I am not sure about the skin on the blueberries, if I eat grapes, I peel them, sometime these small things with skin or seeds to avoid as it might irritate your stomach and gut. Papaya and avocados are great and avocados are high in calories so that would be a good snack spread on toast.

Hi Steve, Thanks I will stick to this and will make sure i keep this up at least for the next 6 months, i think i will through in a boiled egg or 2 some days with brown toast soilders to add more calories. Also what drinks are generally acceptable. I used to love the mars carton milkshakes but i guess thats off the menu now.

Hi Anita, Thats very helpful I have noticed manuka honey is around 7 per pot, but you can't put a price on health so manuka honey it is. I also bought some mastic gum from holland and barratt along with slippery elm. If i stick to this for 6 months i am hoping i can eat other foods and out at restaurants again.

Just so you know i used to weigh around 17 stone (110kg) through weight training but i have dropped to around 14 stone through gastritis and obviously i don't train anymore or take and supplements. Its a healthy weight for my sized as i am 6Ft and well built and i always feel mega low on energy because i am not eating much. The doctor put me on 60mg of lazeprazole in the mornings thats 2 30mg capsules but i am now cutting down to just 30mg in the morning now.

James

Hi James I think nearer 9 months but don't go back to old eating habits , go out to restaurants but choose carefully and don't over indulge. Your stomach although healed will never be the same again.

If you feel you need the other lansoprazole take it in the evening there is no point in bearing with the gnawing pais, it just makes it worse. I usually ask my doctor to prescribe 15 mg so I can take when required but definitely take daily in morning. It is a must during the initial stages . You should see some improvements by week 3 if you stick to this diet.

Thanks Anita, I will do this for 9 months and then hopefully i may be able to eat normally and by that i mean a sensible diet i used to eat chicken kievs, pizza, chips, the odd tikka kebab as well as fruit vegetables and cereals and i did enjoy a can of pepsi every now and again does that seem realistic and likely to you. Also if you have a big attack of pain does it generally reset all the hard work, and do you think this will come and go throughout my life and if you do relapse do you have to start the whole thing from scratch.

I think once you get gastritis it generally means that you have problems with your stomach function in general unless it is caused by other factors helicobactor pylori or Hiatal hernias. It's like having a bad back, it gets better but sometimes something triggers it off again. I don't think it will be ever healed but if you stick to this diet, you will be able to reintroduce foods to your diet again like pizza, but instead of 3 slices you eat 1. Instead of a whole can of Pepsi, settle for a sip. Yes if something triggers it the whole episode can start all over again. I have had it 3 times. The first time was the worst. The second time I recognised the symptoms straight away and went back on a strict diet but I don't think iwas fully healed and I couldn't resist curry noodles which was a bad mistake so I am feeling slight burning inside my stomach which lasts for a few seconds and some tingling. Yeah our doctors in the uk just throw large doses of ppi. I actually had a hiatal hernia and I saw 5 doctors, they kept telling me it was ibs after the tests for helicobactor were negative. I had to go private in the end but there wasn't anything you could really do so I found out the hard way be diet restriction and trial and error . I had mild fundal gastritis from acid reflux. By the time I was diagnosed , I was already 3 months ith the condition. Mine was so bad, I could barely digest 1 meal a day, my stomach just bloated until I could barely breathe and my intestines were bloated . It was a dual effect of hh and gastritis . Well eventually t became a lot better, I could eat more and feel hungry . After 9 months I could actually eat loads of things even spring rolls but as soon as I feel full or near full. I won't eat till bursting. I am 5 ft and weigh just over 7 stone. I lost 1.2 stone with my problems . At one point I was less than 7 .unfortunately, I love food and I pushed the boat a bit too far . Hopefully my op will sort this out to place my stomach back in its original position.

Hi Anita, thanks for taking the time to explain all this to me, whats funny is that my doctor hasn't even told me 1% of what you guys have told me and it makes me a little bit disapointed in our health service in general. Just one more question Anita how do we stand with alcohol, i don't really drink at all but maybe once every 3 months my friends will arrange a night out on the town and we do tend to drink a lot on that night out, I assume that will never happen again for me.

