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.
I'm finally back on my feet again.
Let me give you guys a few more tips that can help you avoid meds and heal your gastritis.
I am currently taking pepcid once a day it is a dose that barely touches my heart as I have heart problems that are exacerbated by certain meds specially those meds that directly affect the heart such as H2 Blockers. Why I took pepcid? To avoid burning a hole in my stomach from the acid at night that could be worse than my Heart issue.
The heart is an organ that has H2 Receptors too. My heart problem needs surgery but I can avoid surgery as long as I avoid inflaming it but luckily I can avoid all meds now which will make my heart happy.
I think you can avoid acid suppression too if you choose the right foods from the start depending on how bad your stomach is. Mine was so bad I had problems with rice too and even problems with fish and chicken breast heck even oatmeal the best food for gastritis. Damn even bananas.
If you can't tolerate white rice switch FIRST to brown rice(soaked and done on a rice cooker) before switching to jasmine rice and chewed it well then discard the insoluble fiber after chewing same with oatmeal, these are two foods you really need to heal so I tried my best to incorporate the in my diet even though they are "rough" on the stomach. Don't make your oatmeal too soupy, the less water the better it works for gastritis, it will soak up the acid to death ! Heck I think someone posted here how someone healed their gastritis eating oatmeal 3 times a day a big bowl too, you can look it up.
If you have money get a rice cooker and soak your brown rice/oatmeal overnight and make it there, it will make them softer and easier to digest/chew. If you don't soak/cook it well, it will make everything worse !
1: oatmeal will coat your stomach better than meds for HOURS and even help you digest some foods if you eat that food after your oatmeal same with brown rice, it will absorb all the acid and stay on your stomach longer than white rice absorbing the acid (not making the stomach work hard).
If you can't tolerate potatoes(I couldn't), switch to pureed carrots they have pectin the best soluble fiber for gastritis, it will coat your stomach too better than potatoes. But you gotta cook your potatoes to DEATH and DONT MASH THEM, you need to chew them ! You need saliva to neutralize the acid.
If you can tolerate sweet potatoes, use that instead of potatoes, it works better than carrots for gastritis.
As for brown rice, the Kernel inside the rise (the part you did not discard when chewing and eating), contains all the calories you need I think I will test this myself with my weight if it's increasing or decreasing.
Also CHEW YOUR FOOD AT LEAST 40 TIMES till it's almost liquid I don't care if its liquid already just chew it till your teeth fall apart, not only it is easier on your stomach but again the amount of saliva NEUTRALIZES stomach acid, saliva has the highest ph on the planet look it up some dudes heal their GERDs by chewing gum and chewing their foods too.
I still can't tolerate fruits but if chewed well to a liquid it will cause less problems and sometimes none same with protein I can't tolerate protein but if chewed well it rarely causes problems. Why would I bother? To prevent a mistake (overcooked oatmeal, rice, away from home and letting your stomach being empty etc) plus it don't hurt to take an antacid with everymeal especially one thats in your body already.
You can try chewing and liquefying your food, you'll see the second option DOES NOT WORK as good.
Depending on how bad your stomach is (like mine was michael jackson really really bad) you can't just take a PPI or a high dose H2 Blocker and eat low acid foods too, you need to let your stomach rest too for faster recovery so don't keep eating too many times if you can avoid it and do not put stuff which will make your stomach work really hard to process. When I was on 40mg nexium a day I did not feel acid but it did not help me recover because I made the mistake of making my stomach work hard (eating every 3-2:30 hours) with very little acid meaning that my stomach was not emptying well for me to eat every 3-2:30 hours it was still working on the last meal so I was back to square one the next day with no pain but with a lot of indigestion symptoms and couldn't move up to the banana stage.
Some of you need to lower the dosage of PPI or get rid of it if you are not seeing progress, it just lowers stomach acid too much and make your stomach work too hard since theres little acid and it causes reflux or worsens reflux after using it for too long(h2 blockers do this too just not as bad) as you may have noticed from some posters here. Avoid gluten even if you are gluten "tolerant" and dairy too, they just promote inflammation even if you don't feel it so it will kind of slow down your recovery not stop it but in some cases you have no option but use those to coat your stomach till your next meal which outweighs the cons. After your last meal eat gavison tablets (which you might not need if you do everything right) and after that slippery elm and go to sleep, wake up on slippery elm (not gaviscon).
