Treating an ulcer is usually made combining two different methods. One is a change in the lifestyle of the person suffering from ulcer. The other one is with the help of medication that can fight against ulcer.
The most common medicine for treating gastric ulcer or duodenal ulcer are proton pumps, mucosal protective agents and drugs that block H2. If you also have an H pylori inffection, which is very common in ulcer, doctors will also use antibiotics together with those medications. There are cases when medication do not work for an ulcer. Surgery is the alternative.
The medications that are used in treating ulcer are H2 blockers, proton pump inhibitors and agents that protect the mucus. The first medication in treating an ulcer reduces the amount of your stomach acid. If you take a dose of this medicine before you go to sleep, the gastric ulcer can be cured in about two months and the duodenal ulcer faster, in almost one month. The second drug used to treat an ulcer has the role to stop the production of acid. It is more powerful than H2 blockers. It can cure a duodenal ulcer in almost two weeks. This medicine is also an alternative to ulcer patients whose H2 treatment does not work. The last medicine used to treat ulcer is the for protecting the mucous coat of the stomach from acid. Antibiotics are also used as an ulcer treatment, but only if you have a bacteria infection. The percent of recurrence of an ulcer is very big if antibacterial treatment is not used.
Nowadays, there are two types of therapy against an ulcer: the triple and dual therapy. The first ulcer therapy includes: metronidazole, four times every day, tetracycline, also four time each day and pepto-bysmol. This ulcer treatment lasts for two weeks. It has a rate of almost 90 percent effectiveness in destroying the bacteria that caused the ulcer. This ulcer therapy is also very effective because it reduce the risk of ulcer reoccurrence. The second ulcer therapy means that only two medicines are taken: amoxcillin and prolosec. This ulcer therapy also lasts for two weeks, but it has only an 80 percent effectiveness.
If any of the ulcer treatments do not give good results, doctors can use surgery. For an ulcer, the most common of the surgeries are vagotomy, pyloroplasty and antrectomy. The last two of the ulcer surgeries may be performed together.
