I had the same mental battle last year. In my opinion it sounds like gastritis. You need to take the prescrip your doctor gives you to a T. Then also be very strict on your diet. From what you said about the sress/anxiety you sound like you have gastritis just like me. I have been trying to eat more bland foods....like vanilla yogurt and a banana in the morning, boiled chicked, potatoes, vegetables. Stay away from WINE, coffee, sodas, processed foods, chips, chocolate, fast food, and beer, tomatoes, spicy foods. Literally you need to go a strict diet that may take many weeks for your to find relief. Right now I still get it a bit in the early mornings when I go to wake up but I have only been eatting very strict for the like 7 days. I am quite certain you dont have stomach cancer....you would have other issues going on from what I understand. You just need to experiment with bland foods that work for you and stick to them.
This is just my opinion.

definitely anxiety gastritis. you don't have cancer! cancer doesn't hurt! I've gone through this hell and had the same worries, Blh123 gave really good advice above - the most important thing now is medication, diet and controlling stress.

welcome to the group!

Thank you. I greatly appreciate your replies :)

blh123- so realistically I should expect many weeks to pass before finding relief? 2,3 more? I know everyone is different, just want to know your experience.

I am not sure to your extent, but I could see you easily on meds and on a strict diet for 4+ weeks. As a friend told me, think of your stomach as having a cut on it and it is trying to heal up while at the same time tryin to digest the foods you put in it. Stick to bland foods. For breakfast tomorrow try a banana and some yogurt and then a couple hours later have another banana and yogurt. Then try some boiled chicken for lunch and dinner with either rice, or potatoes, or some other vegetable I think once you start to feel better from the improvied diet while you are healing the anxiety will subside. Just my two cents. If anyone else has some good food options please post for her!!! .

blh, you described my current symptoms to a t! especially the wrap around to the back part. i have struggled w/ a sugar addiction for around a year - i had a scope last year and everything was fine; dxed w/ gerd. i had a 1cm erythema at the ges junction. but i still struggled w/ the sugar, and refused the protonix (i had been on and off acid suppressors for years and eventually ended up w/ way worse problems - i am a sugar junkie!) of course, i am having a bad bout right now - but i don't want to have to take a drug so i am taking this latest case and going to do this right. as i'm sure you've guessed - sugar is my only real problem. (i don't do dairy, fried food/bad fats, or white foods) oh, and my morning coffee. i am trying to negotiate w/ my stomach about that. i love my coffee.

my only advice to you is to stop googling symptoms. be nice to yourself. healing will not happen overnight. :)

I'm getting really tired of writing these things, and I'm also feeling under the weather, so this will be short.

EYES OF BLUE: Stop being a cyberchondriac and looking things up on WebMD. I know it's tempting, but don't.

I am telling you only the things I tested on myself, which helped me greatly, after I too lost weight and had burning and also stool issues.

I strongly suggest buying "Dr's Best PepZin GI", as well as "Gastromend HP".

The former is very safe, but slow-acting.

The latter contains the former, and it's also a stronger solution. There may be a constipatory effect, watch for it.

I would start taking Gastromend as prescribed on the bottle, which is 4 capsules per 24 hours. Make sure one of these capsules is before bed.

The standard diet scale from easiest to harder digestion was, at least for me:

white rice --> oatmeal/banana/baked potato --> baked salmon --> boiled chicken

Farmer's Cheese (TVOROG as it's called in Russian stores) is somewhere on oatmeal level of difficulty, and it's VERY beneficial. Sprinkle some sugar for edibility, and it's a very helpful food. Not only it is a nice dessert after your boring plain diet, but it's a natural antacid and probiotic, and it really made a world of difference for me when I had to finish each meal with it for several months.

Regarding Prilosec, I'd suggest changing to a strong dose of Famotidine (Pepcid). Since Prilosec is a PPI, PPIs create severe deficiencies in the body. They're TOO efficient at shutting down stomach acid, can and expose stomach lining too much to opportunistic infection.

Pepcid is an old-fashioned H2 blocker with the same effect, but it's a very refined and well-tolerated medicine with near-zero side-effects or interactions, safe to use forever if necessary.

The dose of whatever you take, has to correspond to the burning. You have to start feeling when your burning is result of excess stomach acid, which would mean that either it's time to start eating small meals every 3 hours, or if that isn't enough, change your dosage and timing of acid suppressor, whether it's an H2 blocker or PPI.

Regarding bowel function, bad digestion can disrupt it, and it did that for me in the past.

You can fix this.

Take probiotic called "Align".

Also, buy Chlorella (broken cell wall version), and take about 2-4 of them just as you wake up. Crush them in your teeth, chew them and swallow, like food.

After a few days your poop will start turning green. It's a cosmetic effect, and a good sign, because chlorella is creating a beneficial environment in your bowels/colon, shielding it from damage.

Keep taking it for a long time. Eventually you can stop, by the time you have stabilized your digestion to functional level.

Also, buy Source Naturals Daily Essential Enzymes. Take 4-5 of them immediately, seconds before you start every meal. They're pretty cheap and come in big bottles. They help your stomach jumpstart digestion of food that immediately follows.

Your life is not going to be the same for a while, but eventually you'll fall into routines and develop proper feelings about things, start understanding the language of your stomach.

It's going to be okay.

This forum system is awful, and it's hard for me to check all the threads, so feel free to send me a message.

P.S. I believe that once you start taking Gastromend, which is something like 2 capsules per dose, twice a day, your digestion will not improve immediately but you should start feeling the dulling of the pain rather quickly.

Assuming you figured out the proper means and dosage to really control your stomach acid. Maybe Prilosec is doing a fine job of it, maybe not, I don't know.

If you can't get Gastromend or its too expensive for you, instead combine PepZin GI and Chios Mastic Gum. They're the main ingredients in Gastromend.

I wouldn't take more than 2 Mastic Gum capsules per 24 hours, due to potential constipatory effect.