2. Symptoms Similar to the Cold or Flu
It’s quite common for people to mistake major medical issues with an extreme case of a cold or flu. This problem is especially common with ulcers. One of the reasons this happens so often is tied to sleep. An ulcer’s symptoms often flare-up in the middle of the night as the stomach empties itself of food. This will, in turn, disrupt someone’s sleep. People often wake up constantly during the night due to an ulcer but fall back asleep again fairly quickly. The afflicted individuals are understandably lethargic during the day. Because they don’t remember those rapid cycles of wake and sleep they attribute the lethargy to a cold or flu. The fact that other ulcer symptoms such as nausea overlap with such illnesses make this mistake even more common.
3. Nausea
It’s easy to see why nausea is tied in with ulcers. Ulcers interfere with the process of digestion. And nausea is, in turn, a side effect of digestive problems. The human body isn’t very good at self-diagnosis. A person’s stomach won’t really understand why it’s having trouble digesting food. It can interpret the difficulties imposed by an ulcer in the same way that it would rotten food. When something goes wrong in the stomach the human body tends to be on the side of caution. The end result is that people with ulcers often find themselves with unexpected and seemingly inexplicable nausea. This often happens right after a meal. But the high levels of stomach acid after a night’s sleep will often trigger it as well.