Even mild gastritis is quite painful.

You want to know why you feel worse after feeling great after a couple of days? Because you resume old habits once you start feeling that way.

So you are trying to be holistic but you are taking pepto bismol and tums?

We have told you before, you need to be taking pepcid even if you do not want to take a PPI. Because frankly it sounds like you have made very little improvement.

As long as you do not resolve the underlying issue, the issue being the excess acid, you will not get better and it will just be like this. A couple of good days and then mostly bad days.

Hi! It's not like I go back to eating irritating foods. I usually feel worse after I "go" to the bathroom. That's what happened yesterday. I went in the morning and then the rest of the day I felt terrible. I am holistic. I only take Tums and Pepto I smile if desperately necessary. Isn't Pepcid an antacid? I read those are bad because a person needs acid in their stomach to properly digest food. I take DGL Licorice to soothe my stomach. I read it heals ulcefs and gastritis better than PPIs and H2 Blockers.

Caleigh,

Acid is the enemy for gastritis, duodenitis & ulcers. It causes pain & more damage. Once your lining is more healed then you can worry about having acid for good digestion. At this point the priority must be minimizing acid &/or creating a barrier over your lining to help heal your inflamed tissue otherwise you will never heal.

Ginger is an irritant. Foodwise you need to start with bland basics like potatoes, white rice & oatmeal & expand from there. Keep a food diary.

I understand what you mean about pain can be worse after "going" to the bathroom. I used to get this & think it was something to do with spasms increasing in the GI tract. I found that buscapan helped a lot. It's a plant extract if that satisfies your natural criteria.

If you're determined to go this natural route then I would suggest you get some help from a professional Naturopath or medical Herbalist or whatever they're called in your part of he world. Run a mile if they try & prescribe you stuff like ginger, pepsin, betaine HCL.

What they need to be giving you is soothing & coating agents like slippery elm, marshmallow, psyllium, licorice, kelp that will need to be taken several times a day before eating to coat your stomach to protect it.

Other people are raving about PepZin GI so you might want to try that too.

A couple of tums or pepto bismol here & there are not going to heal you.

Personally I found proper licorice is far more effective than DGL licorice, but it has to be taken with caution & at correct safe prescribed doses because it can affect potassium levels in blood.

Oh & forget about the stupid word "MILD"... You seem to think that this implies it is less painful. It's like saying a fracture is less painful than a break!

Mild gastritis & duodenitis hurts like a +

Hi, smilelikeyoumeanit!
Yeah, I guess so. I have Marshmallow Root Extract (I don't think it helps much), Licorice Root Extract (haven't tried it yet, only the tea), Chamomile Extract (tried it once and I don't think it did anything), slippery elm makes my nausea worse for some reason. I also find that drinking plain water makes my nausea worse. A friend of mine who has IBD and Ulcerative Colitis and goes through the same stuff I go through said to drink Pedialyte and that seems to be good. Yesterday, what little I was able to eat, was rice in chicken broth and toast. Today I woke up and has a little brown rice Rice Krispies cereal for breakfast. My stomach isn't as nauseous as it was yesterday. I just hate having this feeling of no energy and constant pain. I ate a couple dried cranberries a couple days ago, because they're dried I thought they'd be better. I'm guessing even a couple set me off immensely.What would you say would work best for helping my nausea so I can eat and drink?

Thank you!
Caleigh :)

Cranberries????!!!! Nooooo.... They are soooo acidic! One of the most acidic fruits. Drying them can actually concentrate the acid making them even more acidic. The only dried fruit I tolerate are dates & I am much further along the healing route than you.

The other stuff sounds like the right direction - rice, toast, chicken broth. Keep it bland as possible & keep a diary of your foods/diet & symptoms. What about potatoes?

I can't advise on the nausea because I never had this symptom, but sure others can help. Did your Doctor advise or recommend anything that could help the nausea?

Keep your food bland & simple like baby food at this stage.

Hi, smilelikeyoumeanit!

That's what I thought about the cranberries. Would actual baby food be good, haha? Also, if worst comes to worst, I have Zantac 150 mg. How and when should I take it? What exactly does it do? Earlier before I ate lunch I made a tincture (I think that's what it was) with a tiny bit of water and a few drops of marshmallow root extract and a few drops of licorice extract and it seemed to help a bit. I should avoid Tums and Pepto Bismol completely? Also, any fruits or vegetables that aren't acidy that would be soothing?

Thank you!!!
Caleigh :)

So now you ask about Zantac, after I addressed this issue at least twice, specifically aimed at you, in great detail.

