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How I cured my gastritis

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ines6375
ines6375

When I got diagnosed with mild gastritis (but no H. Pylori) and esophagitis, I looked all over the internet to find what to do. I did not find many accounts of people who have cured themselves successfully and how they did it. So I thought I would write my story once I am cured. Here it is. If you have cured yourself from gastritis too, please share your experience below as well.

Many people ask how long it takes to be cured. At first I started on dexilant for a month but I did not see any improvement. After a month I kept taking dexilant and I started the low acid diet in parallel. I got much better in 2-3 days. After two months on dexilant and one month on the diet, I felt completely good. Then I stopped the dexilant cold turkey and got a lot of pain and acidity back in my stomach. Now I regret I did not take the dexilant a little longer as my stomach was obviously not healed and not strong enough to go through the rebound effect of stopping dexilant. I regret also that I did not stop dexilant slowly taking it every other day for a week, then every three days for a week, .... I felt anxious about taking a medication that has so many side effects taken long term and I wanted to stop immediately, which was not reasonable.

Anyway there I was back at the beginning with stomach pain and acidity day and night. I felt pain related to the esophagitis as well which really scared me. I hesitated to take dexilant again but I decided to try to cure myself the natural way. Below I describe what I did. I got cured in approximately two months, getting slowly better week by week. After two months of natural cures I had no stomach pain anymore and no excess acid, I was able to sleep again, felt like a new healthy (and lighter -- I lost a few pounds) person. However after those two months, I felt that I needed to follow the diet another month for my stomach to get strong and be able to handle a less strict diet.

THE CURE

Books

Most of what I did is summarized in two books which I found very useful:

The first book is "Dropping acid: the reflux diet cookbook & cure" by Jamie Koufman. This is the book I based my diet on. The only disagreements I have with the author regard dairy products that I stopped taking as they make the stomach produce more acid (very clear for me), and the use of ginger, manukka honey and aloe vera which I find too irritating and/or acidic (and I don't feel that they help). Also she does not talk about salt which is known to be irritating for the stomach lining in excess, I felt an improvement when I lowered my intake in salt. I will explain the diet more in details below.

The other book is "Ulcer free! Nature's safe & effective remedy for ulcers" by G. Halpern. I know you may have gastritis and no ulcers but the two conditions are related and what cures one usually cures the other too. I used some of the natural supplements recommended in this book. In particular slippery elm (this one is actually not mentioned in the book) and DGL licorice for stomach pain (coat the interior of the stomach lining), Zinc-Carnosine (reduce inflammation and protects stomach lining - I felt a great improvement after starting to take it especially with acid production at night), and cabbage juice (finished my recovery with this one, after two days I had no stomach pain anymore at night). I describe the supplements more below.

What did not work for me

Mastic gum hurts my stomach. It is supposedly helpful against H. Pylori which I knew I did not have (I had been tested).

Prelief removes the acid in food and stomach very efficiently but causes constipation.

Tums works well for 45 minutes but then there is a rebound effect with the stomach producing more acid.

Manukka honey hurts my stomach (Too acidic, Ph level 4, but maybe also because of the tea tree essential oil in it). It is supposedly helpful against H. Pylori.

Aloe Vera is too acidic (around Ph level 4), and I don't feel it is doing anything positive.

Ginger is irritating and I don't feel it is doing anything positive.

Probiotics helps with digestion but not really for the stomach.

Zantac works very well at removing the acidity but makes me feel dizzy and incredibly tired.

PPI worked very well at removing the acidity and pain in my stomach while I was taking it while doing the diet, but I had a bad rebound effect when I stopped (one must stop slowly by taking it every other day for a while). Also having too low acid in the stomach because of PPI might cause problems in the long term (problems with Calcium and B12 absorption, bacterial infection more likely).

