I was told I had a peptic ulcer. When I worked lifting, the pain made my work extremely difficult. The pain started in the back above my kidneys and radiated to the front on the sides of my ribcage. You would swear it was a heart attack coming on. Sometimes I felt it in my chest around my heart. When I ate, the pain would subside and then come back about 30 minutes later. I bought Zantac 75. Then it would be gone for three or four hours, but come back sooner. I then switched to Zantac 150. That worked a lot better. I found out after trial and error that taking it first thing in morning was better than taking it at lunch. Now, my work performance is back to normal.

3 days ago I began to have stomach pain that radiated into my spine. I had this last fall and went to urgent care. They did an ultrasound and results were that my pancreas was fine and so was my gallbladder, they did find I had a hemangioma on my liver non-symptomatic, not related to the pain. I had a CT scan to confirm that it was benign. Here I am again with this pain, I am guessing it is an ulcer, so I've been taking Prevacid (my 3rd day). The pain has gotten better but my stomach is sore to touch or when I push on the lower right area. I'm thinking it's because that area is still sensitive, should it already be better? Today I'm feeling a little tired, it's not like me to be tired in the morning, is this Prevacid? Yesterday I also took Maalox to help with the pain, but now I have diarrhea? Should I go to urgent care or wait to see my doctor next week? Is this consistent with ulcers?

My first symptoms were nausea and sharp pain under my breast bone, particularly at night. The worst pain would wake me up and usually lasted for 30 minutes or less. I was diagnosed with three gastric ulcers through an upper endoscopy. I was prescribed Nexium for 90 days, and that did a great job of controlling my symptoms. I tried to stop the medication after that time period, but the nausea returned. I am back on Nexium for the time being, but I will probably try some OTC options soon because of the expense.

My symptoms started with black tarry stools, weakness and light headedness, but no pain. I went to my doctor, who said that I needed to be admitted to a hospital as I had internal bleeding from an ulcer. I was admitted on the same day and stayed there for seven days of treatment. I needed a blood transfusion - 6 units - as by this time I was quite anemic with hemoglobin of 6.5, when the normal reading is 12. I was given omeprazole for the ulcer. The endoscopy showed I had a duodenal ulcer. The ulcer was negative for h. pylori, and was induced by NSAIDs namely Naproxen. This medication was stopped to prevent further damage, and I was advised not to take anti-inflammatory drugs at all. The onset of this illness was very sudden, and required fast medical help, otherwise I could have literally died from it. This was a very scary experience for me.

I have been dealing with these ulcer problems for several weeks now, and was just diagnosed by a doctor. Before that I didn't know what the problem was, just that something was very wrong. My symptoms: Any time I ate a meal, I would soon develop an aching feeling in the upper right quadrant of my abdomen, and/or a burning, gnawing pain right below my breastbone, frequently followed by vomiting. The pain would last for from 5 to 8 hours. I have experienced kidney stones in the past, and if I rate that pain as a 10 (on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being no pain) then this pain could get as bad as a 7 or an 8.