What Doctors Won't Tell You
When you get the gastritis diagnosis, you quickly enter a world of panic - googling symptoms frantically, opening and closing and reopening the gastritis reddit page, researching all the best medications, supplements, and herbal remedies, taking diligent notes, and forgetting it all.
You want someone you can count on, to tell you what to do and that you’ll be OK.
I thought that might be a doctor. Boy, was I wrong.
I saw 5 different gastrointestinal specialists over the course of the past year and half. After the 5th told me the same thing as the previous 4 (take this PPI and don’t eat spicy food), I decided I was done.
While I have my own conspiracy theories as to why doctors have been so blasé about my experience and the experience of many others, today I just want to talk about things I’ve learned that I wish I knew at the very beginning.
And in case you need to hear it: It’s going to be OK.
Here’s 5 things I wish doctors told me about:
Get tested for H. Pylori when you first start experiencing symptoms, BUT make sure that you’re not on a proton-pump inhibitor (PPI) for at least 2 weeks before the test. For some reason, my doctors did not warn me of this. I was tested for H. Pylori at the beginning, but not before my doctor started me on omeprazole.
PPIs are great for when you’re symptoms have just begun and you’re struggling to find the right diet. In other words, taking them at the beginning of your healing journey, after getting tested for H. Pylori, is a good idea. But long-term use of PPIs will not help, and it could actually harm you.
If you’re doctor keeps pushing PPIs, ask them about sucralfate instead. Sucralfate is a medication that protects and coats the stomach without interfering with stomach acid production. It’s a wonderful alternative to PPIs.
When you stop taking PPIs, you could experience what is called acid rebound. None of my doctors warned me about this. When I did my own research and mentioned acid rebound to my doctor, she laughed in my face (seriously). For some reason, they believe this is a myth, but there’s scientific evidence that it’s very real.
If your symptoms last longer than a couple of months with no relief, demand an endoscopy. Many of my clients tell me about their doctors pushing back against endoscopies or saying the symptoms aren’t severe enough to require one. That’s bullshit. Demand one. Just to rule out anything serious and actually confirm that you have gastritis. Biopsy via endoscopy is also the most reliable test for H. Pylori.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, but the most important lessons I’ve learned since my diagnosis.