Anyways after months of suffering I had to come up with all this because I can't suppress stomach acid too much without having terrible GERD and Heart Issues which I don't want to risk....both would need surgery if left uncontrolled.
I am hoping to just survive on my safe foods and recover from the knowledge I gathered for a few months, I feel no discomfort or pain on my diet and chewing techniques. Listen to shihonage and smilelikeyoumeanit too. Otherwise your gonna be on meds and clean diet forever and not see progress.
Track your vitamins/calories here if your diet is too restrictive:
cronometer.com
Praying before every meal helps too better than the 4-7-8 breathing technique. Slow breathers and those relaxed produce less acid, it's on research papers check it on google.scholar.com
I am heading towards healing again this time non stop I think ! Ill be back on the USA hopefully by early next year and eat a pizza with my mom.
Any questions ask shihonage or smilelikeyoumeanit they know best but these are just tips that I found online and tested myself and are helpful.
Let me give you guys a few more tips that can help you avoid meds and heal your gastritis.
I am currently taking pepcid once a day it is a dose that barely touches my heart as I have heart problems that are exacerbated by certain meds specially those meds that directly affect the heart such as H2 Blockers. Why I took pepcid? To avoid burning a hole in my stomach from the acid at night that could be worse than my Heart issue.
The heart is an organ that has H2 Receptors too. My heart problem needs surgery but I can avoid surgery as long as I avoid inflaming it but luckily I can avoid all meds now which will make my heart happy.
I think you can avoid acid suppression too if you choose the right foods from the start depending on how bad your stomach is. Mine was so bad I had problems with rice too and even problems with fish and chicken breast heck even oatmeal the best food for gastritis. Damn even bananas.
If you can't tolerate white rice switch FIRST to brown rice(soaked and done on a rice cooker) before switching to jasmine rice and chewed it well then discard the insoluble fiber after chewing same with oatmeal, these are two foods you really need to heal so I tried my best to incorporate the in my diet even though they are "rough" on the stomach. Don't make your oatmeal too soupy, the less water the better it works for gastritis, it will soak up the acid to death ! Heck I think someone posted here how someone healed their gastritis eating oatmeal 3 times a day a big bowl too, you can look it up.
If you have money get a rice cooker and soak your brown rice/oatmeal overnight and make it there, it will make them softer and easier to digest/chew. If you don't soak/cook it well, it will make everything worse !
1: oatmeal will coat your stomach better than meds for HOURS and even help you digest some foods if you eat that food after your oatmeal same with brown rice, it will absorb all the acid and stay on your stomach longer than white rice absorbing the acid (not making the stomach work hard).
If you can't tolerate potatoes(I couldn't), switch to pureed carrots they have pectin the best soluble fiber for gastritis, it will coat your stomach too better than potatoes. But you gotta cook your potatoes to DEATH and DONT MASH THEM, you need to chew them ! You need saliva to neutralize the acid.
If you can tolerate sweet potatoes, use that instead of potatoes, it works better than carrots for gastritis.
As for brown rice, the Kernel inside the rise (the part you did not discard when chewing and eating), contains all the calories you need I think I will test this myself with my weight if it's increasing or decreasing.
Also CHEW YOUR FOOD AT LEAST 40 TIMES till it's almost liquid I don't care if its liquid already just chew it till your teeth fall apart, not only it is easier on your stomach but again the amount of saliva NEUTRALIZES stomach acid, saliva has the highest ph on the planet look it up some dudes heal their GERDs by chewing gum and chewing their foods too.
I still can't tolerate fruits but if chewed well to a liquid it will cause less problems and sometimes none same with protein I can't tolerate protein but if chewed well it rarely causes problems. Why would I bother? To prevent a mistake (overcooked oatmeal, rice, away from home and letting your stomach being empty etc) plus it don't hurt to take an antacid with everymeal especially one thats in your body already.
You can try chewing and liquefying your food, you'll see the second option DOES NOT WORK as good.