You're the one poster I cannot help at all, and not for the lack of trying. Hopefully "smilelikeyoumeanit" has more patience for repeating the same advice over and over only for it to be completely ignored as your condition gets worse.

I can't watch this.

Shinohage is right, you are playing with fire. Go to a doctor and get treated with safe stuff from them like zantac/pepcid otherwise you'll keep permanently damage your stomach and never return to normal.

I have to chime in on this...Caleigh, you really need proper medicine - something weaker like Pepcid, or Zantac to start, and a PPI if that doesn't work. You have to get this under control before it gets worse, which it will, if you don't limit the acid in your stomach. Herbs wont help you right now.

There is a big difference between taking medicine unnecessarily, and taking it when it's actually needed. You need it.

You cannot play around with your stomach lining. You are far too young for this horrible condition to worsen. This is not a silly stomach bug that you'll shake off in a week or two... it can take months of dedicated bland diet & appropriate medication to stabilise this condition. I can share my knowledge, but I wasted a lot of time on various supplements & random herbs before I found my best healing route which still includes Nexium, Zantac & bland, low-acid diet.

By baby food I meant bland, bland food. Potatoes, bananas, rice, oatmeal.

Please do not try & formulate on your own with herbal remedies. They can be powerful & dangerous like all medications. Additionally tinctures were not prescribed by my medical herbalist because they can be irritants - the solvent is often alcohol based or similar. When my Herbalist prescribed things like slippery elm, marshmallow, licorice etc they were in pure, fine powder form to be mixed with water. I want to reiterate that I did not heal with these. Yes they soothed greatly, but personally I needed Nexium & Zantac to begin healing properly.

Zantac reduces the amount of acid that your stomach produces to help your lining heal.
Pepto Bismol coats the stomach lining to protect it.
Tums neutralise acid temporarily.

Non acidic fruits & veg include potatoes, sweet potatoes, steamed carrots, bananas... these are well tolerated by most.
There are lots of other non-acidic vegetables, but for various reasons they aren't always tolerated (eg, too fibrous).

To be honest Caleigh, I think you should go back to your Doctor for advice & particularly to get something for your nausea.

Oh & I 100% agree with toomuchpho...

"...there is a big difference between taking medicine unnecessarily, and taking it when it's actually needed. You need it..."

Hi!
I took a Zantac last night. I don't think one dose did much. How long do you think it will take to start seeing results? Should I take them literally every 12 hours? Also, is it true that an empty stomach can make gastritis worse? Maybe I feel worse when my stomach is empty. Right now I can only take a few bites of food at a time. Should I be eating more?

Thank you!
Caleigh :)

Caileigh what i noticed is that everyone is different depending how much damaged your stomach is. Small meals hurt me but an empty stomach doesn't, you have to listen to your stomach.

I am also wondering when to start seeing results with antiacids I've been told a few days. I'm starting with pepcid but seeing no difference yet will switch to zantac after that.

Sorry I can't remember how long I took to see the benefit when initially taking 150mg Zantac every 12 hours. Give it at least a few days perhaps? The important thing is taking the doses to maintain the acid suppression effect. You don't just take it now & when you feel like it.

I got reasonable healing results on Zantac. Far better than omeprazole actually.
But when I then switched to Lansoprazole & Zantac in combination it was a gift from the Gods of Stomach Relief. I actually healed massively on this to a point to where I could drop the ppi for many, many months... until I screwed my stomach up again by pushing my luck on the diet... & needing to go onto Nexium. Silly girl that I was back then. ;-)

Shihonage might recall his experience as he has taken both Zantac & Pepcid.

As for the empty stomach question. Yes mine burns when empty.

Keep in mind that everyone is different, but you'll need at least a couple of weeks to test whether it's doing anything for you.

The H2 blockers didn't work for me. I was on Zantac 150 every 12 hours for 1 month, then Cimetidine 300mg once a day for another month... In addition, I was on sucralfate, and a boatload of herbs and supplements which did squat... what's when I ended up in ER and had a PPI basically shoved down my throat. :) I started with Protonix 20mg/day, and it helped immediately, but the healing was slow-going, with many setbacks. Pushing the dosage further didn't help much. I was put on Dexilant 60mg in September last year, which was like the "gift from stomach gods", lol. It still took over 2 months to really settle me down.

I'm still on the 60mg, but I want to cut down soon. I'm just not brave enough yet, because I almost have my life back and I would be crushed to go through another flare.