My seven year old son has had stomach problems since the age of 3. When he was 4 the doctors found he has an ulcer. We have been to 3 pedicatric GI's and no one has answers for this. He does not have Hpylori or any other obvious reason for this. He has been on several meds. Currently taking prilosec 2xday, carafate and gastrochrom. He does well on the meds but the one time the ulcer did heal, they cut back the meds and the ulcer came back. He has had 7 endoscopys and 4 CTscans.
If anyone has or knows anyone with this problem with a small child please give us some input. We are becoming very frustrated. Thank you for any insight or information.

Thank you for the input Denise. They have tested my son for food allergies also and said that was not it, we were hoping it actually would be at least we would have answers. They also say its not bacterail. He has had a 24 hour test to test his acid level (sorry can't remember the name of test). His levels were a little elevated but he was off his meds for that day also. The latest doctor thinks that may be the problem, that his boby makes to much acid, but they still can't figure out why. Thank you for you information. We are just real frustrated over the whole thing, espeicaly when he has to go thourgh another scope soon.
Connie

I feel for you, my son is 6, and that would be very hard on a mother, and child of course. I had bleeding ulcers at 16, 28 now and have not had them since. I was on everything. Carafae, tagamate, zozantac,pepcid......... Milk is a no-no, goats milk is ok and usually not alergenic. Yes, cayenne pepper, not likely to get him to eat it, is wonderfull. Remember hes producing too much stomach acid so you need to counteract that. If you can, have him take flax seed, no citrus produts, tomatoes, and cabbage, oddly enough make them worse. What we tend to forget sometimes is that everyday things, pankake mix, dry or canned foods,usually have citric acid or milk, whey(milk deriative) bases in them and increase the acids in your stomach. Cayenne and flax seed counteract them.. I would love your reply on the little guy, hope this helps....

Hi thank you for your response. He is having his scope done in one week, will let you know how it goes. We are keeping our fingers crossed that it will be healed. Thank you for your input, I will ask the doctor about the flax seed and Cayenne next week when we go. I am so afraid to give him any thing with all the problems he has had with this. Plus with him already taking the 3 meds its hard enough getting him to do that. I feel so bad for him I am a diabetic since age 12 so I know what its like having to be strick about meds at such a young age. Well thank you for your response. I will let you know how the scope goes next week. Thanks Connie

[This message has been edited by Mommyconni (edited 06-12-2002).]

About 10 years ago I heard that a virus had been discovered that causes ulcers. They had found a cure that consisted of three medications. The only one of the three I can remember was tetracyclene.

Three years later I had a friend that was hospitalized for bleeding ulcers. I told him and he asked his doctor. The doctor had never heard of it but did his research and as a result put my friend on the medication. My friend's ulcers healed and has had no problems since.

Several months ago, my GF had a friend that died of ulcers. I've wondered if her doctor also didn't know of this 3 med cure.


Capt. Rhett

It's also possible to get ulcers from auto-immune disorders, e.g. Ulcerative Colitis, Crohn's disease, IBD, etc. The location of the ulcer doesn't mean as much as what is going on in the tissue.

Suggest you check the information at these links.

Stomach disorders:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/stomachdisorders.html

Auto-immune diseases:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/autoimmunediseasesgeneral.html

Crohn's Disease:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/crohnsdisease.html