actudan

I have posted some of my story here before but I will give a brief recap. About two months ago, I was diagnosed with acute ulcerative gastritis and duodenitis. I was put on prevacid and did well for awhile. When I ran out of Prevacid, my stomach really flared up about four days later. I saw my family doctor and was put on Aciphex. My stomach continued to hurt like crazy and ended up going to the emergency room twice that week. Many blood tests were ran to check for pancreatitis, liver, etc and a fecal blood test was performed both times. Everything showed ok and the ER diagnosis was that it was still gastritis and that NSAIDS incduced gastritis can take awhile to heal.

I finally saw a gastro doc and showed him the endoscope pictures that were taking with my first diagnosis and he said that it looked mild. By the way, my first diagnosis was in Mexico so I that's why I couldn't go straight to him. My new GI doc said that I should continue with the Aciphex and he also put me on Librax. On the day that I saw him I was acually not feeling too bad so I accepted his diagnosis. Well that night was a different story. My stomach really started hurting again and I spoke with the gastro doc the next day and he scheduled me for another scope the following week. I also asked to be put back on Prevacid. Well about 1-2 days on the Prevacid, I started feeling much better.

I had the scope performed and he said that everything looked pretty good except for some mild gastritis. I even asked if it was ok to have a beer or two and he said ok! I figured if the gastritis was bad he would have said deffinetly not. Anyway, he took some biopsies of some scar like tissue from where the ulcers probably were and they came back negative for bacteria and metaplasia, just like my first scope. I continued feeling pretty good until this week.

My pain isn't as bad as it was when I went to the ER but I am having the fullness feeling and upper stomach discomfort. I have to force myself to eat because I don't want to lose weight again. I had lost 11 pounds since all this started and I have gotten maybe 4 of it back. I am now taking weight gainer just to get ine extra calories in me. I have scheduled an appt to see the GI doc next week. I have been also trying to get my GP to schedule me for an abdominal CT scan just to rule out other possibilities. I will also discuss this with my GI doc.

I guess my concern is can gastritis cause me to feel this bad? Also how long does it take for one to get rid of gastritis? I feel full all the time and when I do eat, I feel like I am about to explode even when I eat just a little. It's not really pain just really bad discomfort. I have been trying natural stuff like peppermint tea, probiotic, yogurt, etc. but nothing seems to help. I also don't want to try too many herbs because I worry about the interactions with my medications (Prevacid and Librax).

The only connection that I can associate with my latest flare ups is that I ate Mexican. I didn't order anything spicy but both times I ate were on a Monday. After I ate, I felt like a rock was sitting in my stomach. I know I was full but it was a different sort of full feeling. Anyway, the next day would be when the stomach would start hurting again. The first time might have been worse because I was off of the Prevacid and this time I am on it so maybe that's why it's milder. Maybe it's a spice they are using though it doesn't tatse spicey.

One last question, does anyone with experience with Librax or Prevacid notice a change in their bowel patterns? Before my problems started, I was a one a day kind of guy. Now 2 - 3 times a day. No diarrhea and everything looks pretty normal.

Well this post ended up being longer than I wanted so sorry.

Dan