Firstly - have you had an endoscopy? What is your exact diagnosis?

Sorry to hear you're in the awful, worst early stages of this Things will improve greatly (or heal completely) in time, but unfortunately it takes much, much longer than 2 weeks. Months or even years of a good dietary, medication & supplement routine.

You will get this under control. I promise. But you need to find a simple routine that works for you ASAP. Do not let this worsen. You will have bad days, goods days, ups & downs, but gradually you will improve.

I needed many, many months on a bland diet & double dose of ppi & 300mg Zantac to make progress & achieve the reasonably consistent level of stability that I have now.

You have likely dropped your Nexium level far too quickly & experienced rebound hyperacidity. This will damage your stomach further & completely undo any small level of healing you might have achieved in those 2 short weeks.

I would recommend you read as many of Shihonage's posts as possible - he will recommend trying switching your ppi for more Zantac as a preferable option. PPI should be last resort, but don't feel bad if you do need it (I still take a ppi). He will tell you to take Pepzin GI. He has recently posted a great regime in response to DonicaRose's query about nausea. She has followed his advice & feeling improvement already. Also for good advice & insights read Herrlehmann, Gusko, Andy, JohnGreen, TooMuchPho's posts... many others too I don't recall just at this minute.

Read, read, read this forum. Research, research, research. Knowledge is power.

At this stage don't overly worry about getting varied nutrients. You will get more foods back gradually. My safest bland foods when things were bad - white Jasmine rice, oatmeal, chicken, carrots, sweet potato, butternut squash, potatoes. Great if you can tolerate a little salmon & banana. Unfortunately everyone is different & there is no one size fits all initial healing diet.

I know others will reply to you. Please do not panic or worry. We have all been in your shoes & are all here to support you.

Hi, my advice may not be the best but from my experience I think you quit nexium way too fast and by too much. It is very strong drug but if its not even working 100% for you, then talk to your doctor about switching to a new PPI. I had extreme acid rebound when I quit nexium and Zantac did nothing to help it and quitting like that undid all the healing I had.

It's good you can handle salmon and bananas. if the fish is fresh, all the vitamins are there, remember some people on earth live on meat all their lives. A friend who wrote a book and is specialist on this confirmed that too he lived on nothing but pork and potatoes for a long time to heal his colitis.

Dont be anxious about your vitamins/minerals and if you still are try vegetables with low fiber and safe fiber like carrots,squashes,etc.

Be careful with bananas, make sure they are not too ripe the sugar can be a trouble for some (it is for me).

This heals if you are on nexium + gastritis diet, it will heal enough for you to be comfortable in a few weeks, but you have to be strict.

"smilelikeyoumeanit" called it, because I'm a broken record. A broken record which is mostly right.

It's only been two weeks and you haven't developed much of an acid rebound.

You can still change from your overblown regimen "I got a script for Nexium and have been on 40 mg of that for 2 weeks now, plus 300 mg of Zantac" to something more reasonable.

Namely, just switch to 450mg of Zantac - taking 150mg precisely every 8 hours. This regimen got me far. Set a timer on your phone.

PPIs like Nexium are to be avoided if possible. It's good that they exist for when everything else fails, but they can and should be avoided in most cases.

H2 blockers like Zantac were used before PPIs but now PPIs have become "fashionable" so doctors don't even bother with Zantac. It's highly irresponsible and is one of those things that shake our trust in them.

"A bit of sweet potato and baked salmon, plus bananas" - you're on a good path here. Sweet potato and bananas are one "step" above baked salmon in ease of digestion. Another thing on that step, which is very useful, is oatmeal.

In your state it would help to eat oatmeal, wait 30mins, then have a piece of baked salmon, or a mashed egg. The coating makes it work better.

Chewing things thoroughly has a big effect on how they digest.

Buy PepZin GI on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Doctors-Best-PepZin-Veggie-120-Count/dp/B0035BYOSA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1428525625&sr=8-1

Start taking 4 capsules a day. 1 as you wake up, 1 right before bed, the other 2 spread out between meals (not immediately before or after them). If you take other zinc supplements, lower these 4 capsules to 2.

Yes there's hope that this will ever heal. Maybe not perfectly, and there will always be dietary limitations, but they will expand significantly compared to what you have now, and you'll be able to live a largely unimpaired life. There will be something you can eat in any restaurant, if you look carefully enough, without having to torture the staff.

