6 months on…A H Pylori Treatment Success Story

AND I AM CURED OF H PYLORI.

No more nausea.

No more stomach pain.

I can eat chocolate. Mango. Tomatoes. I can drink orange juice and coffee and coke.

This was one heck of an experience and I can tell you – do the antibiotics. STICK WITH THEM. And be patient. It has taken probably 5 months for my stomach to completely heal. To completely get rid of the nausea and fear of eating things that might hurt.

I will leave my blog up for people to see. Finding SUCCESS STORIES for H Pylori treatment is a bit tough! So here is one! You can feel better! You WILL feel better. Insist your doctor runs the H Pylori test, maybe even twice.

Thank you, Science, and the NHS.

 

Waiting Game

On Monday about 3 weeks since finishing treatment, I had 2 spells of extremely painful stomach cramps in my upper stomach.

Since then I have had mild cramping throughout my stomach and off-and-on nausea which has been severe (like run out of the room in case I puke) severe.

However. It’s also been 3 weeks without ANY medication which I am very happy about! Im hoping that these pains and nausea are just my stomach settling back  down.

But I also accept that it might not be fully treated and I might get poorly again and need to take more medicine.

Just playing a waiting game now!

 

 

2 weeks on… update

So two weeks on from completing my H-Pylori treatment, I went back to the Docs. He had asked me to follow up anyway, and also I was having very bad back pain (lower back, like period cramps), on and off nausea, and wee-ing a LOT.

A quick test ruled out any kidney infection, which to be honest, I’d been pretty sure was the problem!

I asked if he was going to test to see if the eradication therapy had worked and got rid of the H-Pylori – and I was very surprised when he said No. Its ‘s a bit galling – after 8 months of being ill, I kind of want to know if the treatment has worked!!

He says the back pain is likely to be bowel spasms and it should settle down. The oral thrush, he says, should clear up by itself (and it has now improved in the three days since the appointment).

So where are we at?
Well, I’m still having lower back pain especially when sitting, which I am going to go with as bowel spasms – let’s trust the Doc again. It has reduced since last Friday, (a week ago) when it started, as has the wee-ing.
I’m feeling nauseous on and off, not the huge waves of nausea like before. However I’m also getting anxiety (which I get anyway) so hard to tell if the nausea is related to that.
I don’t have much appetite – especially not for sweet things.

BUT I am drug-free. No Omeprazole. No Lanzoprezole. No Gaviscon or Rennie. I’m not just eating milk and cereal. Some things are good.

My stomach and insides have been through a lot, the mucous lining broken down, now being remade (hopefully) probably an ulcer, acid production being up and down. And it’s been for 8 MONTHS. So I’m just riding it out and will see where things go. So far, I don’t have any upper stomach pain, which to me is a good sign. I should probably look after myself better and rest up – so my body can heal itself. I’m just not too good at that!! 😉

 

Treatment (take 1?)

‘Will you stick with the treatment? That’s the most important thing,’ Dr O.D. said.
‘I will do what ever it takes to get rid of this bug!’

He prescribed Clarithromycin, Metronidazole, and 60mg Lanzoprazole to take twice a day for two weeks.

He explained that the treatment (dramatically called ‘eradication therapy’) can make the patient feel quite rough – sickly and upset stomach, I gathered, mostly. However my only symptoms were a feeling of dramatic and extreme hunger, especially in the first couple of days. Like someone had pulled the bottom out of my stomach. Also the first day or two I felt lethargic and dizzy. After a few days I generally felt okay – compared to the horrible pain of before, and nausea, this was nothing and well worth it!

I completed the medication on 25th May 2016.

 

I was very nervous that the pain would come back instantly. However after 5 days, I felt better than I had in months! No nausea, full of energy, my stomach felt ‘normal’ – I mean not bloated – I even had a BEER for the first time in months!

(I did also get Oral Thrush from the antibiotics, which I had Nystan for, but still have this a week later – more medication will be required to get rid of this, I think).

 

9 days after completing treatment I was standing at a hand dryer and felt a familiar wave of nausea. I hoped it was a one off. But since then (it is now Monday) I have experienced more waves of nausea, a familiar stomach sensitivity and… it’s back… the ravenous feeling.

I have an appointment with my GP – Dr O.D. – on Wednesday. I am hoping for a retest to see if the treatment has worked. If I have to take the treatment again, then that is fine – I just want to be normal in my stomach again ! No more nausea!!

