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.
Hi all!
So 1st please excuse if this is too long! Please bear with me!
So a little history; I'm a 51 year old mother of 2 beautiful daughters. I suffer from chronic pain due to a car accident, I was hit by a drunk driver in 2002. I am on social security disability because of it. I live on Morphine ( short acting for immediate relief) and Opana ( for long acting relief). I know these two alone do not help my stomach.
I also suffer from chronic daily headaches/migraines. I could support the Excedrin company single handedly! Again, hard on stomachs. I try not to take them unless I absolutely have to and only with food.
The rest of my pharmacy is too long to go into! I had a heart attack in 2011.
So I have suffered from ulcers and stomachs problems since I wasninnthe second grade! No kidding, there were 10 of us that did. That would have been in around 1971.
So that's the history.
The issue going on now and the reason I'm here. About three years ago I started having blood in my stool, signs of upper GI bleed. I also started losing weight without trying to. ( I'm 5'8 and at that time weighed 135.) Went to the GI specialist, got scoped and unsurprisingly I had a peptic ulcer with GI bleed and gastritis. He told me to continue my Omeprozole and....that's it. Alrighty! Between then and now I am down to 96 pounds and the GI bleed comes and goes. I have been scoped twice more and same story! He seems totally unconcerned about the weight loss!
I haven't seen him for about a year. I was at 105 the last time I did.
I didn't realize my weight had dropped THAT much. It wasn't until I saw my cardiologist in Dec. And he flipped out. He got me a new appt with the gastroenerologist but they won't get me in till March 28th. My Primary Dr is pissed. Said if I lose 1 more pound she will personally call and pull strings and raise hell to get me in sooner. Knowing her, she will anyway!
My symptoms; severe nausea ( even with Phenergan), lack of appitite ( headache Dr just put me on a new med that's supposed to increase appitite, add weight), Omeprozole keeps heartburn down but if I miss a dose it's brutal, latest symptom vomiting in my sleep especially if I eat within an hour before bed.
I try to force myself to eat ( my boyfriend and roommate all but force feed me) but the nausea is so bad I worry about keeping it down. I vomit about once a week.
I'm at my wit's end as to what to do! I'm getting really scared about the continued weight loss. I live in a small town, the gastroenerologist is only one of two in this town. The next step is to get a referral to Seattle. The only problem. With that is that's an all day appt, expensive, and return trips for testing. My boyfriend is awesome about taking me to out of town Drs but he works and getting time off tends to be a bitch! ( sorry if I offend!
So there's my story! If anyone know how to help please anything will do! Even support helps! I really am scared. With a bad heart I know the continues weight loss is even more of a problem.
Is there anyone else with gastritis that has dealt with anything even remotely similar? Or even had the same thing happen?
Thank you if you made it this far! Bless you all!
So 1st please excuse if this is too long! Please bear with me!
So a little history; I'm a 51 year old mother of 2 beautiful daughters. I suffer from chronic pain due to a car accident, I was hit by a drunk driver in 2002. I am on social security disability because of it. I live on Morphine ( short acting for immediate relief) and Opana ( for long acting relief). I know these two alone do not help my stomach.
I also suffer from chronic daily headaches/migraines. I could support the Excedrin company single handedly! Again, hard on stomachs. I try not to take them unless I absolutely have to and only with food.
The rest of my pharmacy is too long to go into! I had a heart attack in 2011.
So I have suffered from ulcers and stomachs problems since I wasninnthe second grade! No kidding, there were 10 of us that did. That would have been in around 1971.
So that's the history.
The issue going on now and the reason I'm here. About three years ago I started having blood in my stool, signs of upper GI bleed. I also started losing weight without trying to. ( I'm 5'8 and at that time weighed 135.) Went to the GI specialist, got scoped and unsurprisingly I had a peptic ulcer with GI bleed and gastritis. He told me to continue my Omeprozole and....that's it. Alrighty! Between then and now I am down to 96 pounds and the GI bleed comes and goes. I have been scoped twice more and same story! He seems totally unconcerned about the weight loss!
