Our stomach has a protective layer made of mucus, cells and chemicals to protect it against the acids. If this layer is damaged, than you have an ulcer.The ulcer can be small or big. If you suffer from a small ulcer, you might not have any symptoms at all or if you do have ulcer symptoms, they will be very mild. Another " good " thing in cases of a small ulcer is that the sore is rather little and the wond cause by the ulcer will heal by itself. On the other hand, if the ulcer is bigger and deep, you might have severe pain and bleeding. It may also eat very deep through the walls of the stomach or intestines.

This digestive system problem, peptic ulcer, is quite a common illness, which affects many people. Ulcer is a condition that almost ten percent of the people will develop in their lifetime. There is no certain age for developing an ulcer, but the main target of an ulcer are older people. However, duodenal ulcer tends to affect people at an earlier stage in life, than the gastric ulcer. Both men and women suffer from ulcer, although it was thought at some point that men are more exposed to ulcer than women. The main reason why a person develops ulcer is still a mistery. Most of the scientists believe that a bacteria called H pylori is the main factor in developing an ulcer. To be more specific, it is believed that almost 80 percent of the peptic ulcer cases are due to this bacteria. However, there is another problem. About twenty percent of the people that are infected with the H pylori bacteria actually develop an ulcer. So this is not the single cause. What this bacteria does is to upset the balance that

exists between the acid made by the stomach and the protective agents. When this happens, you develop an ulcer.

Another cause of an ulcer, the second one is drugs. Not any type of drugs, but anti- inflammatory ones. Aspirin is one of the main drugs that lead to an ulcer. What these medicines do is to interfere with your body' s methotds designed to protect your stomach, thus leading to an ulcer.