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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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  • daniel_80
    daniel_80 ines6375

    Posted

    Its great to know some of us here are sharing the same thing as we always thought we are alone suffering or maybe we have this "deadly" sickness by ourselves. When I confide to my friends , they always have this big question mark on their head and wonder why we are talking about all these and why do we need to see the big deal on this.
    • ahmad97104
      ahmad97104 daniel_80

      Posted

      Tell me about it...lol It sucks how your pals are gobbling up food while you just sit there and stare into the abyss, thinking about this damn illness. I've noticed one thing in most gastritis/GERD/ Incompetent LES patients (including myself): We really can't get over the fact that this will indeed take a lot of time (Months, at least) and rather than learning from our dietry mistakes we just sit there and think about our condition rather than find a solution. That's why I got impressed by Ines. She used her failures as an opporunity to unravel the problem and was patient enough to confirm it.
  • lynne69494
    lynne69494 ines6375

    Posted

    interesting, and glad of advice.  l just had endoscope yesterday and was diagnosed with gastritus of stomach and duodenum, not the osephagus, but no pyloria bacteria

    l have felt unwell or a year and half, starting with bouts of debilitating nausea that were there from waking to bed time, daily for weeks, then would settle down but reocur, l,d tried all manner of chemist digestion stuff, and had prescribed anti nausea, little improvement with either, the nausea worsened with exertion, even minor re walking 50yds needing to sit or stand still for l0min before l could move again, l,d pant and gasp it was that severe, sitting quietly kept it moderate, but who can or wants to spend days sat about, l,m on my own so need to do things.

    l find gp,s mine at least as being slow to refer or minimulising effect on you and lifestyle, l,d noticed for a long time it didnt take much food to fill me to discomfort, but with the nausea went off food a lot, no appetite, only seemed to be able to have tea and a oatybiscuit, crackers in eve with spread, l could eat custard tarts

    little yog, ice cream, choc, on best days l

  • lynne69494
    lynne69494 ines6375

    Posted

    interesting, and glad of advice.  l just had endoscope yesterday and was diagnosed with gastritus of stomach and duodenum, not the osephagus, but no pyloria bacteria

    l have felt unwell or a year and half, starting with bouts of debilitating nausea that were there from waking to bed time, daily for weeks, then would settle down but reocur, l,d tried all manner of chemist digestion stuff, and had prescribed anti nausea, little improvement with either, the nausea worsened with exertion, even minor re walking 50yds needing to sit or stand still for l0min before l could move again, l,d pant and gasp it was that severe, sitting quietly kept it moderate, but who can or wants to spend days sat about, l,m on my own so need to do things.

    l find gp,s mine at least as being slow to refer or minimulising effect on you and lifestyle, l,d noticed for a long time it didnt take much food to fill me to discomfort, but with the nausea went off food a lot, no appetite, only seemed to be able to have tea and a oatybiscuit, crackers in eve with spread, l could eat custard tarts

    little yog, ice cream, choc, on best days a little mash or fish, my food intake reduced by 80percent, and mainly carbs and dairy, gtting little vits or protein, and bored with it. l had many years earlier, again after years of symptoms of pain and frquency,general poor health, finally got referred to urologist where a scope diagnosed intersticial cystitus, put on meds including cimetidine as urologist told me l,d acid reflux, the meds slowly over two years improved symtoms,during the symptom phase l started with different pain,chronic heartburn,  leading to gall bladder removal, no stones, choicylitus, improved symptoms well, though ic stayed tillt treatment meds, the ic group also advice on non acid diet, much of foods as stated on here.  l know with ic we produce excess mast cells which cause inflammation causing pain, though l had horrendous burning  pain with ic lve had little pain with the gastritus, mainly nausea lost appetite, maybe due to me not having it in oseophagas thankfully, imagine that will be painful. l started to look on net this morning, learnt about possible causes, l like a g and t but only rarely and all alchahol stopped due to nauea,no pylo, mentions b12 connection, interestingly one poster mention shplincter, lve had ibs a long time along with ic, l also read a long list of immune auto immune conditions, 80 in  and sure enough 

    • ines6375
      ines6375 lynne69494

      Posted

      Hi Lynne,

      I am sorry about everything you went through.

      What is g and t?

      You might find a fresh vegetable juice made of carrots, celery, fennel or romaine energetic. I have one almost every day and it feels really good with all the vitamins. And it is safe on the stomach.

    • deb59301
      deb59301 ines6375

      Posted

      Hi Ines

      I apologize if you already discussed this... but are you still taking Pepsin GI?  I bought a bottle awhile back and have been reluctant to take it, as I always am with pills. If I try it, thinking I should take it after a meal as it may irritate lining? Or do we want to expose it to the lining? 

      Also, have you or anyone else out there experienced a migration of the pain/discomfort? For the longest time it felt like a gastric issue for me, but last few days seems like my stomach feels a bit better but now I feel a discomfort in what feels like the way back of my throat, assuming this is the espophagus.

      Thanks!

      Deb

    • daniel_80
      daniel_80 deb59301

      Posted

      Pepzin Gi can be taken with food, they are just supplement that promotes healthy mucus secretions from stomach cells while maintaining a healthy bacterial balance in the GI tract. I just ordered from online as my country did not sell this, and I will also seek advise from my gy doc next Mon and see what he say too. 

