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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Gastritis or ulcer? Need help!

Johno87
Johno87

Hi all, I've been having stomach pain since February, and in May went to the doctor who diagnosed me with an ulcer. He prescribed Pantoprazole but I had another stomach pain attack about two weeks later. At this point the doctor put me on H Pylori treatment (2 weeks). I finished the treatment, and continuted to have ongoing stomach pain (that was at the end of June). The doctor told me to go off of the PPI for a month to do a urea breath test, which came back negative. 



In the meantime my symptoms have gotten worse, to the point where I now have constant abdominal pain in the center just below my ribs. The pain occasionally spreads to my upper-middle back. I also have yellow stool that floats.



I had to go to the ER 5 times so far, and have been back on Pantoprazole for 16 days. I continue to have constant abdominal pain. I've had blood tests, urine tests, an abdominal ultrasound, CT Scan, and chest X-Ray, all of which came back negative. I'm waiting on results from a stool test, and My endoscopy appointment isn't until October.



In the meantime, can anyone help me figure out what's going on? Is it normal for a peptic ulcer or gastritis to take this long to heal? The first ER doctor I saw said my pain is probably because I went off of the PPI for a month (during the month I still had abdominal pain, although it came and went more often). Any help would be greatly appreciated!

soretum
soretum
Sadly gastritis can take many months or years to fully heal. The h-pylori treatment only gets rid of the bacteria but not the inflammation so your gut will need to heal either way.
Johno87
Johno87
Thanks for the reply soretum. I've been back on the PPI for 17 days now, and still haven't had a pain free day yet. Any idea how long it is before I'm relatively symtom free?
JKR12393
JKR12393
It depends man.......if your symptoms are getting worse that's a problem.......diet plays a huge part in gastritis..... a sure way to exacerbate it is to eat hard foods or foods that are difficult to digest. You need to find foods that you can eat that don't make the pain worse. Then it will start to heal naturally with the PPI, for most ppl. If you're one of the unlucky ones you may need to venture into natural remedies to soothe the ulcer....which there are plenty of remedies: many of which work quite well......... The first step tho is to stop exascerbating your ulcer.....
JKR12393
JKR12393
Did your doctor put you on the triple therapy treatment for H Pylori without first diagnosing it as H Pylori??? Or was that just writing mistake??
Johno87
Johno87
My doctor didn't test me for h pylori before putting me on the triple therapy. My next doctor though did a blood test and found I did have h pylori antibodies. My symptoms though got worse after the antibiotics.
Johno87
Johno87
Also atm the symptoms haven't gotten worse, but they haven't gotten much better. I have a nearly constant burning ache in my upper abdomen. My diet is super strict, as I've cut out gluten, dairy, alcohol, caffeine, acidic foods, and fatty foods. Still progress has been slow at best.