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Monday, January 16, 2006
Dumaguing: Risek reduces ulcer risks
By Dr. Victor Dumaguing
HELLO folks! Have you been having some gnawing pain in your epigastric area, the area just below your breastbone or in the pit of your stomach? When you burp or belch, do you get that sour taste that even stings your nostrils? Do you wake up with a bitter taste in your mouth, so much so that you don't have the urge to eat? Do you have stomach pains before eating when you hear your stomach rumble? Or worse, do you have more upper abdominal pains, even after a meal? If you do, chances are you have peptic ulcer.
A peptic ulcer is a round or oval sore with well-defined borders, where the lining or inner surface of the stomach or duodenum (first part of the small intestines) has been eaten away by stomach acid and digestive juices. A shallower ulcer is called erosion. The acid-digestive juice tandem is composed of hydrochloric acid and pepsin, the first enzyme that chemically digest the protein in the food we eat.
An ulcer develops when the defense mechanisms protecting the stomach and duodenum breaks down, as what happens when the mucus fluid, which protects the lining decreases. Almost everyone produces acid but only one in 10 people develop ulcers. Different people generate different amounts of hydrochloric acid (similar in strength to the muriatic acid we use in cleaning our toilets.) Each person's pattern of acid production tends to persist throughout life. It is interesting to note that people who are high acid-secretors never develop ulcers while there are some low acid-secretors who develop them.
Only half of people with duodenal ulcers have typical symptoms: gnawing, burning, aching, soreness, an empty feeling and hunger. The pain of duodenal ulcer tends to occur when the stomach is empty. Usually, the ulcer does not hurt upon awakening but the pain is most severe during midmorning. The pain, mild to moderate, is steady and is located in a definite area, almost always just below the breastbone. Drinking milk, eating or taking anti-acids, generally relieve the pain but it may return two to three hours later. The pain that awakens the person 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. is common. Frequently, the pain erupts in one or more days or may extend to several weeks and may disappear even without treatment, only to recur within two year especially during periods of emotional and physical stress.
The symptoms of gastric ulcers often do not follow the same patterns as those of duodenal ulcers. Eating can cause more pain rather than relieve it. Gastric or stomach ulcers are more likely to cause swelling of the tissues leading into the small intestines which may prevent food from passing from the stomach, thus, resulting to bloating, nausea and even vomiting after eating.
Proton pump-inhibitors (PPIs) are innovative anti-ulcer drugs, a notch higher than the usual anti-acid regimen. They inhibit the enzymes that allow the synthesis or formation of hydrochloric acid by the parietal cells in the stomach. In effect, the PPIs reduce the secretion of HCL, thereby minimizing its corrosive action on the protective lining in the stomach and duodenum.
Omeprazole is the earliest PPI approved for clinical use in the treatment of hyperacidity syndromes. Risek or the so-called "green omeprazole", in multi-centre studies, at a once a day, before breakfast dose of 20mg capsule provides excellent results in peptic ulcer disease. Moreover, Risek provides rapid relief of symptoms and reliable ulcer healing by providing a predictable 24-hour control of acid secretion. As an added bonus especially for our senior citizens who are taking anti-arthritis medicines, Risek has shown superiority over the H2-receptor antagonists (another family of anti-ulcer drugs) in decreasing incidence of ulcers caused by the rayuma medications.
Risek is also very versatile. For dyspepsia or bouts of indigestion, 20mg capsule taken daily for two to four weeks, would relieve the symptom. For duodenal ulcers, a four-week regimen is recommended whereas, for gastric or stomach ulcers, the patient should take Risek 20mg daily before breakfast for eight weeks. Mind you, for those problematic ulcer cases in which a microbe by the name of Helicobacter pylori must be eradicated, Risek 20 mg twice daily may be combined with antibiotic like Clarithromycin.
Ask your doctor about Risek. It might just what you need to cut those ulcer risks!
(January 16, 2006 issue)
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