Gastritis Support Group

Gastritis is a medical term for inflammation of the lining of the stomach. It means that white blood cells move into the wall of the stomach as a response to some type of injury. Gastritis has many underlying causes, from infection with the bacterium H. pylori, bile reflux, or excessive consumption of alcohol or certain foods or drugs like aspirin.

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luckymamaof3 04/15/2015

Okay so I've been doing a little better but I'm getting confused on the new symptoms that I have. Starting about 6:00 every night j have severe heartburn and it dosen't matter what I take, I am on my period and Ive read that acid reflux and heartburn can be a lot worse during this time of the month so I'm assuming that's what the bad heartburn is. My stomach pains are gone (as long as I stay away from trigger foods).

I'm also having some weird symptoms and they seem to have started once I started taking prilosec, which was 2 months ago. It started with bad tingling in my legs, hands and feet. It took about two weeks and it eventually went away. After about 30min after I take my medicine I sometimes get a pain on my upper right side. Now recently I've started to get tingling inside and outside my mouth.. Do you think this is all from prilosec? My doctor wants me to start tapering off it next week and then eventually I will just be on Zantac. I'm scared of coming off of it but I'm also scared of staying on it. i feel like I'm still haveing acid problems and to be honest prilosec has never taken my symptoms completely away. My question is this should I just completely switch my PPi's or will Zantac alone be enough? I keep hearing that once you feel good for two weeks then that's when you should start tapering. Any advice, or encouragement would be great. Thanks!

smilelikeyoumeanit 04/15/2015

I'm not going to really comment on the tingling as don't get that now - although I DID when on omeprazole (Prilosec).... but not on Prevacid or Nexium. What dose are you on? Also do you take B12 supplement?

It is unfortunate that PPI side effects can sometimes mimic gastritis symptoms. So a possible chance the heartburn might be from the low acid conditions that the PPI importantly creates to heal the stomach... Of course heartburn could still be from excess acid if your ppi dose not high enough.

My IBS & gastritis is most definitely impacted by times of the month. Ovulation & Period. I don't if this is hormonal or whether mild uterine contractions/spasms etc can be transferred to spasms in the GI tract. Also chemicals released like prostaglandins can massively impact on gastritis. Also I think more bile salts are released at certain times of the monthly cycle.

When you say "I keep hearing that once you feel good for two weeks then that's when you should start tapering..." Where did you hear that?!!! That sounds like dangerous BS to me. I would say when you feel good for 2 months maybe.

However saying that as long as your Zantac dose is high enough you should be fine.

toomuchPho 04/15/2015

yes, it is. I had the tingling, too when on Protonix. Try taking B12 under the tongue (must be under the tongue). PPis reduce your ability to absorb this vitamin and it may give weird neurological side effects. I also had many split second blue/purple spots in my vision. It all went away once I started to supplement, but comes back if I miss a week or longer.

luckymamaof3 04/15/2015

Smile, thank you for replying! I'm on 40mg of prilosec and I've been taking 150 zantac at night but it dosent seem to be helping with the heartburn. I think your right in that maybe I now have too little acid becaue I have also notice that I have a lot of undigested food in my stool, which I think is a symptom. I heard the 2 week thing from my first doctor....go figure! He is also the one who assumed I had gasttitis 2 months ago when I was choking on acid and I had no appitite and was extremely nauseated. Now that I'm doing the research im realizing that I probably should have just been put on Zantac to control the acid and then once I had my endo if I needed a PPI then I should have been put on it then. I agree with you....this whole thing seems like BS to me! I feel like crap almost 70% of my day and I think a lot of it is prilosec :-( as far as B12 my new doctor is doing a huge blood panel that will also include a complete vitamin check, I will see then. I always love reading your post, you are so knowledgable and explain everything so well!

toomuchPho 04/15/2015

This is only my opinion, but 2 weeks of feeling good is nothing. Feeling good means that you're just starting to heal - do something wrong, like eat the wrong food, and you'll be back to square one almost immediately. Been there, done that.

Give it time, couple of months at least.

Andy1986 04/16/2015

They can be side effects, so it may be wise to taper off like your dr said. Dont worry too much about it because there are other PPIs around, so if the step down to Zantac doesn't work you can try one of the others instead.

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