Be sure to get help at warning signs
A lot of heavy drinkers experience considerable stomach pains, often quite often. It’s something that is intuitive, taken to be just a part of the process, even if it’s a very unpleasant part.
What’s important for the heavy drinker to know is the existence of a condition called Gastritis. It’s even worse than it sounds.
Gastritis is inflammation of the lining of the stomach, serious inflammation, sometimes escalating to the point of bleeding. This is caused by bacterium similar to those causing ulcers. In addition to being caused by excessive drinking, Gastritis can be caused by excessive use of pain relievers or injury.
The Mayo Clinic tells us that the symptoms of it include puking, nausea, a burning ache in your upper abdomen, etc. These symptoms, particularly if they’re either persistent or severe, should send you to the doctor. If you have the misfortune of vomiting blood or if you have blood in your stool, of course you’d go to the doctor right away.
Naturally, another surefire way to deal with these pains is to quit drinking. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t have to seek other remedies, but quitting should be part of your regime. In short, in addition to some of the long-term internal organ damage you may be doing, you’ve gotten to the point of causing your stomach to bleed. A lot of us would consider this to be a clear sign.
At the doctor’s office
When you go to the doctor’s with symptoms such as stomach bleeding, they’ll be looking pretty hard for a cure. The doctor may begin with a stool sample; if that doesn’t work, it may be on to the blood test. This will help find any possible H. pylori infection that may be present. This is one of the bacteria mentioned above, one that lives in the mucous lining of the stomach.
If these easy methods don’t illuminate things, it may be on to the endoscopy, which entails your swallowing a tiny camera. Here is where the doctor has the opportunity to definitively find stomach inflammation.
Once the symptoms of Gastritis are present, you’ll go into treatment. This may include B12 shots, an acid-blocking drug, and antibiotics to get rid of the H. pylori.
Some treatments might include more mundane items such as just avoiding spicy foods and taking standard antacids.
After the treatment
Again, it’s hard to ignore the necessity of quitting the booze. No amount of laying off coffee, popping some tums, not eating Mexican food, etc., will help you if you’re still drinking. Plenty of information on how to quit abounds, including elsewhere on this blog.
Photo Credit Naveen Chary Allanki on Flickr
