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 I am new to the group, I am 26 years old, and I need help!!
My symptoms began in March when I had extreme heartburn, burning in stomach, constipation (Pellet stool) and pain in left rib cage (as of now doctors say is costochindritis and unrelated). I went to my primary care doctor and he prescribed me Protonix, however after a month on it I still felt terrible so decided to go to a Gastroenterologist. The Gastroenterologist did an endoscopy and diagnosed me with erosive gastritis and duonitis, NOT caused by H.Pylori. He put me on Dexilant in the morning, Linzess, and Carafate 3 times a day. My heartburn went away but my stomach burning was still on and off for like 3 months, and constipation was the same. I complained to my doctor that it wasn't working and I still got horrible stomach burning so he told me to drop the Carafate and take 2 Zantacs at night, I did that for like a week or 2 and it didnt work. So now I am on Dexilant, metamucil, and Nortryptoline at night which could help calm the stomach. I still don't see a real difference so any suggestions?
I also take Zoloft and Finestaride. I am also eating Manukkah Honey regularly, no spicy foods, no alcohol (which I really want to asap its been the 5 months, I only drink once a week socially so I am not an alcoholic dont worry, but I do like my saturday fun), barely any coffee IF I drink it its with ice and Almond Milk in the morning which the doctor approved. I am very healthy eating salads, protein, no bad carbs only the good ones like brown rice, sweet potato, etc.
PS: I have tried Miralax, Stool softeners, IBGuard, Tums.
THANK YOU SO MUCH (I know its a lot)
Leo
This rule does not apply to Zantac, which is an older type of medication with the same purpose. You can take it on an empty stomach in the morning and it will work. Also, Zantac is a lot safer long-term than Dexilant.
I don't know how to address your constipation problem except to try the probiotic brand "Align" and possibly chlorella. But for the general gastritis approach see the site I made: gastritishelp.wordpress.com
I noticed you haven't mentioned your diet yet. Have you looked into foods that can help you decrease your inflammation? I have personally experienced colitis, IBS and just in the last 72 hrs had a severe, acute gastritis flare-up as a result of too much alcohol:/ But prior, I've healed my gut and lived a pretty normal life again.
So I can attest to changing your diet to help relieve symptoms nearly completely. It takes a lot of willpower and change, but I promise it works. I've been researching this problem for about 8 years and have never used meds. Ever.
Through my own process I learned what worked, but most recently the diet I created for myself has a formal name in the integrative health medicine community. It's called GAPS diet and has worked for me time and time again. You can read more here:
https://draxe.com/gaps-diet-plan-protocol/
http://www.gapsdiet.com/
Here's the 101
You’ll cut out things like:
Grains
Sugar
Refined carbs
Processed foods.
You will be able to eat things like:
Meats
Fish
Vegetables
Fruits other than avocado
Egg Yolks
Olive Oil
Fermented dairy like kefir
Bone broth is also recommended with every meal
I personally and strongly recommend:
Apple cider vinegar in warm water with a ton of honey ( 1:1 water apple cider with as much honey as you need to cut the vinegar taste)
warm lemon water every morning
add turmeric to every meal
incorporate raw ginger (not the powdered kind)
drink coconut water and cook with coco oil
When you're having a flare up, but need food, make white rice (not brown as it's harder to digest) cooked with plenty of oil and whatever quantity of salt you need to flavor it
Used sea salt, not refined salt (cut out morton's for ex)
green tea, not coffee
avoid gluten as much as possible
stop drinking for as long as you can - maybe just switch to wine only eventually so you're not consuming hard alcohol or beer (this part is hard for me bc i looove beer but I've been sick most recently for 4 days and just looking at beer makes me ill).
I can't encourage this lifestyle enough. There are a ton of renowned health practitioners out there that can help, too: Andrew Weil, Aviva Romm are a few I trust.
If you have any questions let me know. I can talk about this stuff for days!
GwenY I haven't tried Pepzin. What is it? And what does it do?
ChooseDiet, the physicians assistan told me not to take ginger nor turmeric nor acidic fruits like lemon so a lot of that I'm not supposed to take.
Leo - Pepzin, as I have read, is an enzyme that lives in the stomach and digests food but when it leaks upwards, it causes trouble.
The Pepzin/Zinc Carsonine I take to line the stomach like a bandage and promote healing and healthy GI environment. Shihonage recommended ages ago - Doctors Best brand. I am needing to have another go at Probiotics as the ones I took from the local health shop, started hurting me - but it seems we should be on them so will order some from Doctors Best.
Strange on the lemon as it is alkaline when in the stomach which I have read lots of times but if you are over acidic it is a no no and can burn the esophagus and stomach.
Good health to all..............G.
Leo - my dr's tried to put me on antibiotics when I first discovered my GI issues. Antibiotics as you may know do a real number on the stomach lining and liver. And in fact when i was a peace corps volunteer the antiobiotics i was on to help me avoid malaria were the number one contributor to my initial problem. What i'm getting at is that i had to search for quite a while to find a doctor who understood what I could do (in addition to meds, perhaps in your case) to change my life so i wasn't so sick anymore. I eventually landed with a nutritionist who had studied GI problems all over the world, who helped me figure out what I need i order to make my problems go away. At that point I'd been sick for about 5 years and it was the nutritionist who helped most. If you need the drugs, by all means, but our medical community is learning more and more that the drugs typically cause more harm in the longterm than we've fully understood. I wish you all the best and hope you get better. Good luck!