Is my girlfriend a carrier? relapse?

[mrmeadows]

Well well well.... Its been a long battle with the h.pylori bug, quad therapy, weight loss, and the whole nine yards..... a few weeks after the antibiotics, i slowly started getting my appetite back ( woooohoo! ) and overall started to feel a bit better with minimal stomach discomfort... finally as of 5 days ago my stool test came back with a negative! ( the samples were taken last monday ) Should be pretty excited right? ... wrong... why? As of yesterday, the nausea, burning, bloating, feeling full quickly, burping, loss of appetite, stomach gurgling and discomfort etc. all came back... I stayed up till 4am the previous night before all this and awoke the next morning around 1pm, I noticed some discomfort as i woke up. I took a shower, and had a meal ( broccoli and eggs ) around 2:30, and felt once again bloated after eating.. weird because I was feeling much better lately and had that negative retest. Throughout that day I had work, and felt the nausea and burning were pretty noticeable my whole shift. usually when i eat at work, i get hungry again within 30-60 min.. yesterday i noticed i remained full and didnt eat anything when i got home which i usually do.....

Now.. Today my stomach is burning more than yesterday and it feels like its alllll coming back! my mind is going crazy from trying to figure this out and understand it. heres a few of the thoughts ive been having.

- ENT diagnosed me with laryngopharyngeal reflux ( silent reflux ) about two weeks ago, and told be to take ranitidine 150mg. is the Zantac causing me the trouble i am experiencing ?

- Is my girlfriend a possible carrier? we are sexually active, and are always kissing etc. Im wondering if shes not showing symptoms but has passed it to me again and caused me a relapse?

- Could zantac cause a false- negative result in stool tests? i was taking zantac when i took my stool sample. and i was off ppi for about 3 weeks. And could zantac cause a false negative if i were to take a urea breath test?

i was just starting to feel better again.... ugh

[Topsuperstar]

Has tremendous knowledge acquired reading material on this website.

[Helico_expert]

H. pylori is not a sexual transmitted disease. Interestingly I received a report this morning about this topic.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25667764

Nevertheless, if you are worried about reinfection from your girlfriend or family members, you should consider asking everyone to check.

Note: it's rare to catch H. pylori in adulthood. Because adult is normally aware of hygiene. However, it's not impossible.

[mrmeadows]

H. pylori is not a sexual transmitted disease. Interestingly I received a report this morning about this topic.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25667764

Nevertheless, if you are worried about reinfection from your girlfriend or family members, you should consider asking everyone to check.

Note: it's rare to catch H. pylori in adulthood. Because adult is normally aware of hygiene. However, it's not impossible.

thanks Helico_expert. I was actually more concerned about the kissing side of things. I have no idea how i got this bug in the first place as an adult.

[Helico_expert]

The general believe among the scientists is, people catch H. pylori during childhood time. If your mother is a carrier, you are 80% chance of being infected. If your father is a carrier, you are 60% chance of being infected. The reason is because mother is normally the person in charge of food and probably transmitted the bacteria during the solid food introduction to the child. In modern society, it will be the carer who spent most of the time with the child and responsible for its food, such as baby grandparents, nanny, baby sitter, and child care (where every child share their saliva by licking the toys (just a guess, no evidence)).

Can kissing transmit H. pylori? probably not. it's hard to detect H. pylori from the mouth. Many studies have detected H. pylori DNA in the mouth, but almost none detected live H. pylori in the mouth. Of course, if carrier has reflux (and depending on the severity of the reflux), then detecting live H. pylori would be possible.

[mrmeadows]

The general believe among the scientists is, people catch H. pylori during childhood time. If your mother is a carrier, you are 80% chance of being infected. If your father is a carrier, you are 60% chance of being infected. The reason is because mother is normally the person in charge of food and probably transmitted the bacteria during the solid food introduction to the child. In modern society, it will be the carer who spent most of the time with the child and responsible for its food, such as baby grandparents, nanny, baby sitter, and child care (where every child share their saliva by licking the toys (just a guess, no evidence)).

Can kissing transmit H. pylori? probably not. it's hard to detect H. pylori from the mouth. Many studies have detected H. pylori DNA in the mouth, but almost none detected live H. pylori in the mouth. Of course, if carrier has reflux (and depending on the severity of the reflux), then detecting live H. pylori would be possible.

Hmmmm so i could have had this all the while, and then what, suddenly had an overgrowth? I went out drinking one night and didnt eat for almost 2 days, and then the next day had these crazy stomach pains, and ever since then life wasnt the same. after going to the er a few times complaining about the bloating and general bad dyspepsia i was tested by blood which came positive in pretty high numbers. And cool! good to know it probably doesnt come from the mouth, but how does that urea test with the breath work then? i would be blowing from my lungs right? unless i burped during the test or something.

and maybe i still dont have h.pylori? but almot gerd or some reflux from treatment? so much uncertainty here! grrr. really appreciate your knowledgable input. its been hell lately, and i just turned 21. Cant really live my life normally

[Helico_expert]

What actually trigger the symptoms is unclear. The bacteria load doesnt seem to correlate with the disease outcome. We have seen patients with very very high breath test result and have minor symptoms and low breath test result with significant symptoms. (Note: breath test result can be used to correlate with the amount of H. pylori)

how breath test works:
radioactive urea is swallowed and broken down by H. pylori in the stomach. The carbon dioxide produced quickly dissolved into the surrounding and into the blood stream. The CO2 then travel into the lung and breath out.

now, in order for breath test to work, your stomach has to be acidic. If it is too alkaline, breath test will give a false negative result. It is exactly why you cannot do breath test while having PPI. We dont normally see false positive cases. So, if the test showed a positive result, it is very likely that it is true.

[theking01]

How breath test works:
radioactive urea is swallowed and broken down by H. pylori in the stomach. The carbon dioxide produced quickly dissolved into the surrounding and into the blood stream. The CO2 then travel into the lung and breath outGclub

[hbombzikins]

Hmmmm helico expert I'm confused now, cus you told me in my thread that reinfection from my partner was very likely. Now you are saying different in this thread. So which one is it?

[Helico_expert]

Hello.. I am sorry that i caused confusion.

There is no evidence that anyone can catch H. pylori via kissing. However, based on my knowledge and experience in the laboratory, it is very difficult to transmit H. pylori via exchange of saliva. Nevertheless, difficult doesnt mean it's 100% impossible. even 1% is still a chance. You only need that one successful transmission from that one kiss and you are infected for the rest of your life until antibiotic treatment.

We do have couples carrying very similar H. pylori strains (we sequenced the bacteria genome). But we cannot know how they infected each other. it could be via sharing food, sharing toilet, or kissing. more importantly, i strongly believe that the oral hygiene plays an important role. I believe it is more likely for a carrier who has poor oral hygiene to spread H. pylori (and other disease) than someone who brush their teeth at least once or twice a day.