There will always be a ban list - of things like Coca Cola and coffee and ketchup - but otherwise the range will expand. And from time to time you could even have something from the ban list - as long as it's rare, and you can control yourself not to binge on it.

The process of healing has two parts:

1) effective acid suppression (Zantac)
2) actual healing (PepZin GI)

Doctors prefer 1) to be Nexium and 2) to be Sucralfate or some other crappy stomach coater, but PepZin GI is a clever Japanese supplement which just plain works better.

When either part is compromised, healing doesn't work.

Your muscle weakness and brain fog are caused by combined effect of Nexium and Zantac at suppressing absorption of B12.

This can be compensated by using sublingual methylcobalamin 5000mcg (Jarrow brand is good, for example). Crack it with your teeth and leave it to dissolve under your tongue.

Traditional cheapo B12 sold in most places (cyanobalamin) absorbs poorly, puts more stress on an already stressed stomach, and is IMO kinda useless. Methylcobalamin is the effective kind.

Of course, only use it after food.

Also, switching to just plain Zantac and dropping Nexium will ensure there's still some stomach acid sloshing around, and B12 deficiency will lessen naturally.

Thank you so much for your words of advice, I can't even describe how scary and worrisome this is, and how much it helps to hear from people who have gone through it. I can't do any of the activities I love anymore (gym, running, strength training, hiking) which is really stressful and difficult emotionally. Even going to work is difficult.

I spent a couple of days this weekend reading through posts (so helpful) and have ordered PepzinGI and digestive enzymes online. They should be here in a week, hopefully.

Smile, I have an endoscopy consultation with a gastro doc this Friday. I've had a fair bit of blood in my stool on a couple of occasions, so I'm pretty sure it is either gastritis or an ulcer (eating makes things much worse, not better). I feel like I'm on massive doses of medication - it's comforting to hear that you were also. I'm not used to taking prescription meds and don't really react well to them.

Gusko, thanks for the advice on diet. I worry about not being able to eat fruit or vegetables - the sides of my mouth are cracking and not healing and I feel like I'm missing something (maybe Vitamin C). I'm going to get the B12 that shonage suggests ASAP!

Shonage, do you think it's safe to try and switch to Zantac alone? I would much rather take that - it has fewer side effects for me - but I am really worried about stopping the PPI. Did you have bleeding etc too?

I will do anything to heal this...I'm fine with being very strict on diet and was never a foodie, thankfully. The only thing I crave, to the point of tears, is coffee. I will try oatmeal this week.

I am SO thankful this forum exists.

whoops, shihonage, not shonage, sorry.

Yes in the beginning I had blood in the poop, because the stomach was messing up the colon/bowels environment. When there's bleeding in the stomach, the poop turns black, and it's a sign to contact a doctor ASAP and watch for signs of weakness.

However mine wasn't black - more like dark red - which indicated what i was feeling - the problem was likely in the bowels.

Taking broken-cell-wall Chlorella as I wake up for a couple of months, turned the poop green (cosmetic side-effect), and then I was able to quit Chlorella after it fixed the problem, coinciding with my being able to stabilize the stomach via other means to stop provoking other parts of the tract.

As for switching, I believe it's worth the risk. Yes there might be some acid rebound, but you haven't been on either Nexium or Zantac long enough to get used to it, so it should be effective in and of itself. Zantac reduces stomach acid by 70%, which should be enough for healing combined with PepZin GI.

I switched medications a couple of times myself, and the most helpful thing to me in this process has been quark/farmer's cheese or "tvorog" as it's called in Russian stores.

Ending a meal with a plateful of tvorog with sugar sprinkled for edibility, helped control acid created by the said meal. Even on Zantac, it was extremely helpful in the beginning. Unlike milk, which neutralizes acid but then disappears and gives way to more acid, tvorog stays there longer and really does dampen the acid.

It's also a natural probiotic and it has some protein in it.

Ok, that is interesting - mine was dark red too, not black. It definitely wasn't the tarry black stuff that is cause for major alarm, but it freaked me out enough that I assumed I needed to be on a PPI immediately and so went to a doctor to get one. I've had blood work done since then and it is fine.

