Rare Case - H pylori Reinfection Must READ
Posted: Thu Jan 27, 2022 7:51 am
Here's my full story hopefully it is helpful for research purposes.
I've learned a lot about h pylori it's almost 10 years since Ive been dealing with it. I've also been reading several papers so if any one knows more about h pylori after helico_expert and Dr. Marshall, IT's ME ! Just joking!
I used to live in the US and I went on a raw vegan diet in 2012 or so (I believe this is the time I got infected with H pylori) after that I had mild gastritis symptoms (several months later) which over the course of 2 years got worse and worse. Had no idea what it was. Obviously I quite the raw vegan diet.
Two years later, 2014, I got an endoscopy and was diagnosed with severe gastritis and h pylori. Took triple therapy but failed to complete due to side effects, second line tratment: quadruple therapy, compleletely eradicated it and felt fine like life was good again.
A few months later I decided to move to Peru.
ONE WEEK AFTER I started living in Peru, the symptoms came back. Just one week! I did not shared utensils I did not even eat outside everything I ate was dishes that I cooked myself. Nothing raw, maybe bananas.
Did not know much about h pylor and this time I thought it was just gastritis or my stomach was not fully recovered from the last infection which was weird because my diet was super bland...
Did Breath test, negative. Did blood test, igM positive but other tests negative. So doctor diagnosed me with gastritis.
Two years later my condition got so bad I was puking blood from reflux sometimes it was that bad I had lost so much weight (42kg, 170cm tall guy) and I had a reaction (became allergic) to a lot of foods and was limited to eat just a few (the reason why i lost weight). This allergic reaction was just reflux nothing dangerous but basically everything my stomach did not like gave me reflux and then throat ulcers which made me puke blood sometimes.
Went to the doctor, did endoscopy, gastritis, h pylori detected. (So probably got infected in 2014 when i moved to Peru).
Did first round, breath test negative, stool test negative. I was happy and I thought I was on my to recovery.
Nope, never recovered although my breath and stool test were negative.
I just waited but that day never came back.
MID 2017: decided to go to another doctor a specialist in the field of h pylori in Peru, felt sorry for the way I looked my condition my body and was doubtful about treating me for h pylori with a negative stool test and negative breath test. The only positive test I had was my igM blood test (which was only negative sometimes, it was usually positive when I felt bad).
He empirically gave me some anibiotics similar to quadruple therapy telling me that if its not h pylori it may be something else the world is full bugs we still dont know about.
6 months after completing my treatment I was completely back to normal. I gained weight 68kg , i was finally able to move out of my room, study, meet people, go to parties, life was back to normal, it was mind-blowing, hard to believe I could eat pretty much everything even alcohol and spicy food and reflux was gone gone gone gone.
Anyways, 2017-2020 were the best years of my life. You wouldn't believe the stuff I was able to do during those years I still don't believe it myself. Going from a 42kg guy who barely had any sleep due to reflux to a 68kg guy partying, drinking, sleeping like a log and even playing football in a proifessional field! Those indeed were the best years of my life, I visited the doctor a year later or so and he did not recognize me and once he looked at me he said "It is nice when patients come back like this and they do so just to be thankful, it is nice for me to see you like this as a doctor". We both hugged and exchanged contact info.
2020 covid hit the country, so i moved back to Ica to stay with my family (im not married we're just a big family).
6 months later, symptoms came back, and they've never really gone away despite treating myself with abx for about 1 one year and a half (maybe 5 treatments or 4 in total). Now you may ask why not contact the doctor who got your life back and why treat yourself instead? That's not good! At least see another doctor in your area.
Well what you dont know is that the politics of this country is to not treat h pylori well either that or they're just clueless about it.
Every doctor I went just gave me anti reflux meds and the ones who treated me (actually just one besides the doctor I was talking about) told me "Why treat you? You'll get reinfected again, this thing is everywhere" for which I yelled at him and stormed out (I regret doing this but i was just fed up with h pylori, you gotta respect all doctors they mean well and this thing is so super complicated).
What about the doctor who cured you? Why not see him again?
Well he dissapeared, he had to resign due to his hospital's problems with the covid vaccine distribution. They basically gave it to politicians and doctors and not fully used them for clinical trials. So I can't find him and I probably never will.
Anyways, right now I have gastritis and food intolerances but not to the point of being sever and interefering with my life. I can still live life normally but it's painful , my stomach burns and i get reflux too, again not as bad as before i can still eat a lot of stuff and im not getting ulcers anymore but the gastritis and the symptoms are there.
