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.
After reading posts casually for about 6 months (since I was diagnosed with Severe Gastritis), there are some posts I seem to see repeated over and over again as well as some general themes I have noticed.
Since I am pretty much healed from my gastritis issues (keep in mind I still have functional dyspepsia, which is WAY more manageable
& less restrictive), I thought I'd share a few of my thoughts/experiences.
1.) A lot of people that post really need to consider getting psychological help in addition to physical help. I forget the poster who brought this to light about a month ago, but they could not of been more spot on.
I know from personal experience that gastritis can be made MUCH worse by stress (obviously). When I developed it towards the end of my summer classes, I remember being on the verge of vomiting every 2 minutes when I was taking my course final. Would I of been that way had I been at home watching TV? Certainly not.
Alot of people develop OCD rituals that persists beyond treatment. I was huge on this. I had to sit in the same chair with two pillows propping me up while I ate, I had to always have gum with me and an ice cold drink, I had to sit for a certain time period after eating, I would get crazy anxiety if any of these rituals did not fulfill themselves or I strayed from them, leading to you guessed it, more stomach pain. Seeing a psychiatrist has helped me immensely.
2.) PPI's are not that bad. I can already tell I am going to take a lot of flack for this but in a lot of cases PPI's are highly beneficial. Of the thousands, probably millions of gastritis sufferers, PPI's are often the best choice and quickest fix to ones ailment. Not trying to bring down posters that seek help on these forums but often times, WE are the worst of the worst and often represent the extremes of the ailment. Your doctor is not incompetent, he is simply doing his/her job. Doctors, most of them at least, are not trained in holistic medicine and likewise will not give much advice on natural treatments. Through no fault of their own, they see hundreds of patients a day and prescribe PPI's as they are scientifically backed to successfully treat hyperacidity and resulting issues. So trust your doctor. Sure he/she will not be right on every case but for the vast majority they will get you feeling better.
And I will admit some of the criticism is justified if you seeing your every day doctor that you go in for check ups with but if you're seeing as gastroenterologist and have undergone the necessary diagnostic measures, why question it.
That said, I feel like a lot of people are still stuck in the healing process, maybe even hurting process by not taking this advice.
If you're the one in a million, you're the one in a million.
3.) Treat food like breathing for a while
I couldn't care less (take my point for its idea, not literally) if I was breathing air in the Smokey Mountains or in downtown LA. I just want to breathe, it makes no difference to me. Therefore, think of good tasting food as a luxury, not a necessity.
At the end of the day, it comes to you and your willpower. Surely you can resist that piece of chocolate cake if it means you stay on your path to recovery.
And for those of you who cannot give up the ambiance/taste/habit of coffee or soft drink? Who do you really have to blame. You are literally preventing your own recovery.
4.) If you do take the advice of some of the posters
Realize that every single person is different and what may affect one person may have no effect on another.
If I listened to every posters advice, I'd be gluten-free, lactose-free and only eating boiled rice every single meal. Every one is different.
If it doesn't affect you, then it doesn't affect you. Be glad not skeptical.
Now here are a few of my tips and tricks that I used to heal myself.
-Sleep upright
-Eat small meals, frequency helps in the infancy of gastritis (after you can tolerate food again)
-Gum helped me relieve reflux when I wasn't under PPI therapy and somehow settled my stomach when I was on PPI therapy
-Eat the same bland meals pretty much every day during the peaks
I will add more tips that I may have left out as I think of them.
Goodluck & Good Healing.
Sorry if I come off as blunt, I just do not want to sugar-coated it when these issues can dramatically affect ones life.
Since I am pretty much healed from my gastritis issues (keep in mind I still have functional dyspepsia, which is WAY more manageable
& less restrictive), I thought I'd share a few of my thoughts/experiences.
1.) A lot of people that post really need to consider getting psychological help in addition to physical help. I forget the poster who brought this to light about a month ago, but they could not of been more spot on.
I know from personal experience that gastritis can be made MUCH worse by stress (obviously). When I developed it towards the end of my summer classes, I remember being on the verge of vomiting every 2 minutes when I was taking my course final. Would I of been that way had I been at home watching TV? Certainly not.
Alot of people develop OCD rituals that persists beyond treatment. I was huge on this. I had to sit in the same chair with two pillows propping me up while I ate, I had to always have gum with me and an ice cold drink, I had to sit for a certain time period after eating, I would get crazy anxiety if any of these rituals did not fulfill themselves or I strayed from them, leading to you guessed it, more stomach pain. Seeing a psychiatrist has helped me immensely.
2.) PPI's are not that bad. I can already tell I am going to take a lot of flack for this but in a lot of cases PPI's are highly beneficial. Of the thousands, probably millions of gastritis sufferers, PPI's are often the best choice and quickest fix to ones ailment. Not trying to bring down posters that seek help on these forums but often times, WE are the worst of the worst and often represent the extremes of the ailment. Your doctor is not incompetent, he is simply doing his/her job. Doctors, most of them at least, are not trained in holistic medicine and likewise will not give much advice on natural treatments. Through no fault of their own, they see hundreds of patients a day and prescribe PPI's as they are scientifically backed to successfully treat hyperacidity and resulting issues. So trust your doctor. Sure he/she will not be right on every case but for the vast majority they will get you feeling better.
