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.
Stats:
Age: 27
Height: 5'9
Weight: 145lbs (at June 8th)
Smoker: No
Drink alcohol: 2-3 glasses of beer/wine a week before problems occurred.
First off, I just want to say how happy I am to find this place. It has given me a wealth of knowledge on diet and other such clues to my current issues.
My problems started around late April of this year. My eating habits, or lack there of, have not been that great along with severe, and untreated, anxiety/stress issues.
Anyway, the problem started the last weekend of April as I had a slight throbbing discomfort under my left ribcage. I did not really think about it as I have had stomach issues in the past that resolved themselves on their own. That next morning the pain had spread to my lower gut which was tender to touch. I went to the Doctor that Wednesday and he thought I had gastritis and wanted to do more tests. I could not as I had a vacation that next week that was 3-4 months in the making. He prescribed a 30 day dose of Omeprazole 20mg and recommended to keep a healthy diet. I did so and by the 7th day of taking it, I felt great, just in time for vacation where I did not watch my diet and over-indulged.
I continued on my dosage without any stomach problems during vacation and finished the 30 day course and resumed my normal eating habits, a lot of spicy/hot sauce and lots of anxiety/stess. I noticed the next week I started having severe skin itching that would not calm down even with calamine lotion. Finally, I got so fed up with the itching happening all day, I took a benadryl and the itching disappeared within the hour.
That Sunday morning, June 8th, about 11 days after finishing my meds I woke up with excruciating stomach pain. I ended up in the ER as I could not breathe because of the pain. They did blood and other tests and came back with my bilirubin, liver, and pancreas levels being normal. They did find one gallstone but felt it was not causing my issues and felt it was Gastritis and gave me a GI specialists name to go to and get an upper endoscopy.
After the endoscopy about a week ago, they confirmed I had mild gastritis with a slight hiatal hernia. I will know this Wednesday if I tested positive for H Pylori on the biopsy they performed. He prescribed me 40mg Omeprazole but I did not want to take it after reading the long term results of PPI usage
So far, I have stuck to a bland diet and I am switching between Omerprazole 20mg and Zantac 75mg daily along, as I do not want to use the PPI long term, with DGL Licorice 3-4 times a day and I feel like a lot of the bad stomach pain has been kept under the threshold. Sadly I had a flare up last night as my parents brought me some grilled shrimp and they had heavily seasoned it with pepper. The flare up is finally calming down today.
I apologize for the long story but my main questions are.
1. Could I have exacerbated my gastritis by quitting the PPI cold turkey or was it just making my symptoms?
2. Should I just start re-taking my PPI for time being with B12/Magnesium supplements until I can wean off of it?
3. I have been losing weight significantly since starting the bland diet and I am getting nervous about this as I do not look healthy. Can I take whey protein shakes with soy milk as my stomach can handle soy but not regular milk or stick with ensure?
4. Is the diet thing really just trial and error? I tried a cup of coffee for the first time morning in over 3 weeks, half caf/half decaf, and I felt surprisingly fine with the hard boiled eggs and steel cut oatmeal afterwards.
5. My bowel movements, while not as foul anymore, are still very oily. Could it be possible I have pancreatitis as well?
6. Has anyone had the itchy skin that I have been experiencing?
I understand recovery is different for everyone so I could be fine in 4 months or in 4 years. My heart really goes out to everyone on here still dealing with the symptoms. This is not how men/women were meant to live. Dealing with pain 24/7.
Age: 27
Height: 5'9
Weight: 145lbs (at June 8th)
Smoker: No
Drink alcohol: 2-3 glasses of beer/wine a week before problems occurred.
First off, I just want to say how happy I am to find this place. It has given me a wealth of knowledge on diet and other such clues to my current issues.
My problems started around late April of this year. My eating habits, or lack there of, have not been that great along with severe, and untreated, anxiety/stress issues.
Anyway, the problem started the last weekend of April as I had a slight throbbing discomfort under my left ribcage. I did not really think about it as I have had stomach issues in the past that resolved themselves on their own. That next morning the pain had spread to my lower gut which was tender to touch. I went to the Doctor that Wednesday and he thought I had gastritis and wanted to do more tests. I could not as I had a vacation that next week that was 3-4 months in the making. He prescribed a 30 day dose of Omeprazole 20mg and recommended to keep a healthy diet. I did so and by the 7th day of taking it, I felt great, just in time for vacation where I did not watch my diet and over-indulged.