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  • JustGreg
    JustGreg

    Posted

    Wow...just...wow. You've obviously done your homework (and then some). I consider myself passably intelligent but dang...I don't think I have enough processing power to juggle all that on a daily basis. That isn't to say I'm only capable of, or willing to accept, being a pharmacological 'sheeple' but where did you find the time?...and it must have cost a fortune!

    I'm all on board with natural(ish) approaches. There's nothing worse these days than taking a prescribed medication and suffering side effects equal to or worse than the initial complaint. It's sad that the New Healthcare for the 21st century is dumbed down to apathy and acceptance of horrid side effects instead of futuristic cures.

    Nice work! I'll definately try as much of this as I can afford.

  • ines6375
    ines6375

    Posted

    When I was in pain I got obsessed to find out what to do and I tried many things. I think it is possible to keep your recovery relatively cheap. I eat in the morning oatmeal with a banana, very cheap, the other meals are not particularly expensive either. I usually eat chicken breast or tempeh, vegetables and rice for lunch and dinner, with some variations. melon in the afternoon with a raw coconut water (this one is pricey but not necessary for recovery, just delicious). I think I actually save money as I don't eat at the restaurant anymore.

    I find the supplements reasonably priced: DGL licorice "natural factors" 90 tab $12 on amazon, last a little less than a month; slippery elm "nature's way" 100 caps last two weeks, if you take 3 or 4 times 2 caps (if you are on a budget I would take it only when your stomach hurts between meal), I find the recommend dose of 4 caps 3 times daily too high; there is nothing cheaper than a cabbage, one cabbage makes 2 x 1 cup of cabbage juice but you have to buy a juicer; the juicer breville compact is $100 on amazon (if you want to skip the cabbage juice, I think I would have recovered without it but it would have taken longer); pepzin GI is $13 for a month supply. The most expensive thing is the water. It helped with my sore throat and esophagitis but I am not sure it is important for the recovery of the stomach so it could be skipped.

    • DGR
      DGR ines6375

      Posted

      Hello your recovery story inspires me. When on ppi dexilant didid you take pepsin gi at the same time?
    • ines6375
      ines6375 DGR

      Posted

      Hi Denisa,

      When I decided to switch from natural supplements to PPI, I kept taking pepzin GI for a little while, than the PPI and the diet were working so well, that I felt that I did not need anything else anymore so I stopped the pepzin GI and continued with PPI and the diet only.

    • corinne55046
      corinne55046 ines6375

      Posted

      Hi!

      I've had a diagnosis of GERD and IBS for many, many years. I just recently tried to come off 10+ years of PPI use. I tried quitting cold turkey and it turned out very badly! I ended up in the ER three times with severe chest and upper gastric pain. I just had an endocopy last week and was diagnosed with Esophagitis. I am back on my PPI (Omeprezal 40mg/day) and feeling better. It is my ultimate goal to be medicine free eventually! I plan on incorporating the Pepzin GI into my daily routine - I am able to take it with my PPI, correct? I currently take a probiotic, DGL Licorice, digestive enzymes, Calcium/Magnesium, Tumeric, Fiber, Vit B12, and a multi vitamin. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated! I plan to get my gut healthy, lose some weight, and taper off the PPI slowely in a few months. Thanks!

    • ines6375
      ines6375 corinne55046

      Posted

      I am not an expert/doctor but taking the PPI and pepzin GI should be fine.

      I found that taking most vitamins is irritating for the stomach. Tumeric was in my list of slightly irritating spices (from some study of the effects of spices on the stomach). Some enzymes might be irritating as well.

      I did not take the PPI for very long but I stopped it successfully only after I felt 100% good for a month while taking it. Then I decreased the dose very slowly over two months.

