Ulcers – Diagnosis

Transcript

If a patient comes to the office with symptoms that go along with a possible peptic ulcer disease, the first thing that a physician should do is get a very clear history of when the pain started, what medications the patient may have been on, if they’ve been ill or around anyone that’s been ill, if they’ve been out of the country. And then by delineating exactly the start time and the progression of the disease, the physician can then evaluate and see what the next step will be. Usually, blood tests are taken to see if there’s any evidence of any blood loss, especially if the patient is complaining of any dark stools or any blood in the stool. Patients can be placed on certain types of medications to help alleviate the patient’s symptoms. And if need be, then certain procedures such as an endoscopy may be warranted in order to help treat the ulcer or to make more diagnostic tests.