I continued on my dosage without any stomach problems during vacation and finished the 30 day course and resumed my normal eating habits, a lot of spicy/hot sauce and lots of anxiety/stess. I noticed the next week I started having severe skin itching that would not calm down even with calamine lotion. Finally, I got so fed up with the itching happening all day, I took a benadryl and the itching disappeared within the hour.
That Sunday morning, June 8th, about 11 days after finishing my meds I woke up with excruciating stomach pain. I ended up in the ER as I could not breathe because of the pain. They did blood and other tests and came back with my bilirubin, liver, and pancreas levels being normal. They did find one gallstone but felt it was not causing my issues and felt it was Gastritis and gave me a GI specialists name to go to and get an upper endoscopy.
After the endoscopy about a week ago, they confirmed I had mild gastritis with a slight hiatal hernia. I will know this Wednesday if I tested positive for H Pylori on the biopsy they performed. He prescribed me 40mg Omeprazole but I did not want to take it after reading the long term results of PPI usage
So far, I have stuck to a bland diet and I am switching between Omerprazole 20mg and Zantac 75mg daily along, as I do not want to use the PPI long term, with DGL Licorice 3-4 times a day and I feel like a lot of the bad stomach pain has been kept under the threshold. Sadly I had a flare up last night as my parents brought me some grilled shrimp and they had heavily seasoned it with pepper. The flare up is finally calming down today.
I apologize for the long story but my main questions are.
1. Could I have exacerbated my gastritis by quitting the PPI cold turkey or was it just making my symptoms?
2. Should I just start re-taking my PPI for time being with B12/Magnesium supplements until I can wean off of it?
3. I have been losing weight significantly since starting the bland diet and I am getting nervous about this as I do not look healthy. Can I take whey protein shakes with soy milk as my stomach can handle soy but not regular milk or stick with ensure?
4. Is the diet thing really just trial and error? I tried a cup of coffee for the first time morning in over 3 weeks, half caf/half decaf, and I felt surprisingly fine with the hard boiled eggs and steel cut oatmeal afterwards.
5. My bowel movements, while not as foul anymore, are still very oily. Could it be possible I have pancreatitis as well?
6. Has anyone had the itchy skin that I have been experiencing?
I understand recovery is different for everyone so I could be fine in 4 months or in 4 years. My heart really goes out to everyone on here still dealing with the symptoms. This is not how men/women were meant to live. Dealing with pain 24/7.
Now, we aren't doctors here so you are going to get our experiences and yours may vary.
I'll start backward -
5. Yes, I've had itching. It can be either inflammation in your stomach irritating your skin nerves, or a food allergy, which leads right into
4. Have you ever done a test or an exclusion diet for gluten? Some of your symptoms sound a lot like celiac, especially the greasy stools and pain in your lower bowel. Gastritis is usually more likely to be more powerfully felt right in the stomach. While you have gastritis (by testing) you may also have gluten intolerance and IBS (alone or from the gluten) causing some of your issues. I know first hand what a pain it is to exclude gluten foods but it may be worth a good old college try.
3.yes, go for it with the protein drinks. Soy smoothies are fine as long as you don't have any issues with soy otherwise. I love, love, Syntrax naturals medical whey powder. No flavor, no sweeteners or sugar. Mixes right into anything that isn't piping hot. Great way to get protein in. But, if weight loss is your issue at the moment you might actually want to go with a few cups of plain old white rice with butter a day. Protein is surely needed but for weight gain it's carbs. In fact I gained 40 lbs when I first got gastritis because I couldn't get protein down and I'm a carb gainer.
2 and 1 . Meds are tricky questions. Kudos for not wanting to take ppi meds long term. But long term is years, not months. If the doc says you should take them then take them and yes, wean off slowly. 1/2 dose a day for a couple weeks, then every other day, then every third. Let it take a month. Also, some folks have really good luck taking a ppi med before bed and an H2 blocker in the morning. You might be masking but it's really more like calming down the acid to give your stomach lining a chance to heal.
That benadryl might be a great help more often at night to let your stomach rest. It's something I talked about on here the other day, discovering that 25mg at night lets me sleep and calms the inflammation in my stomach for a few hours. Daytime it may make you too tired but getting sleep is a bit part of the battle.
As for diet, don't let that cuppa that didn't hurt right away fool you. Many times it can take 12 hrs for an offending food to hit... it's not like it always burns right away. The caffeine and other chemicals in coffee set off a chain reaction that make more acid.