    • ian21671
      ian21671 ines6375

      Posted

      ines6375: I wholeheartedly agree. It si wrong to automatically assume thqat all drugs have significant and intolerable.side effects. I would also vote for PPI like Omeprazole, but avoid the much more expensive Nexium marketed agtgressively.  Experts of pharmacology know the mechanism of PPIs and that Nexium which is no more potent than Omeprazol, was invented by the manufacturer to obtain an extension of its patent 
    • ian21671
      ian21671

      Posted

      Ian21671: If you want more info on Nexium to test my previous statements , Google it.
    • lynne69494
      lynne69494 ian21671

      Posted

      To add to that, last year l had nausea daily from waking to bedtime, worse on exertion, lost appetite and 2 stone, but had to still do jobs in the home, 5min at a time, a miserable experience. Scope showed a bit of gastritus, put on omprazole, by which time l was having smaller plainer meals, no lactose, no processed, spring water only. Remained nauseious 2 wk more, then it settled, lve got to put it down to the omprazole. To get rid of nausea 90perent, such a relief, l still get bit of flare up occassionally along with the usual bloating wind, but been good for me, sometimes l can feel  affect wearing off after half a day and take another 20mg, some days one ok.  l did run out of script once, and soon flares up so bought nexium as l,d read theyre same as omp, they are expensive, but stop gap till got script. Though if l,d known over all those months the symptoms could have been stopped with nexium l,d have paid it to get some relief, quite annoyed gp didnt try omprazole much sooner, since learnt lots of people use it. All them months, 3 consults, 2 scans, l scope, could have at least tried the omp whilst going along, again found out later they sell that dirt cheap on ebay, though how it compares with uk ones l wouldnt know. . So it was a near lifesaver for me, though l do hope l can settle things enough to wean off it in time. 
    • lynne69494
      lynne69494 ian21671

      Posted

      To add to that, last year l had nausea daily from waking to bedtime, worse on exertion, lost appetite and 2 stone, but had to still do jobs in the home, 5min at a time, a miserable experience. Scope showed a bit of gastritus, put on omprazole, by which time l was having smaller plainer meals, no lactose, no processed, spring water only. Remained nauseious 2 wk more, then it settled, lve got to put it down to the 
    • lynne69494
      lynne69494

      Posted

      omoprazole, near life saver for me, l did buy nexium once when l,d run out of omp, been told its same thing, it is expensive, ok for stopgap, l just wish theyd tried the omp at start of symptoms, not months after suffering misery with them, l know now how many do take them. l,d have even bought the nexiuim, but had month 3 consults, 2 scans, scope, but not noticed much in side affects with omp, notice theyre also sold on net. Hoping to wean off omp in time, but been good for my symptoms.
  • suzeq1972
    suzeq1972

    Posted

    I'm with Greg on this....wow...just...wow! Thanks for all this information. I can't digest it all properly (pun intended!), so I'll read through thoroughly tomorrow.

    In the meantime, I have a rather random question. Do you know if there's anything in pasta that isn't in bread, rice etc. I've had really bad reactions recently when eating pasta. Now I realise it could be the tomatoes or herbs or meat, but I will 'test' each ingredient out individually. The most obvious thing is the pasta however, but can seem to eat bread and rice!!!!

  • ines6375
    ines6375

    Posted

    What kind of reaction do you have with pasta? What are the ingredients in your pasta?

    I am looking at a box of De Cecco, I see some added B vitamins (B1, B2, B3, B9) and some ferrous lactate to control the acidity or add iron not sure. I know I had to stop taking vitamins as they were irritating but I don't know if B vitamins are irritating. Have you tried organic pasta? or gluten-free pasta (the tinkyada are very good, they are rice based, rice usually does not cause problems)? Also the wheat they use in pasta is slightly different than the one they use in bread, it is called in french "ble dur" (hard wheat), and it has more gluten (gluten acts as a glue).

    But if you eat your pasta with tomatoes, herb, garlic, onion, red meat and cheese, those are much more likely to cause problems. Tomatoes, onions and garlic are known trigger foods for stomach problems, red meat and cheese are too fatty to handle when you are sick, herbs it really depends which one but in general the essential oils in aromatic herbs are irritating to an inflamed stomach lining (anything inflamed really).

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