I hope it's ok for me to elaborate on my situation: I'm 23, BMI 16, on a plant based diet for three+ years. I cut out meats and dairy because my stomach has always been sensitive, but no history of heartburn or problems with stomach acid. Changing my diet helped about 70% and I won't go back.
Since I've just started researching H. Pylori, I'm wondering how long I've had it as I've always been underweight and anemic. But the reason I was tested for it was because I was having severe bloating and it felt like something was jammed under my left, lower, inner ribs. It felt like a lot of pressure, no pain. I was eating so little because of the bloating which was causing short breaths. I was terrified because I couldn't afford to lose more weight, I've been trying to gain it for so long!I couldn't figure out what I had done differently to cause the symptoms.
Anyways, after a doctor told me I was too young to worry about my health he prescribed omeprazole 40mg and wouldn't listen to my questions or concerns. He was set on me only having overactive stomach acid, but I wanted to fix the underlying problem, not mask it.
I took it for a week, which helped at first but then killed my appetite, so I stopped and went to another doctor who referred me to a GI doctor, who recommended an endoscopy (not doing it, sorry) to test for Caeliac's, but instead I got tons of blood tests(they just came back normal for all the testing they did for everything else, too) and I insisted on a H. Pylori breath test, since that's what the doctor before him suggested. It came up positive, but I'm not too sure of the severity or level of the infection. How could I have gotten it, anyway? I'm quite the germophobe, and think I'm very hygienic.
Since I'm allergic to cillin's, I've been taking:
20mg omeprazole 1x day
500mg Clarithromycin 2x day
500mg Metrodizanole 3x day (had to switch to a compound liquid form 80mg/ml, two teaspoons three times a day because I nearly threw up over the taste of the pills)
I'm on day 7 and I'm feeling loads better. I'm back to being able to eat a lot and the weird feeling in my ribs does show itself sometimes but not nearly as severe or often. The antibiotics were giving me horrible nausea, so I've been taking meclizine 25g a day and multivitamins. I've also been drinking probiotic drinks daily, it didn't help the nausea but I'll continue just to give my body a little boost. Perhaps I was getting terrible side effects because I haven't taken medication in 6+ years? Even before that I'd rarely take them, since I was young and couldn't swallow pills. Now, I like to take the natural route to fix my problems. I should also include that I've struggled with acne since my young teens, and it got really terrible around the time the H. Pylori flared up, again making me wonder how long I've had it. 7 days into triple therapy and my acne has healed by 80%.
I don't know if it's connected but three years ago I had a blood test for everything at an ER, because I got scared after reading some things off the internet (haha oops) and they told me all they could find was low platelets. They didn't explain why or how to fix it and acted like I wasted their time. I have no idea if the level has changed unless it was apart of my recent blood tests which came back normal. I feel as if all the doctors I've seen don't even try to give me information because I'm young.
I have a concern, though. My boyfriend of nearly five years has dealt with heartburn for as long as I've known him, though he switched diets with me and although it's helped a little, it's been more apparent the last couple months. His mother died of liver cancer two months ago and I'm sure the stress isn't helping, but his primary doctor had him do an H. Pylori blood test. They poked his finger, he waited for ten minutes, they told him he was negative for H. Pylori and to take Protonix! How accurate is the blood test? I'm afraid of being reinfected, so we'll try to get him a breath test too.
Regardless, I'm hoping the triple therapy will be successful. I'll check back in with updates if anyone wants.
I apologize for the length of this post. Thanks in advance for any advice or information you can give me.