Stress....ah, stress. Cortisol is our enemy. Stress=cortisol. If you are inclined, some guided meditation even just at night while falling asleep may be helpful. There are some great CDs.
If none of this helps, you aren't doing anything wrong.... I've tried everything that they've thrown at me for 2+ yrs now and the pain is still there, still gnawing. The best you can do is keep a symptom chart along with a food and feelings journal and see what you can do to help mitigate your symptoms...
wishing you well
Nina
I have heard that while gastritis happens, it can alter your skin nerves. It seems worse when I am, surprise, stress/anxiety ridden.
I will definitely consider that as my Mother has gluten intolerance.
My main concerns are weight loss and loss of strength. So I guess buttered white rice with a whey protein shake.
You are right about the ppi, if it worked that well within a week, surely it should would again and give myself time to ween off of it.
You are right it could have been the coffee that morning followed up by the shrimp I had just eaten.
I only take the benadryl between 21:00 and 22:00 hours and only if the itching is just out of control. Otherwise, during the day, I just soldier through as my job requires me to be extremely alert and detail-oriented.
I am considering going to head doctor to deal with my anxiety/stress as I feel like this caused the worst of it.
Hang in there and re: gluten, it runs in families...big time!
About the diet, I follow the recommended diet for gastritis (from dropping acid, minus the dairy, ginger, manukka honey and excess salt). I found that it is actually pretty accurate and most things I eat that are not part of that diet cause symptoms. There might be some things I am not eating that would be ok, but in general it saves a lot of time and a lot of pain to follow general recommendations.
I feel good with odwalla vanilla original protein shake (I think it is soy based), and another almond milk sold at whole foods that is enriched in proteins.
2. You can start the PPI's, if you feel they were effective. However, if you also have concerns and anxiety about the long-term effects of them, perhaps speaking with your doctor or nurse first may be beneficial.
3. Weight loss is common with gastitis. Protein, protein, protein. The shakes may work or they may be difficult to digest (as protein can be). Stick to eggs (they are often called the "perfect protein" for a reason- skinless white fish or white meat may also be okay if you eat meat). Ensure is okay. I found personally Boost Breeze sat a little easier on my stomach (you may be able to get it locally or on amazon).
4. It is all trial and error- treatment, diet and day-to-day. Appreciate the good, take down time and relax as much as possible through the bad.
5. Call the GI and speak to them. They may need to run tests.
6. Your body is stressed. When your body is stressed, along with your emotions and mental state, all sorts of things can happen. Keep an eye on it, watch out for rashes in case it is an allergic reaction and follow-up with the doctor if it gets worse or does not go away.
On a final note, regarding the anxiety- try to keep your mind busy. However you can. Away from the illness as much as possible. Talking always helps and you will have support here as well.
Happy healing and best wishes.
I have been trying to stay stress free but I guess I made myself worried as I have seen other people on here talking about how it can take 7-9 months to almost 4 years of where they finally feel normal again and it is terrifying to think about dealing with that type of pain for so long but at the same time, I try to tell myself if I am already feeling decent only 3 weeks in, then I might be on the right track.
I told him how I have been having muscle/joint pains and he did not seem to really care.
I feel like a lot of the pain has disappeared with changing over to a bland diet along with using DGL 3-4 times a day and with a 1000mg of mastic gum twice a day.
Unfortunately, I still get stomach pains at night and early in the morning along with some chest pains. Stress/anxiety is hard to eliminate with my job so I am looking into SSRI's or Buspirone to take for my anxiety along with CBT Therapy.
My skin is still very itchy along with having weird hot flashes in my legs, my Doctor could not explain that but I believe it is probably inflammation.
I started incorporating Ultimate Flora Critical Care 50 Billion this past Monday, once in the morning 30-60 minutes before breakfast, as I have been struggling to have regular movements since June 8th.This morning was the first time I have a regular movement since late May/early June.
I am able to eat eggs with a little cheese and a tortilla so I think it is some improvement.
I will check back in
I am hoping I am wrong and it was just the cold avocado I ate but if not, I am going to be really upset.
I hope I won't have to be on the PPI for more than 3 months, but this is the only thing that has proved to work for me. I've been sick from February this year and tried everything under the moon with no avail (I have another lengthy thread about my experience) - in the end, I gave up and went with the PPI... It does work for some of us, and you may only need it temporarily. I think the major side effects relate to the people who take them for years. Hugs to you.