Ahhh. Gastric Ulcer!

My great plans to wake up before 9am on a saturday and spend 6 hours studying anatomy in the library were thwarted this morning by a funny surprise this morning. I started feeling some acid reflux in my throat about 6am, and so I thought, maybe my body is overproducing acid. Sadly, the lemons in my fridge were hard as stone! So I tried an apple instead.
AHHH! Worst mistake of my life (at least up this point). Because suddenly it wasn't my throat that was the problem. My abdominal area quickly became inflamed in severe throbbing pain! Of course, me being myself, my passion for medicine went into overdrive (it might have also been a tinge of desperation due to severe pain) and i started reading up all I could on ulcers, and of course, the quickest fix. (One that wouldn't leave me permanently scarred or have long-term side effects.lol) Now, one might wonder how I knew right away it was an ulcer. First of all, I've had a duodenal ulcer before that was medically checked out, and secondly my symptoms were all pointing in the same direction:

Throbbing, or stabbing pain in abdominal area between breasts and navel (check)
Increase in pain when changing position (Deeeefinately)
Pain occuring at night (often a couple hours after eating)
Got worse after I ate (which simply means that its gastric this time and not duodenal)
Radiated a bit to my back (kind of worried me, because that could lead to internal bleeding somehow)
It was associated with Nausea and in this case, even some vomitting. Though there was no blood or brown sediments in the vomit, so no internal bleeding was occuring)

I took some mint and chamomile tea to soothe my stomach lining, and eventually the pain subsided a bit. I woke up still feeling the tenderness in my abdominal area, but for now the pain is faint enough that I can deal with it without medication.

Oddly enough, the day before one of my friends was complaining to me that she had gone to one of the medical centres nearby due to severe abdominal pain that turned out to be an ulcer. I told her I could relate. I didn't realize until this morning how well I could relate. I ended up calling her up (at 7 am!) and asking her what the doctor had prescribed her, and where I could go in case I needed medical attention. Yeah, she was pretty pissed about getting woken up. But I was desperate, in pain and a bit freaked out.
Ulcers can be caused by a number of conditions but in my case I'm pretty sure it wasn't stress or a bacterial infection. Rather, I blame the horrendous yoghurt I ate last night, mixed with Cherry Coke, A Kit Kat, a Milkshake, and some fried chicken. That's like the perfect recipe for an ulcer. It's also a perfect recipe for obesity and a heart attack.haha. In fact after getting an ulcer the normal precautions to take are to avoid eating everything on that list. And on a more personal note, avoiding dairy is also very much advised, because milk is composed of lactic acid and sugars. Acid is acid, and sugars slow down the healing process.
And my abdomen is still warm:(

Then again, maybe this is a wake up call to severely change my college student diet. I think i'll start by dedicating myself to cabbage juices to get those babies healing. (My ulcers..lol)