      If you feel discomfort on your way back of your throat, acid relux might be the problem too....but any PPI med can solve to depress acid well plus non acid diet too. 

      For my condition, after 2 weeks of taking PPI medicine (Nexium) , motilium (helps to digest/move food faster) and piobiotic (consist of 5 billion lactobacilius) plus diet consist of alkaline food which my acid reflux get better but I still experienced pain/cramps at times during these 2 weeks esp at night which i suspect might be the side effects of nexium. But I still continue my meds, 1 week with 1 nexium in the morn n 1 nexium in the night and after that i lower the dosage to 1 nexium in the night for another week. After my medicine finished, I experienced no cramps/pain anymore, but of course for now i still have to monitor my condition. I will still keep up with more alkaline food for 2 months to heal my stomach first. I will see what my doc advise me next monday and update you all. 

      P.S: I ate lots of veges, fruits (strawberries, melons & bananas), chamomile tea - morn n nite, at least 2 hrs of digestion before lying on bed, 2 litres of ph 8 alkaline water everyday.

      Stuff which were gone from my diet which i love in the past - black coffee, orange juice, chocolate, chilli, milk, cereal (if you never chew VERY well on cereal and they might cut along the linings of your stomach which can cause inflamed) 

      Keep healing ppl!

    • ines6375
      ines6375 deb59301

      Posted

      Hi Deb,

      I don't take anything anymore.

      When I was taking pepzin GI, I would always take it with a meal. You can try it and see, it should not hurt. I read a lot about how to take it, I don't remember the details but my conclusion was to take it with a meal.

      Every now and then my throat hurts. I know it is due to acid reflux at night when I eat dinner/drink too late, or if I eat things I should not (dairy mostly). Also I used to sleep on a wedge but it gave me back pain so I stopped.

      It seems that once the stomach pain is gone, the recovery continues with milder symptoms like acid reflux and/or stomach sensitivity but they get better with time if one stays on the diet. I am following a more relaxed diet now: same as described at the beginning of this thread but I eat fruits with ph level 4-5 (apples, pears, grapes), sometimes a little bit of cheese, every now and then some beef or bison, and I don't restrict fat anymore (I use a lot of olive oil and some vegan butter).

  • lynne69494
    lynne69494 ines6375

    Posted

    hi ines, sorry the posts keep jumping back to sign in, annoying, it was meant to end that both ic and gastritus are on the immune list, lve had a few itus,s, guess some are more prone to inflammation, maybe immunity not great.  Gin and tonic with lots of tonic and ice was favourite tipple on the odd occassion, years since l could take more than one without being ill, but g and t been on hold for months, as with many foods, l fancy the memory of them, but couldnt eat them at present, but read quite a few posts, interesting,  You must have near the longest thread, for replies wow, a lot with stomach and diet probs. l also have a tropical fish tankkit to test acid alkaline if not right balance  a  and  glad for info and advice,

     

    • lynne69494
      lynne69494

      Posted

      a quick thanks for info before it jumps away again,
  • ahmad97104
    ahmad97104 ines6375

    Posted

    Hi again Ines!

    I started drinking cabbage juice today. Took my first glass a few minutes ago. It tastes weird and I feel like I wanna puke. Is it normal? You said that you felt bad after drinking it, too. Any tips on making it more tasty somehow? 

    • ines6375
      ines6375 ahmad97104

      Posted

      You can try mixing it with carrot juice and celery juice.

      Or you can get better without drinking it.

      I was enthousiastic about it at first as it really soothed my stomach pain but then I felt so bad with it in a my body as a whole that I gave up on it. I recovered fine without it.

    • dawn4325
      dawn4325 ahmad97104

      Posted

      Try this smoothie in a high powered blender. I use nutribullet. It really tastes good. You can't taste the cabbage at all. I didn't use all the water called for in the recipe and I halved the ingredients so it would fit in my nutribullet. I have been dealing with gastritis and diverticulitis since September 2014. It's changed everything about how you eat and drink. Very painful. Best of luck.

      Emis Moderator comment: I have removed the link as it was to a site unsuitable for inclusion in the forums. If users want this information please use the Private Message service to request the details.

      http://patient.uservoice.com/knowledgebase/articles/398331-private-messages

  • jason37562
    jason37562 ines6375

    Posted

    Hi Ines!

    Just wanted to say thanks for narrating your journey this terrible affliction and keeping everyone up to date on your progress. It's been immensely helpful.

    A coouple weeks ago I had an endoscopy and my diagnosis was similar to yours - "Moderately severe erosive gastritis, mild esophagitis, hiatal hernia". Biopsies came back clean (no h. pylori, no cancer, no bleeding, etc). It's definitely been a struggle finding soothing foods to eat and dealing with stomach pain and not sleeping well. Grrr!

    I had a question about the PPI you were taking. Through a genetic test, I've learned that I'm an ultra rapid metabolizer of PPIs. I'm currently on 60mg of lansoprazole (30mg before breakfast, 30mg before dinner) and it's not really doing much for me.

    For dexilant, at your highest dosage, were you taking it once a day or twice a day?

    Thanks again!

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