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.
Stats:
Age: 27
Height: 5'9
Weight: 145lbs (at June 8th)
Smoker: No
Drink alcohol: 2-3 glasses of beer/wine a week before problems occurred.
First off, I just want to say how happy I am to find this place. It has given me a wealth of knowledge on diet and other such clues to my current issues.
My problems started around late April of this year. My eating habits, or lack there of, have not been that great along with severe, and untreated, anxiety/stress issues.
Anyway, the problem started the last weekend of April as I had a slight throbbing discomfort under my left ribcage. I did not really think about it as I have had stomach issues in the past that resolved themselves on their own. That next morning the pain had spread to my lower gut which was tender to touch. I went to the Doctor that Wednesday and he thought I had gastritis and wanted to do more tests. I could not as I had a vacation that next week that was 3-4 months in the making. He prescribed a 30 day dose of Omeprazole 20mg and recommended to keep a healthy diet. I did so and by the 7th day of taking it, I felt great, just in time for vacation where I did not watch my diet and over-indulged.
I continued on my dosage without any stomach problems during vacation and finished the 30 day course and resumed my normal eating habits, a lot of spicy/hot sauce and lots of anxiety/stess. I noticed the next week I started having severe skin itching that would not calm down even with calamine lotion. Finally, I got so fed up with the itching happening all day, I took a benadryl and the itching disappeared within the hour.
That Sunday morning, June 8th, about 11 days after finishing my meds I woke up with excruciating stomach pain. I ended up in the ER as I could not breathe because of the pain. They did blood and other tests and came back with my bilirubin, liver, and pancreas levels being normal. They did find one gallstone but felt it was not causing my issues and felt it was Gastritis and gave me a GI specialists name to go to and get an upper endoscopy.
After the endoscopy about a week ago, they confirmed I had mild gastritis with a slight hiatal hernia. I will know this Wednesday if I tested positive for H Pylori on the biopsy they performed. He prescribed me 40mg Omeprazole but I did not want to take it after reading the long term results of PPI usage
So far, I have stuck to a bland diet and I am switching between Omerprazole 20mg and Zantac 75mg daily along, as I do not want to use the PPI long term, with DGL Licorice 3-4 times a day and I feel like a lot of the bad stomach pain has been kept under the threshold. Sadly I had a flare up last night as my parents brought me some grilled shrimp and they had heavily seasoned it with pepper. The flare up is finally calming down today.
I apologize for the long story but my main questions are.
1. Could I have exacerbated my gastritis by quitting the PPI cold turkey or was it just making my symptoms?
2. I have been losing weight significantly since starting the bland diet and I am getting nervous about this as I do not look healthy. Can I take whey protein shakes with soy milk as my stomach can handle soy but not regular milk or stick with ensure?
3. Is the diet thing really just trial and error? I tried a cup of coffee for the first time morning in over 3 weeks, half caf/half decaf, and I felt surprisingly fine with the hard boiled eggs and steel cut oatmeal afterwards.
4. My bowel movements, while not as foul anymore, are still very oily. Could it be possible I have pancreatitis as well?
5. Has anyone had the itchy skin that I have been experiencing?
I understand recovery is different for everyone so I could be fine in 3 months or in 3 years. My heart really goes out to everyone on here still dealing with the symptoms. This is not how men/women were meant to live. Dealing with pain 24/7.
Age: 27
Height: 5'9
Weight: 145lbs (at June 8th)
Smoker: No
Drink alcohol: 2-3 glasses of beer/wine a week before problems occurred.
First off, I just want to say how happy I am to find this place. It has given me a wealth of knowledge on diet and other such clues to my current issues.
My problems started around late April of this year. My eating habits, or lack there of, have not been that great along with severe, and untreated, anxiety/stress issues.
Anyway, the problem started the last weekend of April as I had a slight throbbing discomfort under my left ribcage. I did not really think about it as I have had stomach issues in the past that resolved themselves on their own. That next morning the pain had spread to my lower gut which was tender to touch. I went to the Doctor that Wednesday and he thought I had gastritis and wanted to do more tests. I could not as I had a vacation that next week that was 3-4 months in the making. He prescribed a 30 day dose of Omeprazole 20mg and recommended to keep a healthy diet. I did so and by the 7th day of taking it, I felt great, just in time for vacation where I did not watch my diet and over-indulged.
