I can't find anything definite on it. Does anyone know, or has anyone had someone close or even personally had a stomach ulcer burst?
Burst may not be the right word. An ulcer erodes through the stomach or intestinal wall. Two things can happen depending on what structures the ulcer erodes through. Bacteria and digestive juices leak into the abdominal space. The stomach and intestinal lining can handle the acid and digestive juices, past the lining the tissues are not protected. Infection and further damaging erosion ensues. And/or the erosion causes bleeding. The bleeding can be slow and the person becomes anemic over time, eventually going into shock if it isn't arrested. Or an erosion can occur in a larger blood vessel and one bleeds more rapidly.
Hi, I can add to this, I had an ulcer burst years ago. First, fever and slight nausea followed by a burning abdominal pain. Second, when it burst, most times you will have bleeding inside your stomach. As the bleeding builds up it will start to mix with your stomach acid (bile). Eventually you will reach a point where you will start to vomit this blood/bile mixture. It looks like dark red (almost black its so dark) blood, and is very thick. Hurts like hell when you throw it up. If you don't pass out, it will continue every 20-30 minutes. Without medical attention, if it is severe enough, it will kill you. I fortunately passed out and woke up in the ambulance. Ginger's post is accurate also, but normally from a mild burst. In that case, it could have happened days before and you will not even know it.
Projectile vomiting is associated with a head injury. But it can essentially happen for many reasons. Blood is very irritating to the gut and people can vomit a large amount especially if the bleeding is rapid and it can be sudden and forceful vomiting. Also, if your stomach is blocked and food can't pass to the intestines (and an ulcer might lead to that) you can also get projectile vomiting.
As for survival, if the gut is perforated, you cannot survive the infection without modern medicine, usually surgery and antibiotics. You have to clean the leaked material out of the would and close the hole then you need antibiotics to treat the infection.
You could, you would be sick for weeks. I mean off your feet out of commission sick. You are a very luck camper if your blood clots fast enough. I'm not a doctor, but I bet your chances might be 25%. Less if its real bad. brb, let me see if I can find something.
An ulcer that doesn't perforate the gut, maybe. But not once the intestinal contents which are full of bacteria, spill into the normally sterile abdominal space. Unless it was the tiniest of leaks, your immune system cannot overcome that amount of infection.
They don't really say, only that if untreated and the infection is bad enough you will die. Mine was not too bad. I was able to have my peptic ulcer patched without removing any of my stomach. Antibiotics and diet change was after surgery.
I'm not sure what you are describing. Yes, you do the surgery first, though antibiotics are usually started at the time of surgery, they would be continued afterward. But, if when they get in, no intestinal contents have leaked through the ulcer, chances are good you won't have an infection. That would be a non-perforated ulcer. You may not be given more antibiotics after the surgery.
Ulcers can also heal without treatment if the cause of the ulcer is removed and it has time to heal. But not a perforated ulcer. You need surgery and antibiotics. Maybe in an extremely rare case with a good surgeon that can adequately clean the contamination out, and sew you up, but not in pre-modern medicine era.