So we’re up to date. That’s my H Pylori story so far. Please feel free to comment or ask any questions. H Pylori and stomach problems can make you feel very alone and like no one gives a crap, but they can affect your everyday life a great deal. Keep chasing answers and don’t give up hope of being sorted! 🙂

 

 

Looking for H Pylori

Soon after my hospital stay the GP upped my dose of Omeprazole to 20mg twice a day. This helped and my stomach pain once again lessened. I put the weight back on which I had lost. The discharge notes from the hospital suggested that I be tested for H Pylori.

By this time, I had of course been on Google a number of times looking for people with similar symptoms, and had come across Helicobacter Pylori a lot of times. Me and my partner discussed it and how the symptoms did seem to match what I had. I didn’t want to tell the GP how to do her job though, so I didn’t mention it. But when she suggested the test I was aware that Omeprazole (and other PPIs, or acid blocking drugs) can cause the result of a H Pylori test to come out incorrectly as a false negative. However I went along with this and did the stool test (the poop in a jar test). I was truly disappointed when the result came back negative – not because I wanted to have a horrible bug, but because I wanted answers.

Once again I was back on Omeprazole with no foreseeable change.

Towards the end of April I started to feel nauseous again despite being on 40mg a day of Omeprazole. I decided to see a different GP – as I didn’t feel my current GP knew what to do, or particularly cared (maybe that was just her manner, I don’t know.) I felt like I was in a hole anyway, so I picked a random GP. He was very understanding and keen to help. He changed me on to 30mg Lansoprezole a day, and said we should repeat the H Pylori test. Unfortunately he was a ‘locum’ doc (didn’t work full time at my local surgery) so I didn’t get to follow up with him.

Two days after dropping off my poop-in-a-jar, I got a call from the surgery.

‘We’d like you to come in to discuss your test results.’

My heart jumped, because I knew what it meant – the test had come back positive for H Pylori!

 

Hospital (& morphine!)

On the 1st February 2016 I made an urgent doctors appointment. My stomach pain had been getting quickly worse, no longer just nausea but now a gnawing pain that started often after eating and felt like it was burrowing through my torso. The way I described it to the doctor was that it felt like I had been winded – kicked incredibly hard to the stomach (particularly at the point where ribs meet in the middle). The area felt swollen up (but didn’t look it) – like it was going to pop. No position was comfortable.

I had previously been given codeine which I was taking regularly. I had had to leave work on a few occasions crying with pain and driven home by my colleagues as it hurt too much to drive.

On this doctors appointment, the doctor helpfully poked and pressed me where it hurt the most, (me crying and said, ‘I think it’s gall stones, don’t you?’

I looked at her blankly. I have no f&*£ing idea. You are the doctor. (I didn’t say that. I was not in a good mood though). She prescribed antibiotics and told me to come back the next morning for blood tests.

I didn’t make it back for the blood tests – the pain was so bad all night and I was so scared by the next morning as my stomach felt ready to burst out of my skin, that I called an ambulance at about 6am.

The fantastic paramedics gave me gas and air to get me down the stairs and into the ambulance. At A&E I was given morphine for the pain which really knocked me sideways – never had that before and it was quite an interesting experience!
Then I was given an X-Ray, lots of blood was taken and I was transferred to a ward.

I stayed on the ward for 5 days, given codeine and paracetamol regularly (approx 4 times a day). I was not having anything to eat and quickly lost half a stone. I was given a lot of tests. Blood tests daily, as well as…

CT scan (where you go through a large ‘doughnut’ style ring this makes you feel like you are doing a wee when they turn it on!!! it’s the radiation) Sitting up while I was waiting for the CT scan triggered one of the worst episodes of pain I had experienced, and when I returned to the ward I was given 2 doses of morpheine and codeine. I was off my face but still could feel the gnawing pain in my stomach. (I now think this was an ulcer as my description of the pain – gnawing and through to the back – matches other peoples descriptions.)

Ultrasound scan (like pregnant women have) This involves a nice cold slime being put on your torso and they rub a scanner thing on you, pressing in on the important things like kidneys, liver, gall bladder to see if they are OK. On my first one the reading wasn’t too good because I had a lot of gas in there. For a change!! 😉 This was the easiest and least scary of the tests. I’m VERY squeamish but by this time I was quite fascinated by all the things, particularly the cannula in my arm – so useful for quickly getting medications in.

