Towards the end of 2016 I got hit with h. pylori, which was the start of a long and extremely difficult journey. I wouldn’t wish it upon my worst enemy and I would rather have lost both my pinky toes instead. After initially being diagnosed, I was desperate for first-hand information from people who’ve dealt with it. You can read a lot on h. pylori with a quick Google search, but I’ve found it extremely helpful to hear others’ experiences. So, I wanted to write this blog as the first of a series, covering the basics of h. pylori and important things I’ve learned through my experience, hoping it would provide information and help if you’ve been diagnosed or are curious about the topic.

I want to preface this by saying that I am absolutely NOT a medical professional. Everything I’m writing is from my journey with h. pylori, what I’ve picked up from doctors, and research I’ve done on my own. I think it’s incredibly important to have a balanced approach to online research, and know when to cautiously choose what applies to your situation and when to consult a professional. If it were purely up to my hypochondriac self and the internet, I’d currently have 5 different types of cancers and 3 weeks to live. We’ve all been there…

(P.S. My attempts at humor in this post are not to make light of the topic, but to offer comic relief. I definitely needed a few laughs on the bad days).

What Is H. Pylori?

H. pylori, or Helicobacter pylori is a bacteria that invades the stomach and essentially causes an infection. It’s an above-average bacteria, because it’s able to withstand stomach acids by burrowing in the mucus lining and creating an alkaline environment in order to survive. If you’re interested in more scientific details, this link and this link do a good job explaining it. But basically this bacteria is not joking around, it moves in ready to settle…white picket fence, wife, kids, dog, minivan — the whole nine yards.

How The Heck Do You Get It?

The next natural question that comes up is how did I get h. pylori? Or how do I avoid getting it? Majority of sources claim that h. pylori is most common in developing countries that don’t have advanced irrigation and sewage systems, but h. pylori is also highly common in the U.S. If you feel alone, it might help to know that two-thirds of the world population is infected with the bacteria (CDC), and according to MedlinePlus, almost 30-40% of Americans get the infection at some point in their lives. Though there is a lot of research on h. pylori, how exactly it’s transmitted is still a bit of a gray area.

The likely causes include:

• Infection during childhood. Becomes symptomatic as an adult.
• Contaminated food or water. Under-cooked meat, poultry and seafood are major culprits (why I won’t even walk into a sushi restaurant anymore). But really any food can become contaminated.
• Infection from another person. From my understanding, it’s not easily transferred like the flu. Couples and family are more likely to pass it onto each other from closer contact.

Something important to keep in mind is that h. pylori is symptomatic for some and dormant for others. It could be possible that you have the infection and go your whole life not knowing you do, or eventually have a flare up that gets you diagnosed. It could also be that you never had the infection, then get it, and immediately start to see symptoms.

Symptoms Of H. Pylori

Based on my experience, and the experiences of others, I’ve learned that h. pylori symptoms manifest themselves slightly differently from person to person. There are a general list of common symptoms, and you can have all of them or just a few.

H. pylori symptoms and potential threats include:

• Unusual amounts of heartburn and acid reflux. If you naturally have acid reflux, you might notice a dramatic increase. If you don’t naturally have issues with heartburn, the onset is a good sign.

• Abdominal pain. This could range anywhere from overall aching to sharp stabbing pains. The pain could be from your esophagus and upper stomach down to your belly button.

• General digestive discomfort. Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, bloating, constipation, etc.

• Severe gastritis. This is when your stomach lining gets inflamed and irritated. It can cause extremely painful aching and pains throughout your stomach.

• Ulcers. A sore that’s caused when a part of your stomach lining erodes and your stomach acid makes contact with exposed tissue. Ulcer pain varies, it can be aching, sharp stabbing, or stinging. From my experience, the pain can either be constant throughout the day and night, or at certain times like before, after, or during eating.  It can also become a bleeding ulcer, so keep an eye out for blood in your stool or vomit. Ulcers can also occur in your intestines, but more commonly in the stomach if the cause is h. pylori.
• DUN…DUN…DUN…stomach cancer. I debated on whether to list this since it didn’t do my mental health any good reading about it during my extreme googling phase. But I’m listing it ONLY for informative reasons. Research has shown a link between the bacteria and stomach cancer. With that said, the chances of someone getting cancer from h. pylori are extremely slim, and only occurs in rare cases. I’ll just leave it at that. Don’t get hung up on it, don’t google it. Moving on…