I have done the the igM tests, for the past year or so and it's always positive. Always, after every treatment, during the treatment before treatment etc. I never tested positive for igG NEVER. The only true indicator for me that I have h pylori (stool tests sometimes fail for me) is the igM test which does not go down as its supposed to go down.
So what's to learn about your story? Looks like you're flexxing you know stuff and that you got better....
The main cause for reinfection for many of you might be:
WATER!
H pylori has been in the water all alone I think and it's the cause for my reinfection, for the past two years I've been living in Ica, the same place i got my first "reinfection" and thats why I can't seem to get better despite treatment after treatment.
We all boil water but we wash our dishes with hose water and we also brush our teeth with the same water. If you're getting reinfections and you're not getting better after treament, boil water and use it to wash dishes utensils and to brush your teeth. Im not sure if boilin water will kill h pylori but that's all you can do right?
Some places have clean water and others do not that's just the way it is. It's the only explanation I can find why I was able to get better when I moved to certain areas only.
90% of the peruvian population have the bacteria and even my family here complain of mild gastritis symptoms.
You could say they've infected me through saliva or sharing utensils, true, but I've learned to do none of that ever since 2014 and always used my own stuff and even cooked my own food. Never did I think of the stupid water...never...until a few months ago.
More research needs to be done about the water. There are some papers finding h pylori even in bottled water jesus!
Right now I just finished a treament with levofloxacin and amoxicilin. I think it may have been succesful but again because this thing I believe is in the water I coud've become reinfected again (maybe when taking a shower or washing my face) anyways we'll see.
Hopefully my h pylori igM test is negative and for once my igG is positive. IgM has been positive all this time (not a single negative igM test in the past two years).
Why do I expect to be negative this time?
I've been boiling tons of water till it looks like lava and pouring it in a container and i've been using that water only even for brushing my teeth.
I've also been eating broccoli sprouts and cooking the heck out of every food I eat. Hopefully that helps and my h pylori test igM is negative.
Unfortunately, this is very time consuming and sometimes I've used unboiled water to wash dishes and utensils (not very important when cooking because water will boil anyways).
Anyways Im not sad nor am I mad about this because I know h pylori is the culprit and that can be cured.
Hopefully this story is helpful to some of you. I'll keep you updated.
I've learned a lot about h pylori it's almost 10 years since Ive been dealing with it. I've also been reading several papers so if any one knows more about h pylori after helico_expert and Dr. Marshall, IT's ME ! Just joking!
I used to live in the US and I went on a raw vegan diet in 2012 or so (I believe this is the time I got infected with H pylori) after that I had mild gastritis symptoms (several months later) which over the course of 2 years got worse and worse. Had no idea what it was. Obviously I quite the raw vegan diet.
Two years later, 2014, I got an endoscopy and was diagnosed with severe gastritis and h pylori. Took triple therapy but failed to complete due to side effects, second line tratment: quadruple therapy, compleletely eradicated it and felt fine like life was good again.
A few months later I decided to move to Peru.
ONE WEEK AFTER I started living in Peru, the symptoms came back. Just one week! I did not shared utensils I did not even eat outside everything I ate was dishes that I cooked myself. Nothing raw, maybe bananas.
Did not know much about h pylor and this time I thought it was just gastritis or my stomach was not fully recovered from the last infection which was weird because my diet was super bland...
Did Breath test, negative. Did blood test, igM positive but other tests negative. So doctor diagnosed me with gastritis.
Two years later my condition got so bad I was puking blood from reflux sometimes it was that bad I had lost so much weight (42kg, 170cm tall guy) and I had a reaction (became allergic) to a lot of foods and was limited to eat just a few (the reason why i lost weight). This allergic reaction was just reflux nothing dangerous but basically everything my stomach did not like gave me reflux and then throat ulcers which made me puke blood sometimes.
Went to the doctor, did endoscopy, gastritis, h pylori detected. (So probably got infected in 2014 when i moved to Peru).
Did first round, breath test negative, stool test negative. I was happy and I thought I was on my to recovery.
Nope, never recovered although my breath and stool test were negative.
I just waited but that day never came back.
MID 2017: decided to go to another doctor a specialist in the field of h pylori in Peru, felt sorry for the way I looked my condition my body and was doubtful about treating me for h pylori with a negative stool test and negative breath test. The only positive test I had was my igM blood test (which was only negative sometimes, it was usually positive when I felt bad).