And I will admit some of the criticism is justified if you seeing your every day doctor that you go in for check ups with but if you're seeing as gastroenterologist and have undergone the necessary diagnostic measures, why question it.
That said, I feel like a lot of people are still stuck in the healing process, maybe even hurting process by not taking this advice.
If you're the one in a million, you're the one in a million.
3.) Treat food like breathing for a while
I couldn't care less (take my point for its idea, not literally) if I was breathing air in the Smokey Mountains or in downtown LA. I just want to breathe, it makes no difference to me. Therefore, think of good tasting food as a luxury, not a necessity.
At the end of the day, it comes to you and your willpower. Surely you can resist that piece of chocolate cake if it means you stay on your path to recovery.
And for those of you who cannot give up the ambiance/taste/habit of coffee or soft drink? Who do you really have to blame. You are literally preventing your own recovery.
4.) If you do take the advice of some of the posters
Realize that every single person is different and what may affect one person may have no effect on another.
If I listened to every posters advice, I'd be gluten-free, lactose-free and only eating boiled rice every single meal. Every one is different.
If it doesn't affect you, then it doesn't affect you. Be glad not skeptical.
Now here are a few of my tips and tricks that I used to heal myself.
-Sleep upright
-Eat small meals, frequency helps in the infancy of gastritis (after you can tolerate food again)
-Gum helped me relieve reflux when I wasn't under PPI therapy and somehow settled my stomach when I was on PPI therapy
-Eat the same bland meals pretty much every day during the peaks
I will add more tips that I may have left out as I think of them.
Goodluck & Good Healing.
Sorry if I come off as blunt, I just do not want to sugar-coated it when these issues can dramatically affect ones life.
Totally agree that stress, anxiety and trauma are the number one causes of these gastro conditions and help with the mental part is key as well.
You are not the first person to say these things fusion. Everyones journey is different and this takes a lot of discipline to heal these issues.The anxiety part is the hardest part to fix.
I am the one who always talks about the anxiety/stress/trauma part. I feel for the people that are dealing with that. I am lucky I dont have that. Having a Hiatal hernia does make this all more challenging but doing the hard work gets you to a level that makes it even ok to treat yourself.
We are all imperfect. We all have our own journeys and my job is not to judge it but just to give the best advise I can. In the hopes I can help someone else to see what they can do differently.
And for those of you who havent seen my comments in other posts, I took a dosage of 40mg of Nexium from about September to mid-December and now am on my maintenence dose of 20mg (mainly for eosinophilic esophagitis that is recurrent w/o 100% response to diet).
Little history. In the past, whenever I took a TUMS or Omeprazole I would get some more intense stomach aches than usual, which could be described as a gnawing ache, slightly resemblant to hunger.
This experience with acid suppressors is what led me to not want to get on any and just 'accept' my daily reflux. Well bam, fast forward to the developement of my gastritis and I was of course feeling way worse than usual, to the point where I lost 20lbs in about 2 weeks (I didn't even throw up, merely from not eating).
After seeing the GI doc and getting an EGD which confirmed my Severe Gastritis, I was advised to go on PPI. (Little background, since I was diagnosed with functional dyspepsia for the entirety of the past four years and nothing had ever shown up on my EGD aside from esophagitis, I didn't think a PPI would really help since my stomach was always visually fine. Would also like to note that in the past I had gotten my e.esophagitis to go into remission but what resolved it was confounded between an anti-inflammatory drug called FLOVENT and a course of PPI which I had happened to be on; naturally myself and the Doc thought I received therapeutic benefit from the FLOVENT, not the PPI).
Now, that I had confirmation that there was actually something wrong with my stomach visually I was much inclined to take the PPI.
However, this time I took Nexium instead of Omeprazole. I found that the Nexium produced a much less intense gnawing ache than the latter.
Fast forward, again, to about 2 weeks ago when I met with my doctor and he rec. that I try and cut down to 20mg (I will admit, his plan of cutting wasn't to detailed. He simply said to just go straight to 20mg w/o taper). Nevertheless, I made my way down to 20mg w/o any flare-up/increase in symptoms and I noticed my gnawing ache was much less intense and less frequent, going most of the time w/o having it.
Not sure the mechanism for this gnawing ache but I think it is definitely tied to acid suppression.
Lastly, a few notes on the gnawing itself.
-It could be pretty intense, not painful per se but it felt like you had an incredible amount of sensation in your stomach
-Found it also to be highly related to anxiety
+Would get really bad when I was out of my comfort zone in public places (wouldn't get as intense when I was just sitting in my house)
-When the sensation was not too extreme (I didn't want to try when it was), it could be relieved by eating
-Chewing gum relieved it temporarily