Many thanks

Hi James, you better forget about alcohol for now. Your first G attack hit you back in January but you're trying to tell yourself that you G is not chronic. I'm sorry to disappoint you but you've got full blown chronic G. I had my first attack last Fall it lasted only couple of days so I saw a GI doctor that had very good references. He didn't think I have anything serious but did the endoscopy and didn't find much besides "granular gastric mucosa". When I questioned him about that he said that a lot of people have it and it is nothing. I wish I knew better and went on the diet back then, I'd spare myself from a lot of pain and misery. I suffered most of the winter, went to my physician who sent me to do every useless test in a book. I've beem through MRI, CTscan, ultrasound, and many blood tests. He even wanted me to swallow a camera pill so this was coming next... All tests were normal but I was in pain all the time. Finally by the recommendation of a family friend II went to see another GI who did one more endoscopy back in April. While he found chronic G and mild erosion, he didn't think much about it and just put me on Nexium that didn't do much good for me and you know the rest of the story. My take on this now that many many people have Chronic G but might have just mild symptoms and manage them with antacids. In the US you can by PPIs, Zantac, etc.. without prescription almost everywhere. Looking at the countless TV comercials there is a lot of demand for these drugs. None of the doctors I've seen ever brought up diet topic, the only treatment they know is taking more and more pills. Food that we're eating daily triggered our G. Our bodies not design to eat frys, chips, pizza, and load up on soda and alcohol. We need to go back to basics and eat what's good for us but not what everyone else eats or drinks.

Thanks Steve, that's helpful and do you really think I have chronic G, to be honest if I had spoken to you 4 months ago I might have saved myself a whole heap of pain. Your like the daily strength Simon Cowell. And I understand that you advise people on your tried and tested experience. You obviously found out the hard way and it must have been very difficult. I went to the supermarket about half an hour ago and found gluten free bread which was expensive and e only lactose free yoghurt they had was chocolate flavour so I didn't buy that's.

Acute G would clear up within a month. G takes some time to develop so it obviously started to affect you long before January. Unfortunately I didn't know much about G when got my first attack. Being rarely sick all my life, I naively believed that doctors would quickly provide total cure to me in the event of need. Initially I unconditionally believed to them and just kept taking pills and did countless tests while my condition was getting worse and worse, I lost 20 kg since October. If I'd continue going this path I'd be no better than walking pharmacy without sign of improvement. I just hope more people will find this thread and learn from it. Don't try to save money on better food that your body needs now. No amount of money will buy you a new stomach so do your best effort to fix the one you've got. I don't know about UK prices, in the US loaf of Gluten free bread cost $5-6 and it should be enough for at list a week. Lactose free yogurt also cost twice more then regular. Some stores here also don't have lactose free variety but higher end stores do. There are lots of different favors, I normally get vanilla. Try to eat more organic or otherwise natural foods. Think quality, not quantity. If you can't find lactose free yogurt look at Greek style thick yogurts, they should be low in lactose.

Ok I saw lots of Greek style yogurts the best one was vanilla and honey so ill get that one tomorrow. Looks like I found out about the diet plan at the right time because I think I was very close to making this a whole lot worst, I know that late night eating is a massive trigger for me so I won't be doing that. I actually don't care if my is bad with what I eat now as the pain from ibs is nothing compared to a bad G attack. I have set my target to stick to this and if I stick to it all the way till Xmas day I will enjoy an Xmas dinner, that's 7 months from now. Do you have family Steve and if yes how did they cope with your illness and were they supportive.

James

Thanks for the recommendation of the food map diet for ibs, if I didn't have G it would be great and easy to follow however with the G diet and the fodmap diet a lot of it contradicts each other. For example the G diet recommends one food and the fodmap diet says to avoid it. I think it would be immensely hard to get a balance between the two recomended diet. Gastritis defiantly takes priority so I will follow that diet for now unless the toast intake starts to affect me too much as I never ever normally eat toast. But thanks very much for pointing this out to me.

I have fairly large family and they tried to be supportive but there is not much they could do about my G since no one had any experience with it. You're having hard time with both IBS and G and you can find relieve by only eating right food that your body can take. I'd say do your best to stop your G from flaring up and then start with LOW FODMAP for your IBS. You need to find a balance in life with food you're eating that wouldn't agrivate neither IBS nor G.

Hi Steve, sometimes I think I am only 30 years old and completely screwed, but then I think I only have one live and I have to make the most of it. At the moment it's all about trying to improve my quality of live. I have come to terms with the fact that my diet has to be correct and strict I even walked straight past all the ice cream, crisps and sweets in the super market and just went to find everything on my list. Do you know if sports and physical excercise can make G worse. I play squash quite a lot but haven't really played since I got ill will it aggravate this all will it be ok it can be quite competitive and certainly is very physically demanding.

During flare up it is going to be hard to do any demanding physical activities since you're in pain. Also luck of calories in your diet will keep you weak for a while. Once you get your G under control resume your normal physical activities. That doesn't mean that you need to sit in front of the TV most of the time now. Find activities that less demanding and help you to take your mind of your G.