I'm not digesting food at all right now - it's going straight through and coming out partly undigested and very dark-coloured. I definitely feel like the medication is messing up my colon somehow.

Thanks for the tip on the cheese. I live in a biggish city so should be able to find it quickly.

Will try Zantac 3x daily as soon as I get up the nerve.... being in a lot of pain just makes me want to swallow more PPIs or whatever will relieve it.

If you're not digesting food at all, start taking probiotics, but most importantly, shift to the lowest step of the digestion ladder: white rice.

You should be able to digest white rice under almost all conditions.

Another option is baby foods, but I haven't tested that on myself.

From white rice you can after a few days go up to oatmeal. Farmer's cheese(tvorog) is somewhere on oatmeal level of difficulty.

Just remember that PepZin GI is vital to the healing process.

(If these people were paying me to praise their products, I'd be rich by now...)

Erm, I just looked up "Pantoloc", and it's another PPI. You have to quit that too.

It's likely not the medication but your stomach that's affecting the other parts of digestive tract.

The only priority is to get the stomach better. Slowly amp up what you can eat. If you can graduate to reliably digesting, really digesting, oatmeal and mashed potatoes, where they don't just "go through", it would be a great step forward.

Start on PepZin GI ASAP and then you will have some reduction of discomfort and it will be easier to switch to 450mg Zantac/day.

The longer you wait, however, the harder it will be.

Make sure your stomach is empty or relatively empty if you take it after meals. I found out zantac works best on empty stomach or hours after meals +1:00 hour if possible. I made this mistake in the beginning I think and did not see zantac work as good.

That is correct. A 1 hour window of "not eating" is ideal before and after taking Zantac. In emergencies it could be cut down to perhaps 30 minutes.

yeah, I was given a dose of Pantaloc at the ER yesterday (and it helped) but I'm not taking it otherwise - just the Nexium and Zantac, which feels like a lot already.

Will definitely try white rice only. I tried a banana this afternoon and it did not go over well. I am really so hungry, I sometimes feel like those raptors in Jurassic Park. I thought it was the medication that was interrupting digestion, good to know I guess that it is a stomach problem instead and that I should dial down even further on food.

I wish I could start PepZin today but I had to order it off Amazon, and it might take another week to arrive :(

You are an absolute wealth of information, shihonage, thank you SO much.

Thanks Gusko, I am definitely taking the zantac (and nexium) on an empty stomach. My biggest problem is eating anything at all, even an hour after taking them. I honestly feel best as long as I eat *nothing*. Mornings are actually my best time because my stomach is totally empty. I wish I could survive for weeks without food until this is healed.

The dark blood in the stool likely indicates some bleeding in your upper GI area. Most likely in stomach or possibly duodenum. Could be bleeding ulcers or severe gastritis/erosions. Other things too.

This dark blood is really serious. Is your Dr aware of this or is this a new symptom? You must tell them ASAP.

Please don't take the digestive enzymes just yet. The protease content can be sometimes be mildly erosive so not a good idea whilst this bleeding is happening.

Four years ago I had gastritis, duodenitis & duodenal ulcers & the pain is beyond words & I couldn't even sip water without severe pain, let alone eat.

Make sure they test you for H pylori. Push to get that endoscopy done ASAP.

You are in the horrible, acute painful stages of this right now, but you will improve greatly.

It's important to eat 30-60 minutes after taking Nexium as it stimulates acid production and the drug can get into the acid pumps to switch them off. If you dont stimulate the acid then the Nexium cant block the pumps so when you do eventually eat its as if you haven't taken anything.

I know what you mean about an empty stomach, I feel so much better too but eating something is important, just have to put up with it for a while unfortunately.

Smile, I went to the doctor (while I was on vacation) right away when I saw the blood. I had been taking Zantac once per day at that point. He gave me Nexium and also upped my Zantac dose to twice per day. He also tested for H. pylori and it was negative, though I'm supposed to repeat that test when I get an endoscopy I think. My blood work is fine (had that done this week) and so I know I'm not bleeding to death, at least so far!

My endoscopy consultation is tomorrow, and hopefully the gastro doc will do the actual endoscopy very soon after that.

Thanks for the tip on digestive enzymes. I really hope this acute phase will pass soon. The pain is almost intolerable - water hurts me too. How long did it take for you to get past the severe pain stage?