicinal companies actually use a wide variety of drugs, well packaged together, to best fight the illness. Both antibiotics are used and also acid suppressors. Depending on the severity of the disease and the food habits of the patient treatment can be either quite short or extremely long.

The way the acid blockers work is that they actually reduce the level of acid that is produce in the digestive tract. This leads to lesser pain and encourages healing a lot. This type of medicine stops the histamine from reaching the intended histamine receptors, thus canceling the action that they where supposed to do. This way the levels of hydrochloric acid in the stomach are reduced.

Anti acids are also very commonly used in the treatment of peptic ulcer. They can be used either to completely replace an acid blocker or along side one. The way they act is that they reduce the existing levels of acid in the stomach providing rapid relief for the ill and stricken patient.

Another type of drug that also reduces the level of acid being made are the proton pump inhibitors. As the name suggests these drugs do exactly that: they stop the pump producing the acid. They are more and more used in combating the peptic ulcer because they are so good at doing their intended role.

Cytoprotective drugs work by protecting the tissue in the stomach and the small intestine. Some of this type of drugs actually inhibit the actions of the bacteria responsible for ulcer: H. pylori.

Still there have been cases where the ulcer apparently refuses to heal up, causing the patient a whole deal of trouble. This may be caused by extreme overproduction of stomach acid, infections caused by other factors than H. pylori, stomach cancer or other digestive diseases.