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
mark22250 ines6375
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There are long term side effects of taking PPI's, as there are of doing crazy diets. If you can do it naturally, great, but just eating food with a high pH is not gonna help besides a mild placebo.
ines6375 mark22250
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mark22250 ines6375
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ines6375 mark22250
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mark22250 ines6375
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ines6375 mark22250
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Also when I was sick I tried the PPI for a month without changing my diet much (which was healthy to start with but included acidic foods like citrus and dairy) and it did not work at all, it started working very shortly after I adopted a strict diet, then every time I would eat something more acidic or not recommended I would get a reaction even with the PPI.
mark22250 ines6375
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I didn't mean to be insulting, my apologies if it came across that way. I am in no way saying you are making up your symptoms at all. You clearly have symptoms, and if you experience them then they are 100% certain to be there and that is unfalsifiable as a symptom is purely subjective. Also, no one says you can take a PPI and not change your diet, that's been common knowledge for decades. A healthy diet is very important, as you say. What I am saying is that foods are definitely not more acidic than hydrochloric acid that your stomach already makes. If a diet change has led to improved symptoms you are removing irritants to your stomach. Citric acid is an irritant in of itself, it's not due to how acidic it is. Citric acid is definitely not more acidic than stomach acid. Dysfunctional dyspepsia, very much like IBS, is caused by certain irritants to your stomach and bowel respectively. When you changed your diet you clearly removed some irritants from your diet, and that's great. It has nothing to do with how alkaline they were though.
ines6375 mark22250
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Also I feel a great difference in my quality of life when I drink regularly alkaline water vs more acidic water. I have switched back and forth a few times, drinking one for a few weeks, than the other for a few weeks, and there is a clear difference.
Your hypothesis about healthy diet does not hold in my case, I always had a very healthy diet, but it used to include all fruits (berries, peaches, oranges...), tomatoes, garlic, onions, spices .... which I don't tolerate anymore.
valerie56655 mark22250
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gaynor61068 valerie56655
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I'm really struggling with this. I cant get on top of the burning and nausea. It's stressing me out, which is probably making it worse. i too have IBS and have the constipation side so i have to be careful about eating 'bindng' foods. Which rules out bread, pasta etc. im also unable to tkae my usual 'movers' as they cause buring so i've been trying to manage without... thats not going so well either. My GI dr was using my endoscpy from last year (i assume) which came back normal. He;s prescribed me amitriptyline as he thinks its a sensitive stomach. Im so concerned that i have gastritis and that these tabs are gonna make things worse. I['ve really been trying with my diet, but the oniy food i can tolerate is really bland stuff and the only things my IBS will tolerate is veg.. I'm lost at what else to do, which makes me stressed and i have no doubt makes things worse. did you have a diagnosis of gastritis? I've never had that diagnosis, but i had all the symptoms on my return from a booze filled hoilday last year. Aaaaaaargh!!!! x
ines6375
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kim23728 ines6375
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If none of this helps she says we can do a reflux study with a chip that is implanted into the esophagus for a couple days to read the acid levels. The outcome of this could be to repair my hiatal hernia or increase PPIs. Last approach would be to try the tricyclic antidepressants. This would help if stomach is just too sensitive. It helps to dull the nerves so they don't tell me it hurts. I hate antidepressants (been there, done that) so I really don't want to do this but I want my stomach to stop hurting. She also mentioned chronic fatigue syndrome. She is hoping that isn't all she is left with but I get the feeling the excess nerve pain is a symptom of CFS. Similar to fibral neuralgia.
acakes kim23728
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mark22250 kim23728
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acakes kim23728
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lynne69494 kim23728
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mariast kim23728
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Hi, Kim23728! My story is similar, the doctor says I have CFS and sensitive stomach because of it. I am not sure if this is correct, though, my symptoms appeared overnight with pain and nausea after taking one nsaid pill. How are you these days? What kind of treatment do you follow?