Acute Variceal Hemorrhage
The bleeding that comes down to the stomach may not be the result of GI tract bleeding. An excellent example of this is acute variceal hemorrhage. In this situation, varices or enlarged blood vessels cause bleeding. When the liver has scars, blood might have difficulty passing through it for cleaning. The result is that the blood vessels around the liver become enlarged. The blood inside them can spill out into the esophagus since there is no other place to go. Depending on what happens, there can be two results. First, a person will have bloody stool if the blood gets digested. Undigested blood will become black vomit.
When doctors inspect the upper GI tract and find no trace of wounds, they often look for other blood sources. The liver’s nearby location makes it a popular suspect, so that an endoscopy will look at the connected blood vessels. Depending on the severity of the bleeding, some medication may be taken to decrease the pressure in the blood vessels. An operation or a liver transplant might be necessary for the worst cases.
