Can You Die from A Bleeding Ulcer?

… Continued …

Perforated ulcer! In rare cases, severe ulcer may eat a hole through the wall of stomach or intestine, making the lining split open. This is called perforation, a very serious condition that can put you at high risk of developing dangerous infection.

The infection may also spread to the blood, causing sepsis and multiple organ failures. And this can occur very quickly and could be very fatal if not immediately treated (hospital admission is required)!

If you have a sudden pain in the abdomen that gets steadily worse, seek immediate medical help!

Digestive tract obstruction! The ulcer may cause swelling that becomes large enough to block the normal passage of food through the digestive system.

Symptoms include persistent abdominal bloating, repeated vomiting undigested food, unintentional weight loss, and feeling fullness (even after eating smaller meal than usual).

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Ulcer bleeding and other complications of the disease are preventable. Even the disease is curable as mentioned earlier – particularly true if the open sore hasn’t become advanced.

Surgery is usually only used in case of when serious complications (e.g. acute heavily-bleeding, obstruction, and perforation) have occurred! It is required far less often than before since many effective non-surgical treatments are now available!

Furthermore, there is a chance for the disease to not heal after treatment. An ulcer that fails to heal is also known as a ‘refractory ulcer’. This may occur with the following factors:

1. If you don’t take the full course of your antibiotics. It’s important to completely take your antibiotics (even though when the symptoms have relieved) to make sure the infection is completely cured.
2. If you continue taking certain pain medications (NSAIDs) that can worsen the problem or trigger the recurrence.
3. You don’t stop smoking (if you’re a smoker) or practice other bad behaviors that inhibit your healing process.