Hi Kat, last year after I was diagnosed with my first flare of gastritis I started having nausea about the 5th week of treatment (Prontonix and Pepcid). I stopped the meds, gastritis had healed but I still continued with the nausea. My gastro dr. then decided to do another endoscope and a colonoscopy. All were clear. They then deducted that my Vagus nerve had been irritated and said the only way to get it to calm down was by taking an anti anxiety medicine. I reluctantly gave that a shot, it took 7 weeks on Lexapro before the nausea finally subsided however after week 7, the Lexapro started causing me flu like symptoms (nausea, diarrhea, extreme lethargy, fatigue, etc.) these symptoms would last 7-10 days and then I'd have a good 2 weeks and it happened again. I eventually tapered off of the Lexapro however anytime you are on meds like that you can have discontinuation symptoms that are no fun to get thru so I caution you if you consider to do something like that. I just got over my second bout of gastritis and decided to go with a plant based diet and lean chicken/salmon. It was done wonders for me, gastritis is healed, Vagus nerve acted up again and has been calmed down. Both times I had gastritis, I ended up with anxiety which I have never had in my life......I found lots of research that the Vagus nerve can't handle an irritated gut so maybe that is what is causing you the nausea and diarrhea. Try eliminating all inflammatory foods (dairy, wheat, eggs, soy, sugar, corn, etc). You have to get creative with what you are left to eat (fresh fruit, veggies, salmon, chicken) but it beats feeling like crap. Hope you find relief soon!

SJH,

Question, had you not had the side effects of the lexapro, do you think it would have handled your issues? I guess the scary thing would be to be on lexapro for life.

It did take care of the nausea at the 7 week mark. I didn't want to be on it anyway as my body doesn't handle medicine well. It is a bit*ch to come off of though as are all SSRI's. If you were to ever consider using an SSRI, please read any forum that speaks to the difficulty coming off of is. It's horrific....took me 6 weeks to get rid of some latent side effects :( Others who were on it for years state it takes months to years for them to return to normal....how awful :(

I definitely would have to sincerely think about it. I have xanax that I can take as needed and I’m cautious to not take it often because I don’t want to be medicine dependent but I have noticed on accident that sometimes that or Benadryl provide relief...but not always. The burning nausea is miserable and truly seems linked to bowel movements. Just hoping for some stories like yours to help me along, I’ve already lost 20lbs in a few months it’s crazy. I’ll be asking about the vagus nerve definitely after reading this and research I saw before. Thank you!!!

When I started having hot flashes and was in per-menopause in my 40s, that's when i would have a loose bm in the am followed by hours of nausea. I find if I keep my bm's fairly hard and only go once every 3 days, the nausea isn't there. Pepto Bismol helps too. I've had all the tests and every thing is normal. The docs gave me the fodmap, but I'm pretty limited, even with vegies. White rice really helps to bind me up and some people are helped with Probiotics or yogurt with bifidobacterium in it. Hope this helps.