I haven't seen him for about a year. I was at 105 the last time I did.
I didn't realize my weight had dropped THAT much. It wasn't until I saw my cardiologist in Dec. And he flipped out. He got me a new appt with the gastroenerologist but they won't get me in till March 28th. My Primary Dr is pissed. Said if I lose 1 more pound she will personally call and pull strings and raise hell to get me in sooner. Knowing her, she will anyway!
My symptoms; severe nausea ( even with Phenergan), lack of appitite ( headache Dr just put me on a new med that's supposed to increase appitite, add weight), Omeprozole keeps heartburn down but if I miss a dose it's brutal, latest symptom vomiting in my sleep especially if I eat within an hour before bed.
I try to force myself to eat ( my boyfriend and roommate all but force feed me) but the nausea is so bad I worry about keeping it down. I vomit about once a week.
I'm at my wit's end as to what to do! I'm getting really scared about the continued weight loss. I live in a small town, the gastroenerologist is only one of two in this town. The next step is to get a referral to Seattle. The only problem. With that is that's an all day appt, expensive, and return trips for testing. My boyfriend is awesome about taking me to out of town Drs but he works and getting time off tends to be a bitch! ( sorry if I offend!
So there's my story! If anyone know how to help please anything will do! Even support helps! I really am scared. With a bad heart I know the continues weight loss is even more of a problem.
Is there anyone else with gastritis that has dealt with anything even remotely similar? Or even had the same thing happen?
Thank you if you made it this far! Bless you all!
I would suggest getting an endoscopy and find out what's really going on before doing anything or trying anything or taking any advice.
The worst part of it is my face lost a ton of fat so I look like a skeleton.
But, I'm sorry you are going through what you are and have been going through. Although I have had stomach issues ranging from moderate to extreme over the past 7 years, I oddly enough haven't thrown up once from it. I can't even imagine.
Goodluck!
Start by taking 4 Ulcetrols per day. 2 right after you wake up. Then give it at least 30 minutes between then, and breakfast.
Take another Ulcetrol somewhere in the middle of the day, but not shortly before or shortly after a meal. And final Ulcetrol right before you go to bed.
After you see improvement (I don't know, a couple of weeks?) switch from Ulcetrol to PepZin Gi.
Take 4 PepZin GI's per day. 1 as you wake up, 2 spaced out between meals, 1 before bed. Indefinitely.
I find that Gastromend HP is actually more helpful than Ulcetrol, but some people said it doesn't help them. It helped me a LOT, though, in the beginning. If you choose Gastromend HP... take 4 capsules per day, as it says on the box.
All of the above supplements contain zinc carnosine as at least one of the ingredients. It shields the stomach from damage created by abrasive medications and alcohol. It also stimulates stomach repair.
None of the supplements I mentioned will conflict with your Omeprazole. Though I do believe it would be in your best interest to dump Omeprazole in favor of a high dose of Zantac.
Because PPIs increase the risk of HEART ATTACK, and Zantac does NOT.
http://www.webmd.com/heartburn-gerd/news/20150610/popular-heartburn-meds-linked-to-higher-risk-of-heart-attack
The mdose of Zantac that may work for you, is 150mg every 8 hours. You may experience acid rebound, however, and have to baby yourself for several weeks, with small meals with 3 hour intervals between them. It's not an easy change to make, but Zantac is safer in long-term. You may want to consult with your doctor about that.
Finally, for your heart, consider taking CoQ10. The ubiquinol form is considered more advanced, but there's been a lot of debate about that, and my conclusion is that ubiquinone (older form) is actually safer because all the studies were done on it.
Consider taking 200mg of CoQ10 per day, from a solid manufacturer such as Swanson. They sell it pretty cheap:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HLR93RQ/ref=sr_rp_2_s_it?m=A1EFHP3WGGR5QC&ie=UTF8&qid=1456488250&sr=sr-2