Helicobacter Forums

I was diagnosed, via breath test, with h.plyori, because of stomach tightness (my only symptom). Dr gave me the triple therapy for ten days, including metronidazole, another antibiotic and omeprazole, together with pepto bismol. After starting these meds, I noticed that my stools were black. I read up and found out it could be the pepto bismol. After five days of taking it, I stopped the pepto bismol and my stool returned to normal. I finished my rounds of medicine Saturday night. Sunday morning I had a normal color bowel movement. I had taken Centrum for Women Sunday morning. Monday morning, however, my stool was black again. This morning, Tuesday, I had a bowel movement and it was not as black as yesterday, more like very dark brown. Apart from stomach discomfort because I am hardly eating and my tummy just wants to rumble, I feel great. I mentioned the Centrum, because I was told that the iron in it can also cause black stools.
Should I still be concerned about the black stool? When my doctor diagnosed my h.plyori, he did not mention a follow up test. I am not sure if I should ask him to get one.

black stool is commonly being diagnosed as internal bleeding. However, in your case, it's the side effect of the pepto bismol. So there is no need to worry about.

I think it is important to do a followup breath test to understand if this treatment work. Because who knows a few months later your stomach discomfort return and you are tested positive again. Then you'll be wondering, if you got a resistant strain or a reinfection. If it is a reinfection, you can take the same antibiotics again. But if you got a resistant strain, you'll need to take new antibiotics.

In addition, I think without knowing if your treatment works, you'll be wondering if your stomach discomfort is really going to go away. If you know the treatment works, then you'll just need to concentrate on the recovery. If you know the treatment doesnt work, then you can concentrate on the alternative treatment instead of wasting time believing that you'll be ok, which is not.