How I cured my gastritis
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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).
39 likes, 3077 replies
dolores07100 ines6375
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ines6375 dolores07100
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I felt good with dexilant 60 mg, I had no side effect.
For DGL I followed the recommandation on the package: 1 tab 20 minutes before each meal and sometimes I took one if I woke up at night with stomach pain.
dolores07100 ines6375
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ines6375
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I hope my thread helped some of you.
I think I have shared all the details of my experience, everything that was helpful to me and what I have learned on the way.
I also have answered a lot of questions and noticed that I get asked many times the same questions. If you have a question, please check previous posts as they probably contain the answer and I won't be as active as I have been in this thread in the future.
dolores07100 ines6375
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deb59301 ines6375
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I have been following your thread for awhile, and have found your input invaluable. Have finally realized that I need to let go of coffee and excessive alcohol, but it has also been comforting to know that I am not alone, and that it does take time and like you said, gradual improvement through trial and error. I was curious as to what your predisposing factors were? Thanks for all your help!!!
ines6375 deb59301
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I am glad you found some help on the thread. And good job letting go of coffee and alcohol, it is not easy to let go of our daily pleasures, the hardest thing for me was my morning greek yoghourt.
I am not sure what my predisposing factors were. I had a lot of stress before I got sick followed by some changes in diet (I experimented with Indian cuisine, french cuisine, lots of lemon, tomatoes, apples, and desserts cooked with alcohol). Also I suspect the vitamins I was taking every day were irritating. I think my gastritis came gradually over time until it became unmanageable. Similarly it went away slowly too.
deb59301 ines6375
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deb59301 ines6375
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ines6375 deb59301
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deb59301 ines6375
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GeorgiK ines6375
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ines6375 GeorgiK
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Maybe vitamin E is anti-inflammatory once in our system but all the vitamin supplements I tried caused an irritation of my stomach lining. So I avoid them. Anyway I read an article in the New York Times showing that there is no proof that vitamin supplements help for anything for people who don't have obvious carences and we probably can get everything we need from a healthy diet.
angie25289 ines6375
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jayne22513 angie25289
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Ive had gastritis for over a year now. I'm off all meds. They made me worse with the side effects. I took everything out of my diet, and juiced fruit and veg. Now I've introduced foods but some days I'm ok eating something, next time I eat it it sets everything off. Will it always be like this?
ines6375 jayne22513
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