My stepdad that lives in another state with my mom is in the hospital for bleeding ulcers.. how serious are they? Can they be life threatening? And how do you get it? When I asked my mom if he was OK she said that it's not as bad as they thought it was at first.. either that or they thought it was something worst.. so I'm not sure what she meant about that.. it kind of seemed like she was dodging the question:confused:

You didn't say where, but intestinal or stomach is common.

An ulcer is basically a sore that can't heal. A bleeding wound so to speak. The person is losing blood internally and that's not good because blood can only be replaced so fast. They can be life threatening.

An example of ulcers that are not caused by behavior, is suppose one has diverticulitus which in simple terms means that there are too many twists and turns and places for food to hide in the intestines. Small seeds can get caught there and they never get ejected, hence they bleed and never heal. Eliminating seeds like from cucumbers and tomatoes etc. may be all that's required.

Medications can cause them too.

They can be extremely life-threatening if they break through the intestine or stomach.

I had five gastric and two duodenal ulcers. One of the duodenal ulcers started bleeding and I had no idea I even had ulcers. I ended up in the hospital for a week.
As long as they are being treated correctly and monitored, he should be fine.
Mine where caused by taking to many NSAIDS due to my RA.