THE MANY CAUSES OF DIGESTIVE STRESS

Our digestive system is the caretaker of the food we eat. Every time we eat, the intestines will take the rest. But once the intestines is damage it send distressing signal that something wrong inside the stomach that should be look into deeply to determine the possible cause.

  How the food we eat is handled. The food from our mouth goes down to the esophagus. The food will directly move to the stomach. The normal digestion happened when body’s hydrochloric acid and pepsin (enzyme) started digesting the food slowly.

 The food that stayed in the stomach is now moving to the upper part of the small intestine, the duodenum to continue the digestion and absorbed the nutrients from digested food. The normal process of digestion will be repeated again and again until the human waste (first process) of digestion is completed and evacuated from the system out of the body.  

Our negligence in protecting the digestive system from the many factors that is dangerous to healthy cells was the reason to have an ulcer. The most affected section of the intestines is the mucous lining, the sensitive and delicate portion of the intestines we should protect. 

We are responsible if the lining of the stomach is damage due to our carelessness in following the modern lifestyle putting everything harmful to the stomach. We eat or drink all kinds of irritants worsening the condition of the digestive tract.

Ulcer is a sore or kind of lesion formed in the delicate lining of the stomach (duodenum). The acid and pepsin are concentrated to the area because of digestion.

There are many kinds of ulcers. There are gastric (stomach) and duodenum (duodenal ulcer). Any of these is called peptic ulcer. Ulcer worsens at the age of 30 to 50. Duodenal ulcer was common to men over 60. Stomach ulcer was common to women of the same age. 

Stress and diet makes the stomach to form ulcer. Another reason is the imbalance between digestive fluids (hydrochloric acid) and enzyme (pepsin). The failure of the stomach to defend against powerful irritants or other substances fed inside the stomach will result to the formation of ulcer. The infection of the stomach with Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is another cause of ulcer.

Most of the irritants that induces formation of ulcers are:

-Smoking habit. It slows down the healing of irritated lining and induce more recurrences of painful ulcer.

-Unrestricted use of caffeine (tea, coffee, colas) stimulates acid secretion aggravating the pain.

-Over-consumption of alcohol beverages (liquor) that will cause cirrhosis of the liver by damaging the very important body organs. 

-Daily emotional stress of many kinds. It triggers ulcer pain and increase its frequency. 

Physical stresses may also cause development of ulcers in the stomach.

The symptom of ulcer was burning sensation in the abdomen between the navel and breastbone. The pain mostly felt between meals or early hours in the morning. It only lasted several minutes.

Another symptom was vomiting, nausea and loss of appetite. If ulcer worsened to highest level it will bleed. It can only be detected if the stool has blood.  It was the reason why the stool has black or tarry color.  If the bleeding is heavy, the victim was weak and tired. A heavy bleeding will appear during vomiting.

Application of ulcer medication will stop the ulcer to progress more. It heals the wounds, stop the bleeding and relieve the pain. There were many kinds of medicine in the trade designed for prevention, control and relief of ulcer pain. There were acid control, H2-blocker, acid pump inhibitor and protective medicine for mucous lining.