He empirically gave me some anibiotics similar to quadruple therapy telling me that if its not h pylori it may be something else the world is full bugs we still dont know about.
6 months after completing my treatment I was completely back to normal. I gained weight 68kg , i was finally able to move out of my room, study, meet people, go to parties, life was back to normal, it was mind-blowing, hard to believe I could eat pretty much everything even alcohol and spicy food and reflux was gone gone gone gone.
Anyways, 2017-2020 were the best years of my life. You wouldn't believe the stuff I was able to do during those years I still don't believe it myself. Going from a 42kg guy who barely had any sleep due to reflux to a 68kg guy partying, drinking, sleeping like a log and even playing football in a proifessional field! Those indeed were the best years of my life, I visited the doctor a year later or so and he did not recognize me and once he looked at me he said "It is nice when patients come back like this and they do so just to be thankful, it is nice for me to see you like this as a doctor". We both hugged and exchanged contact info.
2020 covid hit the country, so i moved back to Ica to stay with my family (im not married we're just a big family).
6 months later, symptoms came back, and they've never really gone away despite treating myself with abx for about 1 one year and a half (maybe 5 treatments or 4 in total). Now you may ask why not contact the doctor who got your life back and why treat yourself instead? That's not good! At least see another doctor in your area.
Well what you dont know is that the politics of this country is to not treat h pylori well either that or they're just clueless about it.
Every doctor I went just gave me anti reflux meds and the ones who treated me (actually just one besides the doctor I was talking about) told me "Why treat you? You'll get reinfected again, this thing is everywhere" for which I yelled at him and stormed out (I regret doing this but i was just fed up with h pylori, you gotta respect all doctors they mean well and this thing is so super complicated).
What about the doctor who cured you? Why not see him again?
Well he dissapeared, he had to resign due to his hospital's problems with the covid vaccine distribution. They basically gave it to politicians and doctors and not fully used them for clinical trials. So I can't find him and I probably never will.
Anyways, right now I have gastritis and food intolerances but not to the point of being sever and interefering with my life. I can still live life normally but it's painful , my stomach burns and i get reflux too, again not as bad as before i can still eat a lot of stuff and im not getting ulcers anymore but the gastritis and the symptoms are there.
I have done the the igM tests, for the past year or so and it's always positive. Always, after every treatment, during the treatment before treatment etc. I never tested positive for igG NEVER. The only true indicator for me that I have h pylori (stool tests sometimes fail for me) is the igM test which does not go down as its supposed to go down.
So what's to learn about your story? Looks like you're flexxing you know stuff and that you got better....
The main cause for reinfection for many of you might be:
WATER!
H pylori has been in the water all alone I think and it's the cause for my reinfection, for the past two years I've been living in Ica, the same place i got my first "reinfection" and thats why I can't seem to get better despite treatment after treatment.
We all boil water but we wash our dishes with hose water and we also brush our teeth with the same water. If you're getting reinfections and you're not getting better after treament, boil water and use it to wash dishes utensils and to brush your teeth. Im not sure if boilin water will kill h pylori but that's all you can do right?
Some places have clean water and others do not that's just the way it is. It's the only explanation I can find why I was able to get better when I moved to certain areas only.
90% of the peruvian population have the bacteria and even my family here complain of mild gastritis symptoms.
You could say they've infected me through saliva or sharing utensils, true, but I've learned to do none of that ever since 2014 and always used my own stuff and even cooked my own food. Never did I think of the stupid water...never...until a few months ago.
More research needs to be done about the water. There are some papers finding h pylori even in bottled water jesus!
Right now I just finished a treament with levofloxacin and amoxicilin. I think it may have been succesful but again because this thing I believe is in the water I coud've become reinfected again (maybe when taking a shower or washing my face) anyways we'll see.
Hopefully my h pylori igM test is negative and for once my igG is positive. IgM has been positive all this time (not a single negative igM test in the past two years).
Why do I expect to be negative this time?
I've been boiling tons of water till it looks like lava and pouring it in a container and i've been using that water only even for brushing my teeth.
I've also been eating broccoli sprouts and cooking the heck out of every food I eat. Hopefully that helps and my h pylori test igM is negative.
Unfortunately, this is very time consuming and sometimes I've used unboiled water to wash dishes and utensils (not very important when cooking because water will boil anyways).
Anyways Im not sad nor am I mad about this because I know h pylori is the culprit and that can be cured.
Hopefully this story is helpful to some of you. I'll keep you updated.