Endoscopy. I was not worried about this before, in fact I was happy to have it – hoping it would find the cause of the pain – but this was not a pleasant experience! The tube is much larger than I thought (I thought it would be a thing bendy tube like a straw but it is actually a fairly wide black pipe!) They used a numbing spray on the back of my throat then injected sedative somewhere in my hand. I was sedated (but didn’t realise at the time!) but remember them pulling the tube out and gagging on it a lot. This also chipped my front tooth as they pulled out the tube, you have to sign a form before they begin saying if they chip a tooth you don’t blame them! To be honest, I didn’t mind, with the NHS you get such good treatments and pay nothing – if they chip a tooth, they chip a tooth. Anyway this was a ‘failed’ endoscopy as they saw my oesophagus, but not my stomach as my gag reflex was too much. I thought I had done something wrong, but now realise that I was so sedated there isn’t anything I could have done differently!

While on the ward as well as pain killers I also had anti-sickness medication which was fantastic.

Worth noting is that not eating for a week and having a lot of painkillers, meant I didn’t poop for about 2 weeks in total!!

Pictured: my second cannula and nice pink bra in the background!

On my last day there nothing had been found and I was moved to another ward, tested for my ability to eat without agony (which I managed this time!) and was allowed to leave. I was so happy to be going home. My sister picked me up from hospital and I felt very weak from lying down for a week.

When I got home, I was hungry, so I ate a big piece of avocado on toast. This caused pain right away. I experienced extreme pain for the next week until my additional dose of PPI kicked in and my stomach produced less acid again.

So nothing had really been solved by being in hospital, but lots of things had been ruled out.

 

The Beginning – Nov 2015

I was sitting in a meeting with my manager when I suddenly felt like I was going to be sick. Not just a bit queasy, I felt REALLY NAUSEOUS. Quickly I excused myself and got a drink. Over the next two weeks, I kept getting these odd waves of sudden and extreme sickness, but was never actually sick. I also began to get lower stomach cramps which felt a bit like period pains. After two weeks I made a doctors appointment.

In November 2015 I had just got myself into a good place mentally, especially with eating, as I had previously had eating anxiety which had made me lose quite a bit of weight. With a supportive partner I was just beginning to get interested in going out to eat at pubs and restaurants (sounds crazy but I just couldn’t do it before – I’d sit in front of a plate of food, if I even got that far, and break out in tears of fear).

The first doctor I saw said it sounded like an over production of acid or acid reflux. I asked if that could cause cramps and she said yes. She prescribed me 20mg of Omeprazole a day, which I started right away. By this time I was having quite severe stomach pain which would cause me to have to stop what I was doing – I remember being in a garden shop looking at the food and having to keep stopping while my stomach stabbed me from inside.

The Omeprazole took about 4 days to start working but soon I stopped feeling so sick and the cramps eased up. Everything seemed much better. Over Christmas I was able to eat fairly normally and also had alcohol (I’m not a huge drinker but like a glass or two occasionally!)

When I came off Omeprazole after a month, the sickness quickly returned and I went again and was prescribed more Omeprazole. By that time I was slightly concerned as I saw right away that Omeprazole was easing the symptoms of whatever was wrong with my stomach, but not curing it.

 

 

 

When, where and why?

Hi!
My name is Emma. I’m 29 years old and live in the UK.
As you might have gathered from the name of my blog – I have H Pylori! Perhaps that’s how you found this blog.

Finding out I had H Pylori was not a quick process. I was suspected of having things from Acid Reflux to Gall stones before this diagnosis was made.

I’m not here to advise or tell anyone how to deal with H Pylori. I am not a doctor or have any medical knowledge. I just wanted to share my experience so that others might not feel so isolated with theirs.

So a little background on myself.
I’m an office worker (admin, yay!)
I’m a musician and songwriter who goes out and does live performances – singing, playing bass and electric guitar (more on how H Pylori has affected that later!)
I love to write – lyrics, blogs and stories.
I live with my very supportive partner in a city.
I am friendly, shy at first but outgoing when you get to know me, messy, creative, and very silly. I am also a first class worrier!

I haven’t given too much information on myself as there will be some quite personal things included in this story. Please feel free to comment and I will endeavour to respond! 🙂