Getting Tested, Treatment And Medications

If you have one or more of the symptoms above, I would highly recommend going and getting tested ASAP! Basically, you are sent to a lab by your doctor and either get a breath test, stool test, or less commonly, a blood test, to show if you’re positive or negative for the bacteria. If your test comes back negative, rejoice (assuming the test was conducted correctly). If it comes back positive, the ideal situation is that you’ve caught it early and will end up taking a combination of antibiotics and acid reducing medications for a few weeks. With both the treatment and some dietary restrictions, you should be up and running again within a month or two. There are less ideal situations, like mine, which I will get into soon.

Medications and supplements typically prescribed for h. pylori are:

• Two different antibiotics. The purpose is to eradicate the bacteria and make sure it doesn’t return.

• PPIs, or proton pump inhibitors (Prilosec, Nexium, or the generic omeprazole). These greatly reduce stomach acid production in order to help your stomach heal. It’s important to understand that PPI’s are not meant for immediate relief, but rather take effect when used for a few days and continued.
• H2 blockers (Zantac, Pepcid, or the generic ranitidine). These also help with reducing stomach acids for healing purposes but function differently from PPIs. H2 blockers can be used for more immediate relief, usually taking effect within 10 minutes.
• Antacids (Tums…Tums, Tums, Tums, Tuuuuums, Mylanta, Gaviscon, etc.). These are OTC and help with immediate relief. Overdoing it with these is not a good idea, but they really do help when times are tough.
• Probiotics. If your doctor cares about you, they’ll tell you to take probiotics during your treatment. Antibiotics are harsh on the digestive system, but that’s the cost of getting rid of the bacteria. So, probiotics help to put back the good bacteria that the antibiotics wipe out.

Along with medications, diet is extremely important in this case to heal your stomach. I will soon be posting more extensively on dietary recommendations and healing foods, but there are certain basic things that should absolutely be avoided…

Avoid anything that will increase stomach acids:

• Refined sugars. This is your enemy. Avoid at all costs.
• Fried foods. You shouldn’t even be eating this anyway, c’mon.
• Highly fatty foods. Your stomach produces more acid to break these down.
• Junk food. Chips, soda, candy, etc. Say goodbye to these for hopefully forever.
• Processed foods. Anything packaged and highly processed is bad for your stomach.
• Coffee and other caffeines. Coffee is naturally acidic, and caffeine is harsh on the stomach. Sad reality, I know.
• Carbohydrates, especially unhealthy ones. They break down into sugar, increasing stomach acids…aaaand we’ve circled back to #1.

Avoid anything that will irritate your stomach:

• Spicy foods. Don’t season with peppers, or anything with a zing. Rule of thumb — if it makes your mouth tingle, it’ll make your stomach tingle.
• Citric/acidic foods. Lemons, oranges, berries, tomatoes, tomato paste, etc.
• Anything rough in texture. Toasted bread, granola, etc.
• Carbonated drinks. Sometimes sparkling water is recommended to reduce heartburn, but if you have an ulcer or gastritis it can be irritating.
• Hot food or drinks. I don’t mean spicy, I mean temperature-wise. It can be extremely painful if you have gastritis.
• Stress. Our digestive system is directly impacted by stress. Give up responsibilities, shorten to-do lists, do what it takes. Nothing is worth your health.

It truly takes a combination of conventional and holistic/natural treatment to heal from h. pylori. The initial treatment with antibiotics and acid reducing medications are necessary to get rid of the bacteria and heal your stomach to a certain extent. But medications can eventually have side effects and other negative consequences. What’s more crucial is a clean and healthy diet, the regular use of healing foods, and the maintenance of mental health. Without these components, you’re going to struggle to get your stomach back to normal.

Important Notes And Tips!