I continued on my dosage without any stomach problems during vacation and finished the 30 day course and resumed my normal eating habits, a lot of spicy/hot sauce and lots of anxiety/stess. I noticed the next week I started having severe skin itching that would not calm down even with calamine lotion. Finally, I got so fed up with the itching happening all day, I took a benadryl and the itching disappeared within the hour.
That Sunday morning, June 8th, about 11 days after finishing my meds I woke up with excruciating stomach pain. I ended up in the ER as I could not breathe because of the pain. They did blood and other tests and came back with my bilirubin, liver, and pancreas levels being normal. They did find one gallstone but felt it was not causing my issues and felt it was Gastritis and gave me a GI specialists name to go to and get an upper endoscopy.
After the endoscopy about a week ago, they confirmed I had mild gastritis with a slight hiatal hernia. I will know this Wednesday if I tested positive for H Pylori on the biopsy they performed. He prescribed me 40mg Omeprazole but I did not want to take it after reading the long term results of PPI usage
So far, I have stuck to a bland diet and I am switching between Omerprazole 20mg and Zantac 75mg daily along, as I do not want to use the PPI long term, with DGL Licorice 3-4 times a day and I feel like a lot of the bad stomach pain has been kept under the threshold. Sadly I had a flare up last night as my parents brought me some grilled shrimp and they had heavily seasoned it with pepper. The flare up is finally calming down today.
I apologize for the long story but my main questions are.
1. Could I have exacerbated my gastritis by quitting the PPI cold turkey or was it just making my symptoms?
2. I have been losing weight significantly since starting the bland diet and I am getting nervous about this as I do not look healthy. Can I take whey protein shakes with soy milk as my stomach can handle soy but not regular milk or stick with ensure?
3. Is the diet thing really just trial and error? I tried a cup of coffee for the first time morning in over 3 weeks, half caf/half decaf, and I felt surprisingly fine with the hard boiled eggs and steel cut oatmeal afterwards.
4. My bowel movements, while not as foul anymore, are still very oily. Could it be possible I have pancreatitis as well?
5. Has anyone had the itchy skin that I have been experiencing?
I understand recovery is different for everyone so I could be fine in 3 months or in 3 years. My heart really goes out to everyone on here still dealing with the symptoms. This is not how men/women were meant to live. Dealing with pain 24/7.
Nina1959
I answered your other post... :)
poorlygir4l
Hi well I get bad pain too and I was taken in hospital again about 3 months ago. Doctors just tend to give a PPI and pain relief. Im on Lansoprazole and it doesn't, do anything. I was offered morphine which I had when I was in hospital but Im scared of it. Anyway I don,t know how I can help except that we need to keep off so many things and watch our diet. I need to be stricter with myself I know. I have also started taking Slippery elm as people say it works for them to coat the stomach. Also we can have ginger tea, though Ive only found it with lemon in it. Im not sure about lemon but some say it helps them. Try this, lemon , honey and ginger tea, some say it works but it made me sick. I tried it with chamomile though so it may have been that. Chamomile is ok for some as an anti inflammatory. I guess its trying different remedies to see what suits you. I keep moaning as I just have not found things that work yet and I shouldn't, I know. Gastritis is horrible.
poorlygir4l
I also did like you at first I ate some spicy foods and drank coffee when I wanted to. It was much milder then and then I got Campylobacter so with that and not watching what I ate plus stress may have made it worse. Also just when I thought I was coping better with it I had to go into hospital with my asthma and it all flared up again after that. It can be very tempermental, you think its got milder and then it starts getting worse. This year has been really bad and I have not been anywhere because of it. Just watch it and keep up the antacids or it may flare up more. I guess a lot depends on the cause of it too, I had no H pylori and still am not sure why it got like this. I had my gallbladder out though and have suffered since then.
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