Depending on how bad your stomach is (like mine was michael jackson really really bad) you can't just take a PPI or a high dose H2 Blocker and eat low acid foods too, you need to let your stomach rest too for faster recovery so don't keep eating too many times if you can avoid it and do not put stuff which will make your stomach work really hard to process. When I was on 40mg nexium a day I did not feel acid but it did not help me recover because I made the mistake of making my stomach work hard (eating every 3-2:30 hours) with very little acid meaning that my stomach was not emptying well for me to eat every 3-2:30 hours it was still working on the last meal so I was back to square one the next day with no pain but with a lot of indigestion symptoms and couldn't move up to the banana stage.
Some of you need to lower the dosage of PPI or get rid of it if you are not seeing progress, it just lowers stomach acid too much and make your stomach work too hard since theres little acid and it causes reflux or worsens reflux after using it for too long(h2 blockers do this too just not as bad) as you may have noticed from some posters here. Avoid gluten even if you are gluten "tolerant" and dairy too, they just promote inflammation even if you don't feel it so it will kind of slow down your recovery not stop it but in some cases you have no option but use those to coat your stomach till your next meal which outweighs the cons. After your last meal eat gavison tablets (which you might not need if you do everything right) and after that slippery elm and go to sleep, wake up on slippery elm (not gaviscon).
Anyways after months of suffering I had to come up with all this because I can't suppress stomach acid too much without having terrible GERD and Heart Issues which I don't want to risk....both would need surgery if left uncontrolled.
I am hoping to just survive on my safe foods and recover from the knowledge I gathered for a few months, I feel no discomfort or pain on my diet and chewing techniques. Listen to shihonage and smilelikeyoumeanit too. Otherwise your gonna be on meds and clean diet forever and not see progress.
Track your vitamins/calories here if your diet is too restrictive:
cronometer.com
Praying before every meal helps too better than the 4-7-8 breathing technique. Slow breathers and those relaxed produce less acid, it's on research papers check it on google.scholar.com
I am heading towards healing again this time non stop I think ! Ill be back on the USA hopefully by early next year and eat a pizza with my mom.
Any questions ask shihonage or smilelikeyoumeanit they know best but these are just tips that I found online and tested myself and are helpful.
If the bottom of my oatmeal sticks to the pot, I make another oatmeal for example it gives me indigestion stomach creates more acid to digest that "fried" oatmeal even if you take only the top part and starts working really hard think of a broken muscle trying to lift a heavier weight than it can...it will cramp . Yeah any oatmeal would work, I buy gluten free oatmeal though because i have colitis and other stuff going in my body which I keep in remission by staying off gluten. Gluten is just hard to digest and its like throwing sandpaper on an inflamed GI tract. When the body is inflamed(even during a cold) enzymes go one by one the first ones are dairy and gluten.
I am awful at this type of stuff. How long do you cook it?/What do you add for either calories or added benefit?
when the last meal goes wrong
your next meal
should be the best meal
which is oat meal.
You can do it in a rice cooker or the stove just avoid burning the bottom.
I've actually found that the less processed I go, the worse I feel.
Currently eating Quaker.
What I noticed about the ppi's: it definitely slows down digestion and in my case it definitely aggreavates bile reflux. It's always a balance act. However at the moment I am on PPIs but have to take care that I don't get bloated to not make bile reflux worse ...
How are you feeling these days?
I'm going through a bout of, as you describe, really really bad stomach problems.
Can barely tolerate rice, lost bunch of weight. Have been dealing with this for over a year now. I can't tolerate PPIs, H2 Blockers or Carafate, they all give me heartburn. So for about a week I've been taking Pepzin gi 4x day ( per Shihonage's recommendation) and Pepcin AC 10mg in the morning and before bed. Still heartburn, don't feel stomach pain tho. I'm wondering if I should take Pepcid AC at night only or stop it completely and just remain on Pepzin gi. I'm at my wits end. I'm constantly hungry and can't eat :( I'm 5'4" anddown to 100 pounds.
I have endoscopy in couple of days and am scared of how it's going to affect me. Worried about more irritation. But I have to do it to rule out anything serious and confirm that I have gastritis.
As far as food is concerned, I have issues digesting oatmeal, perhaps because I haven't soaked it before cooking it. Ahgrrrr. I don't know what to do. Any suggestions from anyone would be greatly appreciated!!!