1. If you take any PPI’s, H2 blockers, or antacids prior to getting tested for h. pylori, YOUR TEST RESULTS WILL VERY LIKELY BE SKEWED. Why am I screaming? Because this became a huge problem for me. You’d think your doctor would warn you of these things, but no. So I’m here to tell you, you can get a false negative as a result of these medications suppressing the bacteria and not allowing for the test to read properly. You must be off of any of these medications at least two weeks prior to getting tested.
2. Find a doctor who you trust and takes you seriously. Nothing aggravates me more than when a doctor brushes things off just because I’m young, or refuses to hear me out. Commit to a professional that is willing to listen and is thorough in their work.
3. If you get positive results and are put on treatment, be extremely diligent about your medication schedule. Double check your prescription instructions and take them at proper times and with the correct breaks in between. Your pharmacist should help you with this. For example, your probiotics should be taken with at least a 2-hour buffer zone before and after antibiotics.

My Story

My symptoms started as acid reflux and heartburn so excruciating that I ended up in the ER. Was it embarrassing going to the ER and saying I’m there because of heartburn? Yes. But this wasn’t a typical case, I felt like my insides were being torched and then continuously stabbed with a knife. Over the course of the following few weeks, I couldn’t eat anything, I couldn’t sleep, and I was in serious pain. I visited my doctor, landed at the ER a second time, and was consistently misdiagnosed. They pretty much told me I was stressed out and I’d be fine with some heartburn meds and dieting. I was only told it might be h. pylori as an afterthought, and to go get tested for it more as a suggestion than with any real urgency.

To be safe, I went and got tested for h. pylori while I was taking medication to try and alleviate the symptoms. What all of the professionals failed to inform me about was that taking any medications for acid reflux (antacids, H2-blockers, PPI’s) can skew the h. pylori test, resulting in a false negative. After some poking around and knowing the fiery flames of the underworld in my stomach were not normal, I became skeptical about my test results.

I finally ended up finding a GI specialist that I liked. She performed an endoscopy, took a biopsy, and told me I was positive for the bacteria. This correct diagnosis came about three months after my symptoms started, and by then I’d gone through the worst of it without antibiotics and was a complete mess to say the least. My stomach pretty much felt like it had been obliterated. This turned into a over-a-year long ordeal with torturous ups and downs. For weeks on end I couldn’t even leave the house because of the pain. There were some days where I’d just sit on my couch and not move or even talk. After some time of taking care of myself, I felt slightly better, but still not anywhere near normal. About 6 months after my initial diagnosis I still had ulcer-like pains, so I had to go on a second round of antibiotics to make sure the bacteria had been eradicated, and a long time of medications thereafter. That’s the problem with h. plyori or any other digestive issue, once the damage is done…it can take at least a year or two to completely heal. Also, it’s hard to get rid of the bacteria. Sometimes 2-3 courses of antibiotics are necessary to get rid of it (note: that does put your intestines at risk).

You could imagine how all this would impact both my physical and mental health. The majority of the time I was in survival mode and focusing on getting rest and healing. I was barely able to stay active and lost about 20 pounds. I also developed really bad anxiety and experienced a lot of fear and depression, which affected my stomach and started a vicious cycle. The good that came out of it was following an extremely restricted and healthy diet. This wasn’t difficult for me to do since I already ate clean, but the situation forced me to pay even closer attention to ingredients and come up with substitute recipes for things I would crave or normally eat.

After months of meticulously taking care of my health, I can now say I have healed and can live life normally. I achieved gut health both through conventional treatment and dramatic results from a clean diet and consistent use of natural healing foods/supplements. I also simultaneously worked on my mental and physical health, beating anxiety and getting back in shape, which went hand-in-hand to positively impact my digestive system. I am now able to exercise, travel, go out for meals, and even eat lemons — something I felt I’d never do again! Though my stomach is still sensitive and I still occasionally experience pain and gastritis flare-ups, I’m certain if I continuously live a healthy lifestyle, h. pylori will eventually not be something I think about on the daily. I will soon be posting a series of blogs on healing foods and supplements, how to maintain mental health during h.pylori, as well as how to gain back overall physical health.

If you’re currently in the h. pylori struggle or a similar situation — my words of encouragement are to just hang on. It takes some serious patience but there really is light at the end of the tunnel. If you had told me a year ago that I’d be eating much more flexibly, be back in shape, and be able to actually leave the house for more than an hour, I would not have believed you. BUT I’m there, and you can get there too.