Human Anatomy & Physiology II
West Palm Beach, FL
Zachary’s Story is about a 12- year old boy who has been in an out of the hospital twelve times in the last two years. When Zach first started getting stomach aches, his mother, Sandra, thought it was just something he had eaten or maybe even the flu. Zach’s pain continued to increase; when he used the bathroom it was almost exclusively diarrhea, it smelled horrible, and he said it was painful. Zachary was vomiting blood, blood in the toilet, passing out during school, high fevers, and not eating. He would wake up at night crying from the pain. (Jenkins, 2013) He has seen a number of eight different doctors, and none of them knows exactly what is wrong with him, they only told him that it was probably and ulcer. An ulcer starts by eroding the mucosa of the G.I. tract wall. Absorption would not happen correctly, some of the ingested and secreted may seep out of the lumen. This also could create a pathway of entry for pathogens if the ulcer ate through to the muscularis mucosa and also lose some control of defecation. This is why Zachary may be bleeding when he uses the bathroom. If the ulcer eats a hole into the wall of the stomach, bacteria and partially digested food can spill through the opening into the peritoneum causing severe inflammation of the abdominopelvic cavity and the visceral peritoneum, which covers some of the organs (Jenkins&Tortora pg.825, 856) Zachary’s stomach contributes to the formation of ulcers in other parts of the G.I. tract by the acids needed to breakdown food are excessive and causes the stomach to over work therefore causing surrounding parts to be over worked as well. If the stomach is always churning food the digestion processes is always on going. Parietal cells and gastric glands are directly related to the formation of ulcers. A major causing factor is chronic inflammation due to Helicobacter pylori that...
Cited: Jenkins, G. W. (2013). Anatomy and Physiology from science to life. John Wiley & Sons., pg. 822-878
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